Backing out of a visiting day...

  • This has become our largest and most active forum because the physics GRE is just one aspect of getting accepted into a graduate physics program.
  • There are applications, personal statements, letters of recommendation, visiting schools, anxiety of waiting for acceptances, deciding between schools, finding out where others are going, etc.

Post Reply
PhysicsIsCool
Posts: 31
Joined: Wed Jan 14, 2015 9:01 pm

Backing out of a visiting day...

Post by PhysicsIsCool » Sun Feb 15, 2015 12:46 am

So I got really excited for my first acceptance and booked the flight and everything for the visiting days early, and now I have conflicts with other school's visiting days. I'm not 100 percent sure so I'm having a lot of hesitations, but I think some of the other schools I've gotten into are "higher" on my list than the first school, so I'm wondering if I should just not attend that open house. For some reason though I feel really guilty and rude if I tell them I've changed my mind and I'm declining and not even going to their visiting days? I'm just not sure about anything these days and this is all just SO stressful. How does anyone ever make a decision when there's a million different things to consider? :oops:

TakeruK
Posts: 941
Joined: Mon Jan 02, 2012 3:05 pm

Re: Backing out of a visiting day...

Post by TakeruK » Sun Feb 15, 2015 2:09 am

It's really hard to know what a school is like until you visit them. I would encourage you to keep an open mind until you see them. You might like this school more than you think! After all, you did apply to them for a reason. Personally, a lot of schools shuffled around in my personal ranking after visiting.

Since you already booked this school's visit, I would just follow through. Tell the other school that you already made a commitment and ask if you can visit on another weekend. Most schools will understand and this is a common occurrence!

bfollinprm
Posts: 1203
Joined: Sat Nov 07, 2009 11:44 am

Re: Backing out of a visiting day...

Post by bfollinprm » Sun Feb 15, 2015 11:15 am

TakeruK is right. It's not crazy important to visit on the official visiting day, so just attend the other schools another time.

Sportsfan77777
Posts: 19
Joined: Wed Dec 24, 2014 12:30 am

Re: Backing out of a visiting day...

Post by Sportsfan77777 » Mon Feb 16, 2015 11:33 pm

I sort of disagree with the above posts.

Most (all?) places have the visits a lot better coordinated and more things to do for their official open house dates.
If I had a conflict between two open house dates, I would choose to go to the one where I would more likely end up for grad school (assuming I had some idea already). Then, I would ask if it were possible to visit the other place on a different date.

The take-away message for future people reading this is that you shouldn't book your open house visits until you have at least somewhat of a good idea of when visits will be.
Some places that are not ranked as well tend to send acceptances earlier than some of the better ranked places in an attempt to lure you on early. So, I would expect this type of thing to be common.

Since you already booked your visit, you don't exactly have that option.
But if you really prefer the other place (as in, there is a better than a ~30% you will attend) that you haven't booked, I would try to see if you can reschedule the one you already booked.
If that's possible and you really prefer the other one, I would go to the other you haven't booked yet.

blackmass
Posts: 61
Joined: Thu Jul 17, 2014 2:01 pm

Re: Backing out of a visiting day...

Post by blackmass » Mon Feb 16, 2015 11:48 pm

Sportsfan77777 wrote:
Some places that are not ranked as well tend to send acceptances earlier than some of the better ranked places in an attempt to lure you on early. So, I would expect this type of thing to be common.
This exact thing happened to me. I had already booked tickets for some schools that rank lower down on my list, and am just now hearing back from some of my top choices. It's tough to wait it out when schools are asking you to choose a visit date and book a ticket as soon as possible. I still think it's valuable to visit the schools, knowing that their rank in your list may very well change -- like TakeruK mentioned -- but it's definitely difficult to coordinate the way offers are so spread out.

PhysicsIsCool
Posts: 31
Joined: Wed Jan 14, 2015 9:01 pm

Re: Backing out of a visiting day...

