Plan B issues

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yyz123

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Oct 24, 2022
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My DS was informed by his guidance counselor that he should not have a Plan B since he is taking a seat from someone at State University. He was advised to relinquish his seat as it is considered unethical in the admissions world. My DS explained the possible scenarios that could happen before he gets to his service academy (injuries, medical DQ, etc) but the guidance counselor advised him against Plan B. DS even called State University to explain the situation and they are ok with him holding his slot pending everything going as planned at the service academy over the summer. Any advice on how to handle this?
 
Why bother with a guidance counselor at this point? Just do what you think is best for yourself, the spots they have will be filled at some point if it opens up and your son finalizes his decision. Always good to have a plan B just in case something happens. You're okay with it, state U and academy are fine, the counselor is not acting in your best interest and should be disregarded.
 
If State U is OK with it, then that’s all that matters as far as that school is concerned. The deal ultimately involves two parties — your son and State U — and has no impact on the counselor.

Here’s a fairly common practice among folks on SAF: Pay the deposit at Plan B to hold a place. If your son chooses USNA and you lose the deposit, consider it a small insurance policy that now pays back in spades. If your son doesn’t choose USNA, Plan B is good to go. (Don’t worry about the school. It’s a bit richer by keeping the deposit, and it actually has a term for those who don’t show up: “summer melt.”)

I’m a university teacher with what I believe is a strong conscience. DD may have an even greater conscience. We had no problem at all with DD doing this as she sorted out her options.

P.S. The issue that has legitimate impact on counselors and the high school revolves around Early Decision, in which applicants must commit to attending that school if admitted. But that’s not the issue here.
 
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MidCakePa said:
If State U is OK with it, then that’s all that matters as far as that school is concerned. The deal ultimately involves two parties — your son and State U — and has no impact on the counselor.

Here’s a fairly common practice among folks on SAF: Pay the deposit at Plan B to hold a place. If your son chooses USNA and you lose the deposit, consider it a small insurance policy that now pays back in spades. If your son doesn’t choose USNA, Plan B is good to go. (Don’t worry about the school. It’s a bit richer by keeping the deposit, and it actually has a term for those who don’t show up: “summer melt.”)

I’m a university teacher with what I believe is a strong conscience. DD may have an even greater conscience. We had no problem at all with DD doing this as she sorted out her options.

P.S. The issue that has legitimate impact on counselors and the high school revolves around Early Decision, in which applicants must commit to attending that school if admitted. But that’s not the issue here.
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This is helpful information. DS accepted his appointment to USNA but we also paid his deposit to plan B university as many on the forum suggested having a plan B in place. Is it a normal practice to contact that plan B school and have DS discuss with admissions? He received merit scholarships and I'd love for him to hold onto like you said "as insurance", although I have no doubt he will be at I-Day. TIA!
 
Pilots_mom said:
This is helpful information. DS accepted his appointment to USNA but we also paid his deposit to plan B university as many on the forum suggested having a plan B in place. Is it a normal practice to contact that plan B school and have DS discuss with admissions? He received merit scholarships and I'd love for him to hold onto like you said "as insurance", although I have no doubt he will be at I-Day. TIA!
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Yes, most schools understand that the Academies are unique from an admissions perspective. While someone is accepted, there is more than one way to not end up attending that school come the Ac Year (Injury, DOR, etc.).
 
yyz123 said:
My DS was informed by his guidance counselor that he should not have a Plan B since he is taking a seat from someone at State University. He was advised to relinquish his seat as it is considered unethical in the admissions world. My DS explained the possible scenarios that could happen before he gets to his service academy (injuries, medical DQ, etc) but the guidance counselor advised him against Plan B. DS even called State University to explain the situation and they are ok with him holding his slot pending everything going as planned at the service academy over the summer. Any advice on how to handle this?
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I'd politely tell counselor, 'were good' if asked anything further. Totally in your DS's rights to have BU plan especially if a deposit is paid. He went above and beyond in my opinion by informing state U. Far from unethical... Last yr DS paid deposit at state U and there was no issues. We updated his portal after IDAY and emailed Admissions as well.
 
