How to tell a school you are not interested?

[blah0016]

I've gotten admitted to 6 different places and I am deciding between 2 schools among that 6. How do I kindly tell the other 4 schools that I am no longer interested in their program? Would this cause any hurt feelings? Thanks!

[joro]

Whatever you say, just remember that academia is a small world.

[fuzzylogician]

Be honest. Every department expects some of its offers to be rejected, and as long as you're polite about it, no one is going to be offended.

Here is a version of what I wrote to the departments whose offers I declined; I sent it to the DGS and the professors I was in contact with at each school:

Dear [name-of-contact]

Thank you again for your offer of admission to [school]. I sincerely appreciate your interest in my candidacy, but I regret to inform you that I will not be accepting your offer of admission. Many factors entered into my decision, and the fact that I have a number of spectacular choices made the process all the more difficult.

I enjoyed meeting you and learning more about the linguistics program at [school]. The program seems very strong, and there is certainly a lot of innovative research going on in your department. I had a great time during the open house, and I appreciated your efforts throughout the recruitment process. It was nice to have the opportunity to discuss my work with you, and your grad students were incredibly informative and helpful.

I look forward to seeing you at conferences in the future, and I hope that we can continue to communicate with each other in connection with our research.

Sincerely,

Fuzzy.

Please don't just copy-paste this message.

Use it as a template and modify it to fit your needs.