Medical How do I handle commit to enroll and waitlists this year?

[GoSpursGo]

Hi,

I have been blessed this cycle with 2 A and 2 WL. Unfortunately for me, both As have a CTE deadline of April 30th. My dream school is one of the waitlists I am on, and I’m kind of freaking out. If most waitlist movement is after April 30, am I screwed? I don’t want to lose my acceptances so I will be forced to CTE on the deadline but do I have any options? LOI? Phone calls? I feel like the WL is almost pointless in that sense. Even more so this year with the amount of WL going around.

Thanks so much for any words.

Double check the wording--do they really say "commit to enroll," or just that you have to pay your deposit and hit "plan to enroll" on 4/30? If you pay the nonrefundable deposit, and you say you plan to enroll, I'd honestly be shocked if they didn't hold that spot for you.

But double-check. Clearly you can't decline an acceptance in the hopes that you'll get off a waitlist if they really do make you commit that early.

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[AlteredScale]

If you don't commit to an acceptance by April 30th, these schools have full rights to find the next person on their waitlist to admit them instead. You don't need to commit yet but you'll need to drop a deposit before that date, whether or not your dream school makes a decision.

unfortunately, if you are still on the WL after 04/30 they can still make a decision to accept after this date and you will need to decide to either forfeit your acceptance to the school you committed to and drop a new acceptance deposit to your dream school, or hold steady.

If you have not sent an LOI at this point, you could definitely do so to your dream school and see if it does anything. Please do not word it as "I have current acceptances so you should accept me to" just list of the reasons again why you want to go to their school.

 

[GoSpursGo]

If you don't commit to an acceptance by April 30th, these schools have full rights to find the next person on their waitlist to admit them instead. You don't need to commit yet but you'll need to drop a deposit before that date, whether or not your dream school makes a decision.

unfortunately, if you are still on the WL after 04/30 they can still make a decision to accept after this date and you will need to decide to either forfeit your acceptance to the school you committed to and drop a new acceptance deposit to your dream school, or hold steady.

If you have not sent an LOI at this point, you could definitely do so to your dream school and see if it does anything. Please do not word it as "I have current acceptances so you should accept me to" just list of the reasons again why you want to go to their school.

It seems like there's an actual "commit to enroll" vs. "plan to enroll" button in AMCAS that rolled out last year. This is news to me, but while I'm loathe to link to a competitor ( ) this seemed like a good primer:

Spoiler

Basically they just formalized the process of withdrawing all but one acceptance by 4/30 by hitting "plan to enroll," but you can stay on other WLs. Once you hit "commit to enroll," it actually withdraws all of the rest of your applications, so that would be the end of the line for any WL movement. Based on that primer I'd be surprised if you actually have to CTE by 4/30, but maybe schools are getting aggressive about locking their students in. That would be pretty mean.

 

[AlteredScale]

link to a c

It seems like there's an actual "commit to enroll" vs. "plan to enroll" button in AMCAS that rolled out last year. This is news to me, but while I'm loathe to link to a competitor ( ) this seemed like a good primer:

Spoiler

Basically they just formalized the process of withdrawing all but one acceptance by 4/30 by hitting "plan to enroll," but you can stay on other WLs. Once you hit "commit to enroll," it actually withdraws all of the rest of your applications, so that would be the end of the line for any WL movement. Based on that primer I'd be surprised if you actually have to CTE by 4/30, but maybe schools are getting aggressive about locking their students in. That would be pretty mean.

Oooh I did not know this rolled out this year. Thank you for primer! Seems to be a smart move on AAMC but puts alot of pressure on the applicants.

Yes unfortunately I absolutely HAVE to CTE on the 30th. Both have no wiggle room due to differing circumstances.

Now that I've reviewed it, seems that the only thing you can do is send your communication and intent to CTE to your WL school at this point.

 

[TheBoneDoctah]

Crazy. Hard place to be put in.

 

[GoSpursGo]

Yes unfortunately I absolutely HAVE to CTE on the 30th. Both have no wiggle room due to differing circumstances.

That's dumb, and frankly a terrible thing to do to prospective students. They should just be glad they got an extra deposit out of you...

In any event, like I said you can't turn down a acceptance and hope a WL works out. Send your LOIs and hope it makes a difference. At least you're already in, so there's really no "bad" outcome here

 

[TheBoneDoctah]

Definitely don’t turn down an acceptance due to a chance of getting off waitlist. I can promise you that is not worth it.