Pilots_mom said:
it a normal practice to contact that plan B school and have DS discuss with admissions? He received merit scholarships and I'd love for him to hold onto like you said "as insurance", although I have no doubt he will be at I-Day. TIA!
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Not a bad idea at all. It’s acting in good faith and trying to maximize the backup plan. Worst thing they can say is no.
 
Pilots_mom said:
This is helpful information. DS accepted his appointment to USNA but we also paid his deposit to plan B university as many on the forum suggested having a plan B in place. Is it a normal practice to contact that plan B school and have DS discuss with admissions? He received merit scholarships and I'd love for him to hold onto like you said "as insurance", although I have no doubt he will be at I-Day. TIA!
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DD did this with one of her Plan B schools and they were very accommodating and said they would honor her scholarship offer . We did notify a SMC that she would not be accepting an appointment because we were asked to confirm as they had an active waitlist . I think it depends on the individual college /university .
 
Pilots_mom said:
This is helpful information. DS accepted his appointment to USNA but we also paid his deposit to plan B university as many on the forum suggested having a plan B in place. Is it a normal practice to contact that plan B school and have DS discuss with admissions? He received merit scholarships and I'd love for him to hold onto like you said "as insurance", although I have no doubt he will be at I-Day. TIA!
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Last yr DS had NROTC scholarship for Rutgers, as the backup for his USNA appointment. We paid the $300 deposit for Rutgers (insurance policy) not expecting a refund. DS had great conversation with NROTC leadership at Rutgers and they scheduled him for a late summer NSI cycle 3 so if he were turned away from USNA due to injury before I-Day he would have his Rutgers NROTC parachute. The Monday after we dropped DS off at Annapolis, we called Rutgers & emailed his NROTC advisor. Both could not have been nicer.
 
I think it's fine to put a deposit on another school as insurance against injury prior to I-Day. Once at USNA, it's very unlikely that someone will be so seriously injured that they cannot continue -- in that case, you could go to CC and USNA will almost certainly take you the next year. I think it's a BAD idea to place a deposit as insurance against not liking USNA. Makes it too easy to quit when the going gets rough (which it always does).

Just my $0.03 (adjusted for inflation).
 
Here we go again. Doing a Plan B without the agreement of the Plan B school has risks - be aware of those risks before proceeding and take steps to minimize getting caught.

Bad advice keeps circulating every year - at least one of the instances alluded to below stemmed from taking advice from this forum about the wisdom of the Plan B without mention of the potential risks.


Here is a cut and paste from the last time this came up:

Most colleges do not take it lightly when they find out that a student has violated their agreement not to be committed to more than one institution. Whether or not they will do anything about it is debatable.

It is not correct that most families maintain a Plan B, but if you do, make sure you do not get caught in an uncomfortable situation as some others have.

Here are the facts:

  1. If you make arrangements with the backup college beforehand and they agree to be the backup - no problem whatsoever.
  2. Almost all colleges consider it an ethical/contractual violation to use them as a backup without their knowledge. Most applications, including the Common Application, contain a clause that applicants agree not to be committed to more than one institution after May 1st. The fact that SA's do not use the Common Application is irrelevant; the agreement is between the student/family and the civilian institution.
  3. The two ways previous appointees have been caught and found themselves in an uncomfortable situation are: high school college counselor discovered violation or appointee told college when calling/emailing to let them know they wouldn't be attending.
  4. Virtually all colleges and high schools are institutional members and many individuals at those schools are individual members of the National Association of College Admissions Counselors (NACAC) - USMA, USNA, USAFA, USCGA, and USMMA are members. The NACAC code of conduct states that it is unethical to be committed to more than one institution.
  5. There are known instances of appointees being threatened by colleges for using them as an unwitting backup.
  6. No SA has issued a policy on this practice and there has been no test case for how an SA will respond - there are no known instances of a college reporting the infraction to an SA.
 
