I NEED to decline an offer I accepted....after April 15

[micke1ad]

I told a school I was going to go there and gave them the documents and electronic signature. Now, I completely regret the decision and I've been losing sleep for days on why in the hell I accepted. I want to decline, but am so afraid of the consequences of doing so. What should I do? I am getting so stressed about this. I was only given from March 27-April 15th to make a decision so not a lot of time....

[rising_star]

If you want to decline the offer, then ask for a release. But, be prepared for people to be irritated or upset and to not have a favorable opinion of you. If it's just a case of cold feet or "the grass is always greener", then I would at least give the school a chance. After all, you spent 2.5 weeks (by the way, this is longer than you'll typically have on the job market if you're given an offer whether in or out of academia) to make a decision and decided that attending this school was the right decision. What has changed since then?

[GradSchoolTruther]

Isn't this your second thread on this issue? The answer won't change.

Edited April 19, 2016 by GradSchoolTruther

[lew]

On April 18, 2016 at 4:17 PM, micke1ad said:

I told a school I was going to go there and gave them the documents and electronic signature. Now, I completely regret the decision and I've been losing sleep for days on why in the hell I accepted. I want to decline, but am so afraid of the consequences of doing so. What should I do? I am getting so stressed about this. I was only given from March 27-April 15th to make a decision so not a lot of time....

If you're absolutely certain that this is something that you don't want to do, then decline. Nobody can force you to go. I've heard that in several cases, students will accept their offer of admission to one school while waiting to get a response from another school they've applied to, and will then rescind their initial acceptance for the second school once they hear from them. 

I've never heard of any consequences of declining an offer after accepting (circumstances change, after all), but I'm certainly not an expert. I would recommend trying to talk to some of your professors to see what they think.

Edited April 21, 2016 by lew