Regarding the bolded: I must, sadly, differ. It has no legal meaning.
There are no contracts between schools.
There once were rules of engagement that prohibited poaching students that had started school. Now we don't know where they are accepted so that can not be a prohibition.
Students used to be able to stay on a WL as long as they wanted, now they are being forced to abandon those hopes in order to keep a seat they may not prefer. The losers here are the students. The schools will always be able to figure out something, even in this "system." after all we have years to figure out an angle. With any luck, an applicant only has to do this once.
I do realize there are no contracts between schools, and I also realize it would be highly provocative for any school to actually sue another school over this. On the other hand it would also be crazy for the "less desirable" schools to have to constantly be scrambling at the last minute to fill a class as "more desirable" schools poach their students at the last minute if they have vacancies after their CTE deadline rolls around. If CTE status is going to be universally ignored by the schools, there is no reason to have it.
For the record, if any school were so inclined, it could certainly sue another for inducing a student with a Commitment to Enroll to break that commitment to enroll at the other school. It's called tortious interference in the legal world. The damages would be the inconvenience involved in having to scramble to fill a seat at the last minute, after its class was filled at its CTE deadline, as well as the loss of the "more desirable student" that initially accepted and being forced to replace that student with the "less desirable" student off its WL at the last minute.
I'm not saying this would play out, but it could, and it could be easily avoided by staying away from CTE students on the WL. A court could certainly choose to punish an offending school for failing to avoid inflicting the pain on the other school. If you want students to have your school as a choice, the answer is to accept him or her before he or she commits elsewhere, as opposed to causing disruption in the entire ecosystem when a spot happens to open at your school. There is also something to be said for forcing the student to lie in the bed he or she made when deciding to go with the sure thing and not risk not being able to matriculate if you WL acceptance fails to materialize.
Again, are you really saying your school is going to ignore CTE status and take whoever you want? If so, and if other schools do so as well, you will have even less clarity next year as students realize CTE has no meaning.
You are, of course, correct about students losing choice and flexibility. If there is consensus among your peers to restore it, abandon the CTE protocol, allow everyone to stay on WLs to the bitter end, and deal with the consequences. Having a protocol that some schools enforce and others ignore is going to lead to the whole system collapsing around you. You will literally have no idea who is showing up until classes begin, and even then, you could end up losing a few students if you begin early enough.
🙂
I totally hear what you are saying about your ability to figure it out over time, but the choice is pretty binary -- either go back to what you had (which you said is a non-starter), enforce the CTE requirement (if you chose to adopt it, and honor it if another school adopted it), or live with the chaos inherent in allowing students total freedom of movement without receiving the planning benefit associated with a CTE that you neither going to enforce nor respect. Again, if word gets out that schools picked off other schools' CTE students with impunity, after the deadline, word will get out and everyone will do it, rendering it meaningless and you'll be in the same position as if you never had it in the first place.