To be clear, my post assumed that the Plan B school was informed and agreed. As noted, I also think that on or before I-Day, you should tell them that you are declining. I would think that most civilian schools would be happy to take your deposit knowing you likely won't show up. They aren't as constrained as SAs in terms of number of entering students, the number of SA students who would do this is very small, they know the likelihood of that person getting injured and thus actually showing up is miniscule, and (if needed) they are unlikely to have any difficulty finding someone to take your slot. So it's free money for them.

I didn't do a plan B once I'd accepted USNA. However, when I sent the declination to one of my civilian schools, they actually sent me a letter back saying they'd hold a place for me for a year. Thankfully, I didn't have to take them up on it.
 
I'll just repeat what I have posted in past years. Make sure that you read the fine print regarding whether that your maximum obligation (risk) is the deposit. Then make sure that WHEN you notify them that you are withdrawing from Plan B (because I day, etc) that you do so in WRITING and save a copy of the email.
One of my kids, NOT a Service Academy applicant had a couple of acceptances of interest and we put deposits down on two of them while visits and decisions were undertaken. Finally, a decision was reached and the college of attendance and the college to NOT be attended were notified and off to Freshman Year we went. A few months later, my child received mail from the non-attendance college at our house - with a bill for over $10K. I immediately called them and said that they'd been notified, etc and they would not even talk to me, only to the student. My kid called and this went back and forth for quite a while and total bills were over $20K as they said that my kid owed a full year tuition since they had "reserved a spot" and it went empty along with a dorm spot which supposedly went vacant. They claimed that they had neve received notice that my kid was not coming and that it was all owed. Nothing I could say got them to talk to me and even legal assistance from a close family member did not help. After a year or so it went to a collection agency and it ruined my kid's credit rating for quite a number of years as we certainly were not going to pay double digit thousands of dollars to a school where we didn't go. The collection agencies hounded my kid and often bugged us
for YEARS over this.
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Just for info, the School was Arizona State University (ASU).
 
yyz123 said:
My DS was informed by his guidance counselor that he should not have a Plan B since he is taking a seat from someone at State University. He was advised to relinquish his seat as it is considered unethical in the admissions world. My DS explained the possible scenarios that could happen before he gets to his service academy (injuries, medical DQ, etc) but the guidance counselor advised him against Plan B. DS even called State University to explain the situation and they are ok with him holding his slot pending everything going as planned at the service academy over the summer. Any advice on how to handle this?
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Yours may be a unique situation. Does the counselor know that the university is agreeing to be Plan B. I have never heard of a counselor having a problem when a Plan B school agrees to be Plan B.

What action can a guidance counselor take? Here is an actual example from several years ago:
  • Appointee accepts appointment and maintains a national university as a Plan B backup without informing national university.
  • Everything is fine until two weeks before high school graduation when counselor calls appointees parents
  • Counselor: "I just opened a letter from "national university" with a list of all of our students who have committed to attending in the Fall and I was surprised to see your child's name on that list."
  • Parent: "We thought it was wise to have a backup in case of injury."
  • Counselor: "There are no exceptions for service academies and I am obligated to report violations to all the colleges that accepted your child, including SA."
  • After much begging and groveling by parent, counselor instructs parent to withdraw child from national university immediately, send him confirmation, and he will not report violation.
I know this example because the parents called me seeking advice. They were distraught and asked what the SA would do if they found out - I answered honestly that I do not know.
 
OldRetSWO's story . . .

Wow, just wow. With an enrollment of 75,000 students, I don't for a minute believe that they "reserved a spot" that went "unfilled." But they obviously used that line to bilk you out of $20k.
 
I didn't buy a lottery ticket, because I don't need the money and if I won it might deprive someone else who might have really needed it..

Your DS did the exact right thing in the right way...honestly, simply and straight forward. Funny how that always seems to work out.
 
This is so hard - and the kids get such conflicting advice. I agree with whoever said "why bother with a guidance counselor at this point". 100%
 
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You shore up all of your positions ... and the Guidance Counselor isn't going to pay any of your bills ... so why would you give them any of your time for that matter?
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