Admissions Officials Lament Practice
of Signing On With More Than One College
By ALAN FINDER
May 20, 2006
The New York Times
The envelope arrived at Allegheny College the first week of May.
Inside was a form signed by a high school senior accepting admission.
Inside, too, was a $500 check — made out to St. Lawrence University.
It turned out, said Scott Friedhoff, who oversees admissions at
Allegheny, that the student had accepted admission offers from both
colleges, and made deposits to each.
The incident is one example of the largely subterranean practice of
double depositing — when high school seniors and their parents try to
get around the May 1 deadline for accepting admission offers. At most
colleges, double depositing is against the rules. Many admissions
officials say they believe the practice is growing. And they say it is
unfair.
"It's fundamentally dishonest to say to more than one college that
that's where you're going to be in the fall," said Dan Rosenfield, dean
of enrollment management at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette,
"and it's not a victimless crime."
Students who commit to more than one university risk having their
admission offers withdrawn. But they also prevent someone else from
being taken off a waiting list, and prevent colleges from predicting
how many will enroll, Mr. Rosenfield and more than 20 other admissions
deans and high school guidance counselors said in interviews.
Andrea Navarro, a senior at Newton North High School in Massachusetts,
called double depositing "unfair."
"A lot of my friends were wait-listed at their top choices," she
explained. "You're in limbo; you're not sure if you're in or out."
But some parents and consultants counter that they double deposit to
continue negotiating financial aid with several colleges. And they
argue that since colleges market so aggressively, trying to attract
more applicants than they can admit, consumers have every right to
engage in their own strategems.
"If colleges are going to play games, can they blame families for also
playing games?" said Dodge Johnson, a private college counselor.
Double depositing allows a student to mull over the summer where he or
she really wants to go. And in a year in which some elite high school
seniors have applied to 15 or 20 colleges, and received nearly as many
offers of admission, some students are having trouble deciding.
"They are accepted to so many colleges that they can't come to a
decision by May 1," said Andy Morris, the associate director of
admissions at the State University of New York at Binghamton.
Mr. Morris said a few parents unapologetically told him this year that
they wrote checks to two or more universities, even offering to tell
him where.
"I think parents are of a generation in which the idea of booking two
airline flights or booking multiple hotel rooms are things that these
parents do," he said. "They are trying to hedge their bets."
Bruce J. Poch, a vice president and dean of admissions at Pomona
College, said he had been surprised, and angered, when a friend told
him two weeks ago that he had sent deposit checks to two colleges.
"It's an utterly selfish thing to do," he said.
Ms. Navarro, who was placed on a waiting list by Connecticut College,
committed to Bowdoin College. She was then offered admission to
Connecticut College two weeks ago, but after some serious
soul-searching, decided to attend Bowdoin after all.
Of students who double deposit, Ms. Navarro said: "They should just
choose. They got in and they should decide."
There is no hard data on how many students double deposit, in part
because colleges do not formally share information on who has committed
to enroll. But the checks sent to Allegheny and St. Lawrence, and the
other examples, are part of an accumulation of anecdotal evidence that
has led many admissions deans, though not all, to conclude that double
depositing is on the rise.
"Absolutely, it's become more common," said Richard Whiteside, vice
president for enrollment management and dean of admission at Tulane
University, who said parents had also told him they had sent off
several deposit checks. "My strong belief is that more families are
doing it."
Carolyn Lawrence, who created a blog, admissionsadvice.com, that
provides information to students and parents, said that, for the first
time this year, many parents had asked whether it was appropriate to
commit to more than one school.
In the past, admissions officials learned indirectly that a student had
probably committed to several universities. In May and June, some
students who have sent in deposits notify universities that another
institution has offered to admit them from their waiting lists; this is
legitimate, under the rules, although universities do not usually
return deposits.
But when students who sent in deposits by May 1 begin to fall away in
July and August officials have assumed the students decided to attend
another college to which they had also committed.
Tulane, for instance, loses at least 75 people, and many of these are
presumed to have double deposited, Dr. Whiteside said.
"Personally, I don't get too upset about this," he said. "Like other
things about our business, it's just another force to deal with."
Several deans, including Eric J. Kaplan of Lehigh, said there had been
talk of raising deposit fees to make double depositing more onerous,
although some suggested that nothing would prevent some affluent
parents from trying to get around the rules. Another idea deans talked
about is to create a clearinghouse to identify offenders.
Other admission officials, including Lee Stetson of the University of
Pennsylvania and Robert Massa of Dickinson College, said they had not
seen evidence that double depositing was increasing. Dr. Massa said
Dickinson did not formally forbid students from committing to more than
one college, although he said "common sense and fairness" suggested
that it was inappropriate. He added that next year the college would,
however, officially prohibit double depositing.
Some parents said many colleges do not make clear the rules against
double depositing. Ken Levin, a father who participates in an online
discussion of college admissions, said it was unreasonable to bind
parents and students to rules created by the admissions officials'
professional association.
Fear of getting caught may discourage people from making multiple
deposits, even though the most severe punishment — the rescinding of
admissions offers — appears to be seldom invoked.
The young man who sent deposits to Allegheny and St. Lawrence nearly
forfeited his admissions offers. Dr. Friedhoff of Allegheny said that
administrators had initially considered that penalty, but that after
considerable discussion, he and Terry Cowdrey, vice president and dean
of admissions and financial aid at St. Lawrence, decided the punishment
would be too harsh. The student was given a day to decide which college
he wanted to attend. He chose Allegheny.
Many admissions deans and college counselors said that although they
expected to see more blatant examples of double depositing, it was time
to end the practice.
"The leadership in our profession needs to sit down and see what can we
do realistically about this," said Brad MacGowan, a college counselor
at Newton North High School.
"This college admissions process — what messages are we sending to
kids?" Dr. MacGowan added. "That this is a game in which you win or
lose."