Dark-Helmed

At some point, once the cycle's over and I know what I'm allowed to discuss publicly, I'll probably write something up with a few of my thoughts on the admissions process. For now, a quick thought following this point:

In admissions at my top 5 program, applications go through an initial round of review by two commitee members, after which we decide between those applications that have been recommended for admission independently by both members. This year, we had about 120 applications that were recommended for admission independently by two members of the committee, and have to narrow that down to less than 40 (probably closer to 30) to actually make offers to (which constitutes a substantial increase in the number of offers we intend to make this year relative to previous years). All that is to say that even if two commitee members really liked your application and thought you were good enough to enter the program, there is about a 75% chance we won't be able to make you an offer. So if it turns out we don't make you an offer, you really shouldn't take this as saying anything particularly harsh about your application, as things inevitably get a bit mercurial when we're at this stage.

Yes and no. 
 
An admissions notice is nice validation (I'm given to understand...), but, really, is just the entrance ticket to spending 5+ years striving and swimming in bigger and bigger ponds.  The admissions notice isn't validation of intellect or worth.
 
Personally, I had a crushing round last year: waitlist agony exacerbated by hard personal choices with the direction of my life.  Finally, the way out was to ask myself what, exactly, it is that I want out of having a phd (besides the letters, of course) and what kinds of steps I could take towards creating an emotionally acceptable substitute.
 
Do good, interesting, work and the rest will fall into place... eventually.
 
I'm happy to give out more details in PM, if you want.

Yes and no. 
 
An admissions notice is nice validation (I'm given to understand...), but, really, is just the entrance ticket to spending 5+ years striving and swimming in bigger and bigger ponds.  The admissions notice isn't validation of intellect or worth.
 
Personally, I had a crushing round last year: waitlist agony exacerbated by hard personal choices with the direction of my life.  Finally, the way out was to ask myself what, exactly, it is that I want out of having a phd (besides the letters, of course) and what kinds of steps I could take towards creating an emotionally acceptable substitute.
 
Do good, interesting, work and the rest will fall into place... eventually.
 
I'm happy to give out more details in PM, if you want.

This. An acceptance may confirm your quality as a student or academic, but it does not define it. There are simply too many variables. I imagine most of us will be facing the same anxiety in 5-6 years on the job market, which is even more competitive and even less indicative of your quality.

And I should point out that the column labeled 'Semester' indicates the first day of winter/spring classes for a given cycle+school. I used semester start dates to try to standardize across years, and make projections for this year.

I feel the same way... Speaking for myself, I think it's because last year I was chock full of naivete and unfounded confidence. This year, however, it's more like humility and fear bordering on paranoia. I know that silence early in the cycle translates to depressing notifications later on.
 
That said, it's still too early for any of us to be worried (about most schools, anyway). One or two more weeks, and the silence will start to take on more significance. Because I have wayyyyy too much time on my hands right now, I looked at the notifications over the last two cycles and made a weekly coding system (intentionally skewed to better reflect the schools to which I applied). Anxious anal-retention follows:
 
1/16 - 1/22: roaring success
1/23 - 1/29: fairly early
1/30 - 2/5: ramping up
2/6 - 2/12: critical mass
2/13 - 2/19: nearing danger
2/20 - 2/26: likely failure
2/27 - 3/5: epic failure
 
So, basically, I'm wigging out this year, and it helps tremendously to talk to other folks in similar straits.

I looked at the last two seasons of gradcafe results and found a decent number of weekend notifications, but essentially none in January. Gear up and go hiking!
 
    2012 2013 mean
jan   0    3   1.5
feb  74   76  75
mar  10   15  12.5
apr   5    2   3.5

In addition to the point about applicant pools that you raised above, I want to add that I wouldn't use that email as an indicator that it's time to worry about your Quant score.   My own quant was decent, but nothing to roll the red carpet out over.  
 
You/ your advisors/  the results of frenzied pre-application internet searches concluded that the score you had in December was good enough for your applications. That Columbia is looking to pad their revenue stream shouldn't undermine your confidence in two-months-ago you! 
 
For what it's worth, I did opt-in to the ETS search.

In addition to the point about applicant pools that you raised above, I want to add that I wouldn't use that email as an indicator that it's time to worry about your Quant score.   My own quant was decent, but nothing to roll the red carpet out over.  
 
You/ your advisors/  the results of frenzied pre-application internet searches concluded that the score you had in December was good enough for your applications. That Columbia is looking to pad their revenue stream shouldn't undermine your confidence in two-months-ago you! 
 
For what it's worth, I did opt-in to the ETS search.

