Making a decision--declining an offer

[Andrea P]

Hello Everyone,

What are some formal ways to decline an offer to a graduate program (how did you decline an offer)? I applied to several programs (5, to be exact). All of them are programs that I would like to attend, but I ranked them in order of best (1) to least best (5). Well, I received an acceptance from my level 5 school--the complete offer, funding and all; however, my level 4 school also just accepted my application. I don't want to drag this out further than it has to, so I'm going to go ahead and decline the offer for the level 5 school. Advice on how to do this?

[fuzzylogician]