Hey FastForward - sorry to hear you are experiencing the same silence I am...though mine was temporarily broken by rejections from two schools not mentioned in your post. This is nuts and I agree, oddly silent. From what I've heard there were a number of interviews this weekend so wait-listed notifications should start to wrap around now. Stay hopeful though, a once wait-listed Stanford grad student (now a post-doc!) I know didn't hear until mid-April! ? Stanford is awesome and I've heard great things about WashU, not much about the departments at Harvard or NYU though. I queried everyone I wanted to work with and spoke with almost all by phone or email before applications were due, NYU never responded along with Northwestern. A small percentage of professors do not communicate with prospectives until applications are in and offers are made, but they usually advise you of this rather than just not responding. I usually take that as a bad sign. I totally understand that they may not want to speak with the huge volume of students looking to work with them, but not responding is rude. Anyway...blah blah blah once again ?
Oh and Macque...I'm in the exact same boat...this is my third year applying and my sympathetic nervous system is shot, probably non-responsive now after three years of this. It almost starts to feel like you're blacklisted, though that sounds paranoid and delusional...lol. Yes, delusions of grandeur that these schools actually see us as people and not just their next inflated application fee payment. I'm really not as bitter as I sound ...fees just drive me nuts. I will say that the one thing I did differently this year was applying to 12 schools, not just a few like I've done in the past and contacted multiple professors within those programs that I would like to work with. The only downside is that I don't really have any 2nd or 3rd tier schools since those guys don't generally have the funding or resources to do the kind of research I'm interested in, which sucks.
Anyway, best of luck to you guys, hang in there! The avalanche is coming ?