***Disclaimer: See article titled “TYPES OF COLLEGE ADMISSION PROCESSES” and “GETTING OUT OF ED CONTRACTS” prior to reading this one***

When I matched with Questbridge last year (see “What is Questbridge Article for clarification) I was ecstatic. However, soon after the match, I was notified by friends, peers and the organization itself to withdraw all of my other college applications. I did not understand the reasons for this, but I withdrew my applications to Yale, Northwestern and Emory anyways. Now, looking back, I realize that I did not see withdrawing applications after being enrolled ED into a school, but I do now.

After a student has applied and been accepted to an institution via an ED contract, they are both legally and morally obligated to withdraw all other applications in order to avoid scrutiny and negatively affect another person’s application. Since a student is bound to attending that institution, leaving other applications open will only serve the purpose of taking admission/spots away from other students. Colleges have a set number of applicants they will accept for admission, when they run out of room they start putting students on their waitlist. Getting off the waitlist isn’t guaranteed and in some instances, if more students accept enrollment than anticipated, colleges will not take students off of the waitlist.

This is one of the only examples in the college process where one student’s actions could potentially affect another. If you want to keep other applications open just for “bragging rights” in being able to see where else you might get accepted to, apply Early Action. No decent person wants to be the cause of another student being rejected or waitlisted from their dream institution.