Turning down a school before acceptance?

[EB456]

I have a bit of an unusual background for students in my field, so I decided to apply to a large number of schools with a variety of sizes of programs. I wasn't sure how my application would be received, and I figured at least one would have to accept me. Pretty early in the process, I was pleasantly surprised to get acceptances to several of my top choices (although I didn't rank my choices and have reasons I'd want to go to each of the programs I applied to). Now I've started getting interview requests from some of the smaller programs I included, almost as backup plans (although they do have a few things going for them that the schools I've gotten into do not).

Should I keep my candidacy open at these smaller programs because I want to consider the things they do have going for them? Or would it be more ethical to allow them to release the slots to someone else, because the chance that I would choose these programs is small?

Thanks for any advice...

[koolherc]

Generally, it'd be best to see what schools will offer. You never know if a program will jump out of its shoes and wanna give you a ton of money. That said, if you are 100% certain that you 1) will not go there and 2) will not be able to leverage some of these offers against your top choices in order to get more money and stuff like that, then you could e-mail and withdraw your apps.

Concerning "slots"---all these schools have waiting lists anyways, so once you ultimately reject them, your spot will go to the next person.

So, in sum, I don't really see the benefit. Not sure how ethics figures into this given that you're dealing with monolithic institutions that waste more money than you'll likely ever make in your life.

[EB456]

I would pose the ethics/moral element something like this: Is it right for me to try to get admissions offers I probably won't take when there are other people anxiously waiting to hear from those schools? The ethical obligation would be to the other applicants.

That being said, I think you're right. If I'm not 100% certain, I shouldn't foreclose the possibilities.

[koolherc]

I think the anxiety is ultimately self-imposed. This isn't real suffering we are experiencing---at least not suffering enough that it's worth you possibly giving up a few thousand dollars in order to quell it.