In addition to the point about applicant pools that you raised above, I want to add that I wouldn't use that email as an indicator that it's time to worry about your Quant score.   My own quant was decent, but nothing to roll the red carpet out over.  
 
You/ your advisors/  the results of frenzied pre-application internet searches concluded that the score you had in December was good enough for your applications. That Columbia is looking to pad their revenue stream shouldn't undermine your confidence in two-months-ago you! 
 
For what it's worth, I did opt-in to the ETS search.

Congratulations!

Don't have anything to add about wine. However, my family has a snaps distillery (is that how you call it?). My alcoholic drinks of choice thus contain considerably more alcohol than your typical wine. We do also make our own liquor from home-distilled schnaps, which I love!
 
Regarding hearing back: It's still extremely early, I expect big things especially in the first Feb week.

I think the reason I've enjoyed it so much recently is because it's very simple. It's known for being less aromatic than, say, a Pinot Noir (by the way, a German Spätburgunder, particularly from the vineyards of Baden, comes highly recommended from this novice oenophile), but it's a very old grape with a rich heritage (its name comes from the Latin for blood of Jove, which I think is really cool).

I also got a mass email from Columbia for the Quant MA, despite not having applied to the program. My guess is that they're fishing from the ETS databases.

I'll happily and humbly claim one of the South Carolina admissions! Does anyone know the word on funding decisions yet? I want to call the grad advisor but don't want to deflate my current elation... I think I'll wait till Monday and take the weekend to just smile before getting ridiculously anxious again. 

I just dialed the graduate studies coordinator at UNC, who said the bulk of decisions likely will be made Feb. 10. The days keep getting longer and longer...

Seconded!
 
Also, <3 your new avatar.  Not only are there few situations that Elle Woods doesn't improve, but I keep hearing her chirp "what? like it's hard?" in reference to getting into grad school.  
 
Cue Captain Picard facepalm.

A little boost of Ellian confidence always helps.

POI: "You know, I've had second thoughts about Smith."
 
DGS: "Uhhhhhh...."

I think it has to do with admin workload.  Since we all apply online these days, they have our information in electronic files. From there, they can make "not-accept" the default setting for the files and only go and manually change the state for the ~30 or so applicants that are being accepted and waitlisted. 
Then they can automate the not-accepted notification for everyone else in the default state.
 
But it would be so nice!
 
(Incidentally, during previous traumatic application cycles, I decided to think of it "not accepted" instead of "rejected." Much more psychologically kind, and probably more accurate to the process as well.)

I wish there was a hard-and-fast answer to the question.  There is not.  It very much depends on where you're applying and what sort of punchline that you're selling about yourself. 
 
You have far more technical background than I did the first time I applied to grad school, and part of your itchiness stems from a lack of ignorance yielding a lack of bliss.  Even if you didn't mention it explicitly or talk about how you might like to build upon it, people will notice that you have good background.
 
Many of the undergraduates here are exposed to quite a bit of quantitative and theoretical stuff---I am shocked to see what kind of things are done in honors theses.  But, my sense is that this is very much the exception to the rule.  And you're right:  while these students are laudable for doing interesting things with some amount of technique, they certainly don't know it at the level we would expect of a graduate student, so there is a lot of re-learning (or just learning in much more depth).
 
I've never been on an adcom before.  My sense is that, while it may be nice to demonstrate that you know what you're getting yourself into in terms of the technique in the writing sample/SoP, it's much more important to demonstrate that you have brain waves.  Can you be critical, can you find an interesting question, can you place it into a scholarly conversation?  Can you craft a compelling answer to the question, regardless of the tools you use to do so?  Can you consider rival explanations to your answer and argue in favor of your own?  I think that, if you did all of these things well, you could get away with the page numbers being the only quantitative stuff involved.

Oh. That's much harder.  
 
Do you have a sense of who the departmental anti-children hardliners are so that you can start tilting your interactions towards members of the department who might be more receptive to letting their experience with you outweigh their perceptions?  Is there a support group for graduate student parents at your school? Probably some of the mothers there will have some good school-specific advice and resources.
 
There isn't all that much you can do: you'll probably want to keep the news under wraps for as long as possible and hope/expect that your established track record of excellence and continued professionalism will suffice. 
 
And, finally, congratulations!

Congratulationsish, child of 2.  Hershey's kisses can be pretty tasty, and, well, if we want to run with the metaphor: you often feel better after eating a few kisses than the huge cake. Fewer sunk costs in terms of your daily calorie allotment too.

yea I'm pretty sure admits have until COB on the 15th to notify or have letters post marked by. there will probably be a bit of a flurry in the next couple of days. this process is so close to being done!

Just got a call from the DGS!

ACCEPTED!

Fully funded! Hopkins!

So many exclamation points!!!!!!!!