Gaps between interviews and placing a deposit

[pancakes]

I feel like I've posted a million times within the past few days, but I haven't found any threads on this.

 

Let's say you have month long gaps between your interviews and between 2-4 weeks to place a deposit and hold your seat (assuming you get accepted). If you're offered an acceptance after the first interview, would you place the steep deposit just in case other interviews don't pan out? And if your top choice schools offer you interviews months later, do you deposit there too? 

 

I never thought the cost of this journey would be a cheap one, but I also never realized that the gaps between interviews and the deadline to reserve your seat would be a big deal. In my opinion, it wouldn't be wise to deposit a seat at every school you got accepted into, but it also wouldn't be advisable to miss out on an opportunity just to save a few thousand dollars. 

 

I don't know if this even makes sense, but if anyone has insight, I'd be happy to hear it.

[UGoLong]

There is a gap between interviews and offers and between offers and deposits. I actually put down two sequential  deposits to hold my seat at one school and then ended up going somewhere else.

 

Hopefully you only applied to schools that you were willing to attend. If so, it may become necessary to put down a deposit at a school that accepts you early on -- at least you know you are going somewhere -- only to decide to go to your number one choice later.

 

In some cases, you may be able to get at least of your deposit back.

 

It's a gamble.

[spflynn4]

^^Exactly what UGoLong said. I had to pay multiple deposits due to the spacing of my acceptances (one came in a month after the other). It's not really fun to have to double deposit, but that's how it goes. My rule of thumb was that you always deposit at the first school that lets you in (if no other offers come in before their deposit deadline), and then compare each other offer that comes in to the school that you've already deposited at. 

[UGoLong]

Not sure that it's exactly the letter of the law, but you could claim unused deposits as a tax donation to the schools that you don't end up going to.

[MT2PA]

Plenty of topics on this out there, actually.  A common problem and just one of the mazes of applying to PA school.  You could in theory lose a lot of money in deposits.