Declining a pre-acceptance "visit"?

[braindump]

I've gotten invitations to several "visit weekends" or "open houses" from universities that have not yet indicated my admittance to their program. None of them say anything about this being an interview (although there are, of course, meetings with faculty). Does this mean I am pretty much accepted or is there still a chance I'll fly out there only to get rejected later? It's all paid for. 

 

I'm mostly asking because there are a few that I think I will not be visiting. Is declining the invite the equivalent of declining an interview? As in, am I essentially pulling my application out of the program if I decide not to visit? I just find it confusing, because I know if a program does interviews and you decline, then you're pulling out of the program, since that's part of the application process. But I also feel like you can still decline to visit a school that's already accepted you without any consequences (meaning, you can still choose to go there without visiting.. right?). A pre-acceptance visit weekend seems like an odd limbo between the two.

Anyone have any experience with this?

[rising_star]

Declining these isn't the same as declining an interview. If the programs don't do interviews, an all-expenses-paid visit usually means you're going to be accepted. Sometimes they happen because you're being considered for a Graduate School/Division wide fellowship, which wants people to visit for recruitment purposes. Is there any particular why you won't be visiting? It seems to me like if you're seriously considering attending that school, you should take the chance to visit on their dime, regardless of whether its before or after you've gotten an official admissions decision. 

[braindump]

Honestly, it's just because I already have a number of visits lined up and I'm finding it difficult to choose which to go to and which to skip. One school unofficially told me I was accepted, but I declined the visit because I already know the school well from spending the summer there. So I was curious how they would take that, if they'd decide to reject me now since I haven't gotten an official acceptance.

 

There was another school that I was considering but there's an expense cap, so I'd be paying ~$100 to visit, and I wasn't sure if this would just go to waste if there's still a chance I could get rejected. For this particular school, everyone on the results page is referring to the event as an "interview" but the email just called it a "recruitment visit."

[TakeruK]

For the first school, since you know you have an unofficial offer, you can just tell them what you said here, that you have visited before and know the school well. So you are still interested but do not have time to visit. However, I would say that a visit for prospective graduate students is very different from just a regular visit because the focus is different. It's important to go and ask questions about professors and meet students and even meet the other students that potentially make up your cohort.

 

For the second school, you can let them know that you would not be able to visit under the expense cap. Maybe they will make an exception for you. I agree that it would be sucky to pay $100, spend the time visiting, and then not get in. In addition, it doesn't sound like you will get another chance to visit later on, so this would be your only visit opportunity. In your shoes, I would tell them exactly that -- you would prefer to visit after you know the admission decision. Maybe they will clarify what the visit is for.

 

Overall, sometimes you end up with a lot more offers than you expected! I think it would be really tough to visit more than 3 or 4 schools. If you have more offers/visit requests than this, I think at this point, you should know enough to pick out your top 3 or 4 schools and only worry about visiting those. You can decline/withdraw your application from the rest. (**of course, exceptions apply if you have special circumstances, like needing to be in a specific area, or two-body problem etc.)

[braindump]

Hmm yes, that's pretty much what I ended up doing. I do have the two-body problem but my SO is pretty flexible, which is also making it difficult to choose schools. Right now I'm only a half-time student, so I guess my schedule is a bit more open to visiting a number of schools, I'm just worried about it being stressful. Thanks for the advice!