Changing decision on April 18

[whyme?]

Let's say I made a last minute decision between two funded PhD programs on April 15th, and would like to change my mind now and go to the other one?

I think I will be able to call up the school whose offer I didn't accept and tell them I'm accepting, and email them a copy of my acceptance, which could have been held up in the mail, which would explain why they didn't receive it.

Let's pretend it's possible to accept school 2 after the deadline (I will call to confirm this before I try). Will something bad happen before I call school 1 to retract my acceptance? Will the schools notice that I've accepted two offers? What means do the schools use to stay in contact about which students have accepted which offers?

Thanks and I realize this is not a good situation.

[whyme?]

I also noticed that although the schools I am talking about are members of the CGS, the 2 forms I signed made no reference to this and did not say anything about not accepting 2 offers.

[anthropologygeek]

This topic has been discussed before just research it/ Summary schools can hold you to your decision and make you pay a semester tuition legally. Most won't be some do. And professors can be vindictive and ruin your reputation and I have seen this done also. Remember academia is a small community and you really don't want to piss anyone off especially this early in your career. If i accepted an offer I wouldn't go back and I definitely wouldn't without getting a release from the school.

[whyme?]

The professor seems nice. I don't know why he'd be vindictive. Also, I did look for similar posts but never saw any where someone actually accepted two places, or two funded options. Anyone else have an opinion or know more about this?

[wtncffts]

Why exactly do you want to switch? Did something happen between now and then? I agree that it's unlikely that something bad will happen, but you're on dubious ethical grounds, especially your suggestion about e-mailing a copy of your acceptance, pretending you sent it earlier and that it got held up in transit. I'd say that's basically fraudulent, if not legally then certainly ethically.

[kala tim]

Just be honest about it. Tell school A that you regret your decision and you want to go to school B because of ________. Unless school A is absolutely terrible, they might get annoyed, but they're not going to force you to go to their program when you really don't want to go.

Academically, unless it's a small field, no professor is going to remember the name of that one graduate student who, 10 years ago, changed their mind on a grad school decision. Most professors can't even remember the names of the students in their home program. It's your life- just go with whatever you think is best.

And don't be unethical about it. That's just dumb