Post by PhysicsIsCool » Tue Feb 17, 2015 1:53 am

blackmass wrote:
Sportsfan77777 wrote:
Some places that are not ranked as well tend to send acceptances earlier than some of the better ranked places in an attempt to lure you on early. So, I would expect this type of thing to be common.
This exact thing happened to me. I had already booked tickets for some schools that rank lower down on my list, and am just now hearing back from some of my top choices. It's tough to wait it out when schools are asking you to choose a visit date and book a ticket as soon as possible. I still think it's valuable to visit the schools, knowing that their rank in your list may very well change -- like TakeruK mentioned -- but it's definitely difficult to coordinate the way offers are so spread out.
I'm glad I'm not the only one in this situation! I wanted to wait to buy plane tickets for the visit, but my parents pressured me into it, saying they would be too expensive if I waited. :roll: I should really stop being a child and trust my own instincts.

Oh well. I guess at this point my option is to just be lame-o and plan a visit to Cornell on an alternate weekend (so sad to miss the real visiting weekend though...) and hope no other schools I get into have conflicting dates! Best of luck to you blackmass!

TakeruK
Posts: 941
Joined: Mon Jan 02, 2012 3:05 pm

Re: Backing out of a visiting day...

Post by TakeruK » Tue Feb 17, 2015 2:35 am

I agree in that with 20/20 hindsight, one should always wait as long as reasonably possible to confirm visit dates (usually 2-3 weeks in advance). But we often don't know about upcoming information.

I would strongly suggest the following rule when it comes to deciding who gets which visit date: "First come (booked), first served". This is the most fair and ethical way to resolve scheduling conflicts.

So, instead, my advice to all prospective students would be that if you get a visit offer from a school lower down on your list and you are concerned about a conflict with another school, I would say to wait until 2-3 weeks prior to your visit date before confirming (since flights usually go up in price when it's less than 2 weeks to the date). But once you actually confirm a visit and made a booking, you have committed and it would be bad practice to back out of it. The first school took the time to evaluate your application promptly and put in a reasonable request for your time early. It is fair that they get your time that weekend and you reschedule later schools that ask for that weekend.

Consider what might happen if students always backed out of visits for their favoured school. Schools would no longer have any incentive or motivation to release early decisions. This results in a crappier time for everyone, because we all would have to wait longer and also get less notice for an upcoming visit.


Also -- visiting on an alternate date isn't that different. I purposely chose to visit one school on a second date because the first school that responded to me said a certain Thursday-Friday and then the second school to respond asked for the previous Thurs-Fri. I asked the second school to schedule me for the following Mon-Tues instead so that all my visit can be done in one trip (instead of flying cross country twice). I asked the second school to reschedule because they were the second school to accept me. This is another reason to wait until you hear back from a few other schools before making visit commitments -- you might miss out on ways to combine visits that make your life easier (and perhaps save some money too if the school is unable to cover 100% of your expenses).

blackmass
Posts: 61
Joined: Thu Jul 17, 2014 2:01 pm

Re: Backing out of a visiting day...

Post by blackmass » Tue Feb 17, 2015 11:29 am

PhysicsIsCool wrote:
I'm glad I'm not the only one in this situation! I wanted to wait to buy plane tickets for the visit, but my parents pressured me into it, saying they would be too expensive if I waited. :roll: I should really stop being a child and trust my own instincts.

Oh well. I guess at this point my option is to just be lame-o and plan a visit to Cornell on an alternate weekend (so sad to miss the real visiting weekend though...) and hope no other schools I get into have conflicting dates! Best of luck to you blackmass!
Thank you! And good luck to you! Visiting weekend or not, visiting Cornell should be pretty awesome. :)

PathIntegrals92
Posts: 190
Joined: Tue Oct 07, 2014 12:42 pm

Re: Backing out of a visiting day...

Post by PathIntegrals92 » Tue Feb 17, 2015 12:08 pm

I agree with TakeruK! You never know which school you might end up wanting to go to in the end...

TakeruK
Posts: 941
Joined: Mon Jan 02, 2012 3:05 pm

Re: Backing out of a visiting day...

Post by TakeruK » Tue Feb 17, 2015 12:10 pm

I had a lot of fun with the wineries tour during my visit to Cornell! :)



Post Reply