BDG--
any and all verbal committment mean exactly nothing until the kids sign on the proverbial dotted line...
Silent commits are normally kids who perhaps want to take their free visits across the country. Say you're a kid from Rhode Island, and you've never been south of Pennsylvania. You've got offers from Syracuse and FSU. You decide to go to Syracuse. But, you still have this big fat trip to Tallahasee planned. Why risk the trip being pulled away just to make your committment public? I'm sure that not ALL silents are like this... but that's probably one big reason. There are any number of reasons to keep a decision quiet, but I wouldn't think that any of them mean that the kid is considering not honoring his committment.