Some schools I applied to (not physics related) will reply to me by mid May or even later, but I have to give my decision to the physics graduate schools I've been accepted to in 2 weeks.
My question is, if I get into one of those other universities later on can I withdraw from the physics school I'm slated to attend?
Is accepting an admission binding?
there's no waitlist
Every grad school is supposed to give you an answer before April 15th. They all agree among themselves to do so, and there's no provision for a waitlist in their agreement.
I wouldn't count on a school that won't admit you by April 15th admitting you afterwards. If they do, and if you want to withdraw your acceptance from a place whose offer you took, you can do that. The main consequence of doing it is that you can't expect anything from that school again. In other words, if you get in to school #2, accept their offer and then, in May, get in to school #1 and tell school #2 "nevermind, I'm going to school #1," don't expect school #2 to help you out if school #1 sends you an email in June saying "oops, we can't fund you, sorry."
In other words ^2, if you dump a school for somewhere else make sure you have a very firm offer in writing from Somewhere Else.
I wouldn't count on a school that won't admit you by April 15th admitting you afterwards. If they do, and if you want to withdraw your acceptance from a place whose offer you took, you can do that. The main consequence of doing it is that you can't expect anything from that school again. In other words, if you get in to school #2, accept their offer and then, in May, get in to school #1 and tell school #2 "nevermind, I'm going to school #1," don't expect school #2 to help you out if school #1 sends you an email in June saying "oops, we can't fund you, sorry."
In other words ^2, if you dump a school for somewhere else make sure you have a very firm offer in writing from Somewhere Else.
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I don't see anything wrong with calling up the school with the earlier deadline and tell them you need more time to decide so they can officially put that down for you, that you are deciding by a certain date. I've done that with jobs at least. They may be more leighway than you realize. On the other hand you can contact the ones you are waiting on or the later deadline and tell them you have offers and can they decide for you earlier.