How To Avoid The Pressure of May 1

Colleges want you to send in your deposit by May 1 as proof that you are going to attend. In other words, if you don’t send in your deposit, you will lose your bed and maybe a prized parking spot. The college's push for this deadline is to stop biting their own nails because April makes them nervous. Why? Because their fates are being determined by a bunch of talented 17- and 18-year-olds. And you thought colleges NEVER get nervous about anything.

What if you can’t make up your mind before May 1 which school you want to attend? That’s a lot of pressure that's being put on you by the colleges to meet their sacred deadline.

Here’s how you avoid the pressure of the May 1 deadline: make two or three non-refundable deposits by May 1 with your top 2 or 3 schools. It won't be cheap, but nothing as important as your future is.

Take the entire summer to decide which school you want to attend. Choosing the right college is a HUGE decision, and putting our kids under a deadline before their own high school graduation can be harmful to your student's future and your wallet. The "non-refundable" aspect of the deposit has a sting to it, but the sting will be greater if the school selected before the deadline turns out to be the wrong one. Ouch! Big Sting.

Colleges get a huge case of heart-burn by my telling you this; more accurately they're outraged at my suggestion here. They think that what I’m saying will deny some other deserving student a place at a college as if to suggest that no one else will place multiple deposits but you. Multiple depositing, colleges would suggest, makes you a bad person.

If this looks like a distasteful and loathsome way to maneuver to your advantage, so what? Distasteful and loathsome to whom? The colleges! They detest multiple depositing, but you shouldn't care a twit what the colleges think. They're coming after your money and your future's at stake.

Your purpose is to benefit your student, not the colleges. They have near exclusive rights on a vice called greed, and you’ve got to think of yourself first because you’re the customer, something the colleges forgot in Public Relations 101.

Here's a dirty little secret: colleges get oodles of cash from these deposits. In other words, if 2,000 students send in their non-refundable deposit of $500 but don’t show up, a college’s take on 2,000 students is - ready for this? - one million dollars, that's $1,000,000.00. Count the zeros.

Bottom Line: Weaponize your money! Make those multiple deposits and take off the pressure.