sending dean's cert/ final transcript= commitment to enroll? Forum

[supersplittysplitter]

If I send my dean's certification form or final transcript to a school I've been admitted to, will that be construed as a commitment to enroll at that school? The deadline to submit these forms is the same as the deadline for the first seat deposit, however i want to send my transcripts and dean's letters now so that IF I decide to enroll and send a seat deposit in May I'll already have all this annoying stuff out of the way. Also my UG is pretty incompetent with this kind of stuff and I don't want to have to worry about it when the deadlines are coming up.

Is that a good idea or should I only send final transcripts when I am 100% sure I want to enroll and send my seat deposit?

[thatsnotmyname]

I mean I haven't seen the exact terms of your offer of admission, what does it say in your acceptance package regarding how to accept your offer? Based on the ones I've seen some schools will let you deposit and not consider it binding until after a certain date has past, some schools will require you to send in a cert with your first deposit saying that you've withdrawn from the other schools you've been admitted to but permit you to stay on waitlists, and one school doesn't even require a deposit but just asks you to confirm whether you're still considering their offering, accepting their offer, or declining their offer by a certain date. So it seems like there's a great deal of variety in how school's approach this. However, I think it would be extremely unlikely that just sending your dean's letter and transcript now could be construed as committing especially if you don't submit the deposit.

It's probably a good idea to get the dean cert/final transcript out of the way while you have time.

[supersplittysplitter]

the instructions are pretty vague... i know i need all of those components (deposits, transcript, dean's cert) in order to matriculate. so i suppose sending the transcript would be necessary but not sufficient to enroll?

[SPerez]

The answer is always "Call the school directly and ask," because no one here can answer the question definitively.

That said, the fact that they listed those requirements separately would suggest to me that one does not function as the other, i.e. submitting transcripts does not equal a "commitment" like paying a deposit does. At worse, it will get their hopes up that you will be coming because it is an affirmative step that someone who wasn't interested at all wouldn't take, but it's not like they will expect you to show up at Orientation even if you don't pay your seat deposit.

Dean Perez
Texas Tech Law