Questions about the deposit

[Caoxu]

I notice that some universities require the admitted students to deposit some money before the deadline. I am curious about the function of this deposit. If I pay the deposit, does it mean that I have already officially accepted the offer, or this money is just used to express your intent to join and can be used to maintain your admission status? In the other words, if I pay the deposit and decline the admission later, do I lose anything else except the deposit. Thank you so much for sharing your opinion.

 

[mist]

Well, if I have to, the latter sounds more correct. But, expressing your intent and paying the deposit means that you officially accept the offer and that the admission office will hold your admission status. So, usually you need to do both.

If you want to decline the admission later after paying the deposit, you often will not be able to get the deposit back. Some schools have refundable deposit, but I think most have non-refundable. So, if you decline the offer after paying the deposit, you will just lose the deposit money. Otherwise, the deposit will be used as a portion of your tuition in the first year.

Just FYI, if you want to decline an offer because you got an admission from another school and prefer this new school, you probably will need some kind of releasing document from the first school.