Accepted but Pressured to make an early decision

[_ 0 _]

Hi all,

I was recently accepted to an M* program high on my list and offered a decent scholarship. The school notified me that my scholarship offer expires in a few weeks. I won’t hear back from most of the other M* and PhD programs to which I applied for awhile. Does anybody know of the potential risks of accepting the offer but then decommiting and accepting another offer later? Is this taboo? Commonplace? 

Thanks.

 

[Deep Fried Angst]

Is there an academic blacklist you will be put on if you accept an offer and then decommit later? No. But it is seen as bad practice.

Will it hurt you in the future? Probably not, unless your admissions committee has a long memory and the very slim chance that one of them will serve on a hiring committee for a job for which you apply. It will probably hurt your chances to return to that school for a PhD if you are decommitting from their offer to go to another M* program. 

If you need more time, the typical route is to ask the school for an extension on the decision deadline. Realize though that if you are waiting on an answer from a PhD program it may not come till Mid-March or April if you get placed on a waitlist. 

Also, once you accept an offer it is best practice to notify all other schools to which you applied and withdraw your application. 

 

[xypathos]

The passive approach is to simply ask for more time.

As @dmueller0711 has noted, if you withdraw now there won't be an issue come PhD time. If you accept and withdraw later, they'll have access to previous applications. If they look it up or not, who knows. Either way, it doesn't look good for you when you accept and withdraw, even with extreme circumstances.

Is this school Union by chance? Don't name them here, I'm just curious since it fits their routine. They do this every year, making offers even before the close of the priority deadline. They offer you a 50-75% scholarship to entice you and then tell you that you have two weeks to decide. They also generally throw in a warning that you might be waitlisted come general review or likely offered a lower scholarship than what they're offering now, should stronger applicants apply in the mean time.

[marXian]

Is the school on this list?: http://cgsnet.org/ckfinder/userfiles/files/CGSResolution_RevisedOct2017.pdf

If so, they're in violation of this agreement. The problem for our discipline is that there aren't any seminaries on this list (which explains, in part, Union's mercenary tactics.) If you look at this list, however, you'll note the resolution is standard for literally every major institution in the US. I'm not exactly sure what that means for div schools housed within universities, but I think most if not all of the major ones abide by this resolution.

If they're on the list, I'm not sure what your best course of action, but simply asking them about the April 15 deadline would be a start. 

[_ 0 _]

Thanks for the helpful comments.

@xypathos, Union is not the school. I contacted the school, and they extended my decision deadline but not the scholarship deadline, which obviously does not help me much.

 @marXian, I was not aware of that resolution, but the school is, in fact, on the list. The program is in a div school, so I'm not sure if that nullifies the agreement, but I personally do not see why it would. I will follow up with them and ask about the April 15 deadline.