MOVING TO FRONT FROM LAST YEAR, SINCE TIMELY AGAIN (originally posted two years ago):

Students admitted to graduate school have until April 15 to respond.  You can't be made to respond sooner–let me know of schools violating that rule!–but if you can respond sooner that helps a lot of people!  Philosopher Kristen Inglis (Pittsburgh), for example, writes:

Because many prospective philosophy graduate programs read this blog, I’d like to reiterate Anthony Laden’s and Keith DeRose’s suggestions that prospective graduate students aim to decline admissions offers in a timely way. As the chair of an Admissions committee, I agree with DeRose that nearly every program appreciates knowing as early as possible that an admitted student is declining an offer. Most importantly, declining an offer early greatly helps waitlisted students who are otherwise in the tricky position of having to decide whether to accept an offer or to wait to get off the waitlist at a better program.

Of course, no one is suggesting that prospective students decline offers before they’ve had the chance to gather the relevant information, think the decision through, and discuss the decision with their advisors. Still, if one knows before April 15 (most schools’ decision deadline) that she will decline an offer from school X, then she can do a good service by declining the offer from X before April 15.