Could Changing Mind Burn Bridges?

[rockofages]

My cousin has decided to attend one school over another mainly b/c  he thinks it'll turn out to be a  better financial situation. However, the other program interested him more. At the moment, he doesn't really have a feeling of comfort that he made the right decision. It's just not sitting well with him.

 

Would he burn bridges if he tells the school he no longer wants to attend, and contacts the other school to see if he can still enroll in their program? Granted there's a possibility that his spot has been given to someone on a waitlist. Should he stick with the current school and continue with this unsettling feeling, or is he putting too much weight on potentially burning bridges? Afterall, the academic circle can get pretty small.

 

Have any of you had this experience? If so, how did you handle it? If you stuck with the school, did the unsettling feeling pass?

[Nerd_For_Life]

More information would help as the situation you describe is really vague. What degree are we talking about here? 

 

If he decides to try and go back to the other school it would be best to see if there is still a spot available to him before notifying the school he is currently set to go to of his intentions. If there is still a spot for him and he does decide to go there instead, he may need a formal written release from the school he is currently set to go to before things can proceed. Will he burn bridges? It's possible. Flip-flopping doesn't look very professional (not to the school he wants to leave and not to the one he wants to attend), but sh_t happens.

[rockofages]

an architecture degree

[TakeruK]

It's normal to feel an equivalent of "buyer's remorse" right after deciding. One person explained it to me as, before you accept, you have multiple opportunities and possibilities at all these schools. So, when you decide, you are also effectively closing the door on the other possibilities, and no matter how good your final choice is, by definition, it is not as good as all the opportunities combined. Of course, thinking that you had *all* of the opportunities at once was incorrect!

 

Some people don't really feel like they actually made the right choice until the school year actually starts! But for others, they might feel more welcomed/better about it once the summer starts and they begin to do things to prepare for school. The actual decision process is very anti-climatic -- after months of working on applications, agonizing over LORs and the waits, and even the excitement of visit weekends, once you submit your final decisions, that's it. There's nothing to do for a few weeks/months, and "remorse" can set in now.

 

That said, if your friend really thinks he should have gone to the other school, then I think it's probably worth it to "burn the bridges" and take the better path for him, if possible. But it's sometimes hard to tell the difference between actually making the wrong choice and just feeling like you did. In addition, it's very reasonable to pick a program because of better finances. Being worried about paying bills can really impact your performance! In terms of how bad "burning bridges" is, it depends on how the situation is handled but usually people understand that sometimes people change their minds. The "damage" would probably be localized to the school that he would be leaving, but not something that would be, say, a scandal in his entire field.