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Sometimes the funding does not include tuition remission, so tuition will be paid from the funding. I suspect that's what's going on with them.

I can say that Quant scores are used and sometimes schools will reject based on them out of concern that the candidate will not do well with statistics. Statistics are huge. That being said, I received a 151 on my quant score and am currently attending my top choice program (not sure what percentile that is anymore). However, I had other things to compensate for that.

Fit is a much more compelling aspect to of the decision than ranking. In terms of ranking, there are no rankings you can really trust for graduate schools. People aren't really going to care about ranking as much as they will about the overall reputation in your field. Reputation overall will matter, for example, for internship matching, etc. if you're in clinical.

I myself prefer to send handwritten thank you cards, however given the quick turn-around of decisions after interviews, you should probably drop an e-mail. A little less professional, but could still be important. My interview was done on Monday. Tuesday I e-mailed a thank you and was told they were making decisions at that moment. Received my acceptance on Wednesday.

Totally appropriate. Each person I interviewed with (Profs and students) I asked them to tell me, in their view, the greatest strength and greatest weakness of the program. They were all impressed with the question and happy to answer. This brings up an important point. Remember that YOU are interviewing THEM as much as they are interviewing you, which is why professors want to hear your questions. Are you just desperate to get into a PhD program, or are you really interested in each program on a personal level? Remember that certain things like mentor/mentee style play a major role in how you are going to do in the program, and you do not want to go to a school you get a bad vibe from from day one. Your working relationship with these people will last longer than most marriages. They need to know you can work well together, and that goes both ways.

For the actual interview, wear a suit. If you do not wear a suit you will be sorely under-dressed, even if the program is a "casual" program. My program is now VERY casual but during the actual interview, every single person wore a suit. For any of the social functions, I wore business casual but on the dressier end. Remember: you're constantly being interviewed during interview weekend. You need to make a good first impression. Also take into consideration things like weather. If you're interviewing somewhere that's normally snowy, dress appropriately. This includes (for ladies) wearing heels that have good traction on them. Before I interviewed, I went out and bought a good purse that could hold my portfolio and other interview essentials, a nice wool coat, and some nice blouses to go under my suit jacket. Even if you don't want to fork over the money right now, these are all worthwhile investments.

Careful about taking courses. One of the schools I got rejected from specifically stated that it's their policy that those who do not get in/are not enrolled may not take classes at the school.

For the love of all things holy, only use the "this is my top choice program" line at one place: your legitimate top choice. Do not tell multiple schools that because it will get you into a pickle, and it's not cute. Also, in terms of dress, definitely sway toward the more formal end, even at the graduate school potluck/happy hour/etc if they have one. Last year the grad students hosted a potluck and the invitation said "dress up casual." Could have sworn they said that just to see what people would wear. The term "casual" during interview weekends does not mean casual. One girl showed up wearing a t-shirt, jeans, and sneakers. That's a no-no.

When I interviewed I did so with three different faculty members and graduate students. In between I was in the bathroom, breathing and trying to remain calm and composed, because it's a longggg day. I suggest watching this: http://www.ted.com/talks/amy_cuddy_your_body_language_shapes_who_you_are?language=en I did power poses in between and it helped keep my sanity. Good luck!

Generally it's not a good idea to contact admin at this point about interviews unless you have something like the post above me that you absolutely have to change on your app (excepting changes to SOP, including update on if you have, say, a published paper). I've seen posts on here and other forums indicating that it may be a detriment to keep asking about your status and contacting the admin, as it's quite the burden to keep getting inundated with requests for updates when there are so many applicants.

I think once you get to the interview and get past it, that's what will weigh more and like others have posted you should avoid bringing attention to it. Just accept it for what it is and move forward.

That's true, but a good number of programs won't come through until January. My program's deadline was 12/1 and we haven't even discussed applications in lab meeting yet and won't look at them until after break.

Guys you should really take up a new hobby or something because it'll be a while. I got really into yoga around this time last year and started focusing on getting healthy. Trust me, you'll need it if/when you get back to school.

Hahaha, it won't make that much of a difference.

Depending on the application deadline and program it varies. Even within the program it varies from POI to POI, and all depends on when they sit down to look at applications. Generally, however, I don't think some places look at apps until after the holidays, send out invites mid-late January for interview weekends in February. Hope that helps. I think I mentioned this earlier but one way to gauge and tell if you have a "soft rejection" (you deduce from activity here, results page, etc. that you likely did not get an interview) when, for the schools who have their interview weekends posted, the interview is in a week or two and you haven't gotten an invite.