College Deposits—When Should I Pay?
Great news! You have been admitted to your school of choice and now all they want is a “de-
posit” to “guarantee housing,” “etc. Before writing that check, please review the below steps to
help ensure you receive the best financial aid package possible.
In summary:
Don’t rush! Stay calm and be patient. You generally have time to consider your
options and should fully utilize that time.
Determine if the deposit is refundable or not; if not, you must consider your options,
including your willingness to lose a non-refundable deposit if necessary.
If it becomes necessary, you can request an extension of the deposit deadline; how
ever, you MUST get this extension in writing from the admissions office to protect
yourself.
If you are interested in negotiating for more financial aid from that school, you must
consider your options and ensure you have given yourself the most leverage
possible entering the negotiation. This means you should wait to receive full financial
aid packages from all the schools that you’re interested in – this helps to create lever
age as well as being sure that you have all the information you need to make the best
family decision.
In the perfect world, all the schools you applied to would send acceptance letters and full
financial aid packages at the same time and you would receive a great financial aid package
from your number one school. Then you could comfortably just send in the deposit to re-
serve your spot. Unfortunately, this very rarely happens, which means you have some work
to do.
First, see when the deposit deadline is and see if you have time to consider your options. As-
summing you do, you must proactively contact schools you have not heard from and get an
idea of when you should expect to receive an acceptance (or waiting list, rejection) letter.
Assuming getting as much financial aid as possible is important to you, you must also
proactively get financial aid packages from all the schools the student has been accepted to for
your review and for negotiation purposes. The goal is to get your financial aid offers from
your top choice schools so you can make a “family decision” where you’re going to go
by the deposit deadline.
If you are not provided with sufficient time to get all the acceptance
letters, financial aid packages and negotiation steps completed, we recommended requesting an
extension from your top two or three choices. Simply contact the admissions office and get
the extension in writing! If they ask for a reason simply state, “Although you are my
top choice, I need time for my family to better understand our financial aid options.”
These requests, in our experience, are routinely granted.
If, for some reason, the school (or schools) you care about do not grant this request or
you simply are not comfortable asking for an extension, you then need to determine if
you are willing to lose some deposit money. For your top school and other top alternatives,
if applicable, determine if the deposit is refundable, non-refundable, or partially
refundable. Clearly, if refundable, send check or checks to your top choices and re-
quest a refund once a final decision is made. If non-refundable or partially non-
refundable, your family must consider the risk of losing some money once the final
decision is made.
This is an individual family decision largely based on how large a factor
the amount of the final financial aid package (after negotiations) is on the decision.
Again, the key is patience. Take time to consider all of your options and then utilize
our suggested game plan to put yourself in the best position possible.
