When do we start our rejections?

[thisAintNoGame]

Hey Everybody,

Just out of curiosity, when is everyone here going to start contacting schools and telling them you will not be accepting their offer.

Obviously this is going to depend a lot on what offers you have but what if you can make the decision right now? Should you tell them? For example, if you accepted to A and B and you know that you would rather go to A over B. You are still waiting to hear from school C but cant you tell B right now that you wont be going there? Or is there some type of fear that is going to prevent you from sending out your rejections too early?

I think I am in a position to make a decision like that right now but I am a bit nervous to do it for some reason. Of course, it would be in the best interest of those on a waiting list for admittance or waiting list for funding if I were to decide earlier but I still dont know what to do.

[microman]

Well, if you have acceptances to both A and B, and with all things considered, you would rather go to A over B, you can probably give B a rejection without much risk. You don't have to tell A until you hear from C though.

[grotesqueidols]

If there is absolutely no way on earth that you are going to B at this point, go ahead and politely reject the offer. There is no use stringing them along

It seems like in the current admission environment, admission wait lists probably won't get used but as you rightly pointed out, your specific funding could be transferred to someone else and that could make the difference for them. Departments love both early yeas and early nays.

[svm]

Today I told one of my safeties, University of Utah, that I won't be attending. A few hours later I saw someone post on the admission results that they were accepted there and it was their first offer. I can't say for sure that me declining had anything to do with that, but it may have. In any case, I'm going to send my rejections asap from now on.

[BKMD]

Yeah, you never know how your decision might affect other applicants, so it's probably best if you notify schools as soon as you've made a decision (of course, if you're not ready to do that yet, then by all means wait, since you don't want to regret it). Personally I withdrew my application from safety schools as soon as I got an official acceptance from a top choice, which hopefully opened a slot for other interested candidates.

[UnlikelyGrad]

Yeah, you never know how your decision might affect other applicants, so it's probably best if you notify schools as soon as you've made a decision (of course, if you're not ready to do that yet, then by all means wait, since you don't want to regret it).

Agree. I didn't apply to any schools I didn't have a serious interest in attending, so I didn't feel comfortable making a decision until after I'd visited. Since I somehow managed to squeeze all four of my school visits into a 2-week window in March (around spring break), I ended up making all the decisions at the same time, i.e. the week after I got back. I notified the two obvious rejects some time around April 1 and the third one a couple of days later--which was hopefully enough time for them to offer admission to someone else.