Can anybody tell me if the commitment letter (accompanying the seat deposit and also, especially, when accepting a deferral offer) is legally binding? There are sentences like " I will withdraw from all other school immediately and will not seek admission from any other school in the future" that one has to sign for.
many thanks!
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Here is a DIRECT QUOTE from an adcomm about a month ago in an email to me…
“I know that we spoke about this on the phone, but I wanted to confirm our conversation via email. If you sign the scholarship agreement and then decide to attend a different institution, there are no damages that the _____ College of Law can pursue as a result of the contract terminating. Of course, the ______ College of Law will retain the nonrefundable deposit, which seems obvious by the terms of that arrangement.”
Hope that makes you feel better! PM me if you need me to prove it. 
The key difference here is the OP asked about a deferral. Some deferrals have language that bind the signer to only that institution, sometimes for a year, sometimes for longer, so the OP really needs to just talk to the school. From the language OP quotes, it sounds like it is legally binding for at least the following school year of not longer. This makes sense as the school is holding aseat for you in the next year’s class so they want to make sure you are going to take it.
I would bet large sums of money that there will be no legal consequences to breaking one of these agreements. You might get blacklisted by other schools though.
Right. It is unlikley OP will be sued, but the school could easily infrom other schools and OP could have his acceptances revoked everywhere.
Oops! Misread. Thanks 