The clock is tick­ing down and the April 1st has arrived. High school seniors across the coun­try are check­ing their email and mail­boxes for the admis­sions deci­sions from the col­lege they applied to. Many stu­dents may receive more than one accep­tance. The stress and the cost of col­lege is a major deci­sion, so for stu­dents who can­not make up their mind where to go, they may con­sider dou­ble depositing.

What is the def­i­n­i­tion of dou­ble deposit­ing? Dou­ble deposit­ing means putting down a deposit, and thus accept­ing admis­sion, at more than one college.

I often hear, “This deci­sion is not easy!” Or “I love all my schools for dif­fer­ent rea­sons.” Stu­dent re-visit their col­leges and look to teach­ers and friends (and even par­ents) for guid­ance. So what do they do? Send­ing a non-refundable enroll­ment deposit check can cost as lit­tle as $100, while at oth­ers it can be as much as $500 or $1,000 can be costly, but the stu­dent just can’t decide.

The main rea­sons are:
• Stu­dents may do this to guar­an­tee them­selves a space at their favorite school.
• Buy­ing time. The usual deci­sion dead­line is May 1; by dou­ble deposit­ing, a stu­dent can delay decid­ing until fall.
• Con­tinue nego­ti­at­ing for finan­cial aid past the dead­line.
• Because the stu­dent is on a wait­ing list at one col­lege and wants to ensure that she is enrolled some­where in case she is turned down by the waiting-list school. This sce­nario is the only one in which NACAC con­sid­ers dou­ble deposit­ing acceptable.

What many of these stu­dents and their par­ents don’t know is that dou­ble deposit­ing is a vio­la­tion of their respon­si­bil­i­ties as estab­lished by the National Asso­ci­a­tion for Col­lege Admis­sion Counseling(NACAC).

So, why is dou­ble deposit­ing uneth­i­cal?
• It’s deceit­ful accord­ing to NACAC guide­lines.
• It’s unfair to the col­lege. Col­leges don’t know how to esti­mate the size of the incom­ing class.
• It’s unfair to other appli­cants. The dou­ble depos­i­tor is tak­ing up a spot that could go to another stu­dent, who will instead be wait-listed or turned down.
• Play­ing a dan­ger­ous game. If a col­lege dis­cov­ers a stu­dent dou­ble deposited, it is within its rights to with­draw that individual’s offer of admission.