So here's the thing. I've just been offered a place at the University of Edinburgh, and it says I should make a decision by December 18th 2009. The "problem", though, is that I also applied to UCL, LSE, Cambridge and Oxford, and would probably prefer each of those over Edinburgh. What happens if you accept the offer and then later find out you've also been accepted by some other university (hipothethically speaking, of course)? Can you just tell them you're going somewhere else and that you're not going to study there?

Thanks in advance, guys and girls.

do you have to pay a deposit? if not I'd accept and then withdraw if necessary...

(this is a lot like the process for apply for primary school places at private schools in London, I suspect)

If you've applied through UCAS its a bit more complicated than that. I was in the exact same position, I had accepted an offer to Edinburgh on UCAS only to decide months later that I wanted to take up an offer elsewhere.

Once you accept an offer from one school, the rest of your choices are notified of your decision and they no longer follow through on processing responses to your application. Why would they If you've already accepted a place at another school?

In order to withdraw you have to contact the school, Edinburgh, and asked to be released from your acceptance there. This however does not reinstate your UCAS application or notify the remaining schools that they can once again make you offers. My advice would be to wait for responses from the other schools before going through the trouble I did.

I didn't apply through UCAS, I didn't know that was even possible for postgraduate studies. But anyway, does that then mean that accepting their offer just to be sure does NOT prejudice my admissions chances at other universities? I presume that since I didn't use UCAS, University of Edinburgh won't send out info that there's a certain someone who accepted their offer, though if I'm not mistaken when you're completing an application you do have to list other universities you're applying to. I always thought that was for informational purposes only but now you've got me to re-think that.

All in all, where do I stand with NOT applying through UCAS?

Ryker

I would have thought that data protection legislation would prevent them sharing information about acceptances etc, but perhaps you'd better investigate this more fully. AFAIK there is no way that they could check, and I have never had to explain which other universities I was applying to for a graduate application (undergrad is obv different).

So you just left those fields, asking for information on other universities you intend to apply to, blank?

As for my original question, I guess I'm gonna need to ask someone, though it might be strange contacting the University of Edinburgh about this, as I'm not sure this would be viewed upon favourably.

It may be because I've spent so long working in private practice, but I think you need to worry less about this / about what the universities think. They want to get the good students. I can't imagine for a minute that they contact each other with information about offers outside the UCAS scheme - the point about data protection is a valid one, provided that the terms and conditions for application don't cover the point (can't say I actually read them). Just ring Uni of Edinburgh on a no-names basis. It must happen all the time. I'm happy to call them if you're worried as I haven't applied to Edinburgh.