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Hi guys and gals:

So I want to stay in SoCal, but UC Davis is my best option right now.

I'm still waiting on USC results (Committee 2nd read), and I am waitlisted in both UCLA and UCI. I would love to attend any of these 3 SoCal schools.

My question is: Should I hold onto either of my seat deposits/scholarships for Emory and WUSTL (about $100k each)?

If I don't get into any of those three SoCal schools, I'll still go to Davis, which is giving about $110k.

But if I get into UCLA/USC/UCI, I think my WUSTL and Emory offers would be good negotiation leverage for scholarships, because they are a higher rank than UC Davis and much closer in rank to UCLA and USC.

Of course, on the other hand, I don't want to pay non-refundable deposits on a bunch of schools I don't plan to attend. Of course, we'd all rather have the money.

What do y'all think is the best idea here? Just go with Davis and hope it's good enough negotiation tool if any of my 3 schools accept me? Or keep Emory/WUSTL/both and just eat the cost of seat deposits I won't utilize for the potential gain?

Any thoughts would be appreciated. Thanks!

...

1. Boom is right, ask for deposit extensions if you haven't heard back from USC in time.
2. Seems like CR2 means you're close to getting an answer based off of the applicant's thread, and USC does consider WUSTL offers in negotiations.
3. Triple depositing seems like a bit much. I think you can at least cross emory off of your list.

Coming off the waitlist creates incentive for Davis to come up in their offer to try to keep you, and I would hope USC/UCLA/UCI would be inclined to make their offer worthwhile to you. You really can get two school pitted against each other in that situation. I don't know how a double deposit will work off the waitlist honestly. This is speculation and info gleaned from reading older posts. I did not read about any cases where someone double deposited for the potential of a waitlist negotiation, only to negotiate between two schools to which they were already admitted.