Could I get your thoughts on this?

I confirmed my slot in one school which gave me a partial grant to finance my LLM and it's set to start this summer (I sent a non-refundable tuition deposit and signed an enrollment confirmation form). The school is only my second choice and I'm waiting for results from the other US schools I applied to which starts this coming fall term.

Would there be any consequence or backlash if I subsequently withdrew my application to the first school if I get accepted and receive a scholarship to my first choice schools and decide to go there? I'm afraid I might be blacklisted or something if I do this, but since the grant of the school was only partial, I wanted to keep my options open.

*In the Enrollment COnfirmation form, they indicated that I had to withdraw my pending applications and reject offers of admissions to the other schools I applied to, I don't want to do this, though.

Any insights?

As far as I know, schools assign different meanings to putting down the deposit. Your story sounds like a very firm commitment. I would say you entered a contractual obligation and are admitting here your intention to breach this contract. Blacklisting sounds plausible. But what do I know...

I think you need to have a serious conversation with the school.

> ... but since the grant of the school
> was only partial, ...

Come on, what was your expectation?! Never heard of a full waiver.

sounds like the NYU@NUS offer. The contract is pretty much clear-cut, there would be a breach involved but I don't know if schools do resort to blacklisting students.

IMHO, full tuition waivers are very rare. if the partial grant is your only reason for withdrawing, then don't, thank NYU for the 35000 USD grant instead.

Thank you for both your comments, wedge and ricey.

Perhaps I wasn't able to underscore enough the fact that, aside from the reputation of the institution, the financial cost of the LLM is critical to me. Even with the partial waiver, my savings at this point are not enough to defray the cost of pursuing the program as quoted by the school in the student expense budget. At the start, I was really hoping to obtain a full scholarship (me and a million other students, i know).

I have conveyed my gratitude to the donor school for their generous offer. The fear that consumes me now, though, is that I might not be able to meet my financial obligations to them if I am unable to obtain a loan or other outside funding before the term starts (both these options I am actively exploring as we speak). While I very badly want to take advantage of this opportunity , I do not want to end up starving by the curb to do so (ok, sorry, getting a little carried away here, i-sniff, i-sniff :).

anyway, i just wanted to know the general acceptability/ frequency and consequences (apart from the forfeiture of the initial deposit) of applicants withdrawing under these circumstances, or any other circumstance, for that matter, where they withdrew after committing to enroll.

Well, good luck to you, hope you'll make it.

Two more things I thought of when reading your posting:

> my savings at this point are not enough to defray the cost > of pursuing the program as
> quoted by the school in the
> student expense budget

Be aware that the housing & living cost estimation might be even UNDERestimated by the university. I've seen some ridiculous cheap estimations. Unless one wants to rent a bench in a park.

> meet my financial obligations to them if I am unable to
> obtain a loan or other outside funding before the
> term starts

Are you a US resident or Green Card holder? If not, you have to furnish proof of sufficient funding much earlier: no proof, no documents, no visa.