silver_lining

They say that every year.  The fact that admissions is "very competitive" is mentioned on every website. 

It would be nice to hear "The applicants are weak this year. Get ready for acceptance." 

They say that every year.  The fact that admissions is "very competitive" is mentioned on every website. 

It would be nice to hear "The applicants are weak this year. Get ready for acceptance." 

I wish each school would just set a date for when they will announce results and let us know. This would decrease the number of times I refresh the gradcafe results page and possibly prevent my lack of productivity. 

Hit the nail on the head! 
We do get different versions of 
 
1. greatest number of applicants 
2. most competitive year
3. strongest application pool 
4. Xtremely competitive 
 
The point is. If you are good and they like you, you will get picked, regardless of whether there are 100, 500 or 1000 applicants (and vice versa) 
I wouldnt be too concerned about the nature of competition as phrased by the schools...
After all, it is one of their marketing strategies. 

They say that every year.  The fact that admissions is "very competitive" is mentioned on every website. 

It would be nice to hear "The applicants are weak this year. Get ready for acceptance." 

They say that every year.  The fact that admissions is "very competitive" is mentioned on every website. 

It would be nice to hear "The applicants are weak this year. Get ready for acceptance." 

They say that every year.  The fact that admissions is "very competitive" is mentioned on every website. 

It would be nice to hear "The applicants are weak this year. Get ready for acceptance." 

They say that every year.  The fact that admissions is "very competitive" is mentioned on every website. 

It would be nice to hear "The applicants are weak this year. Get ready for acceptance." 

They say that every year.  The fact that admissions is "very competitive" is mentioned on every website. 

It would be nice to hear "The applicants are weak this year. Get ready for acceptance." 

I have not, but I have committed some details to memory. For example, Stanford's stipend is BIG. Wisconsin's stipend is small. Do stipends vary much from year to year and from student to student?

I wish each school would just set a date for when they will announce results and let us know. This would decrease the number of times I refresh the gradcafe results page and possibly prevent my lack of productivity. 

Guys and gals... it is January 21st. Before we totally destroy our innards, let's save this conversation for late March. Thinking about failure before receiving a single decision is bad karma. 
 
Also this year, everyone is getting in somewhere. I asked Oprah. 
 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XcI-rHO0yko

Between working full time and going to school full time I can definitely say I'm more the type that fits exercise into my day. I stopped being able to afford the $60+ per month gym ages ago. So now I'm the person who very rarely takes the elevator. I take the stairs, I walk to someones desk instead of email/im, I walk on my breaks, I park far and walk, and I live in a walkable neighborhood so I can drive less to resources. I have a list of low cost yoga classes that I drop in when I can, otherwise I do the poses at home. I go also walking/hiking with family and friends. Now I do miss the gym with all of the fitness classes and just the sense of not exercising alone. With all these $20 per month gyms popping up and they have great classes I'll see if there's room in my budget for that.

How do people not use towels?!? With the humidity here it's pretty much impossible. I would never be dry. I can be out if a pool for like an hour and still be very damp.

Anecdotally, I'd say Harvard and Stanford are likely to have the highest yield. Michigan's had plenty of success getting people with offers at Yale, Berkeley, Princeton, and we've had some applicants (though fewer) turn down Stanford for us, but I can't think of anyone I know who turned down Harvard for us. In terms of people who've turned us down, it's almost universally people with other offers from the top-6: my year, I think we lost one to Harvard, three to Stanford, three to Princeton, one to Yale, one to Berkeley, and one to Illinois (I imagine for idiosyncratic reasons). From what I recall from the visit weekend, Rochester had at least one person who turned down Harvard for them, so it does happen, particularly with places that are more specialized. For the record though, our yield rate has generally been above 50%, and I'd be surprised if Stanford's wasn't a bit higher.

I feel your pain.  This almost happened to me, until a week prior to the deadline I realized that the school wanted official transcripts NOW, not just when they accept me.
 
My suggestion:  Do not give up!.  Write a detailed cover letter explaining yourself - this is an honest oversight and many schools have conflicting policies and worse their status page did not provide you any information.  If possible, include a screenshot to prove that the status page online only showed info for GRE, LORs, etc but not transcripts.  Have the official transcripts couriered to the school TODAY and indicate this has been done in the cover letter.  In the cover letter appeal that they evaluate your application and accept/reject you on the merits of your application and not on the technicalities of official/unofficial transcripts.  After all, the official transcripts  can be confirmed match exactly the unofficial transcripts you previously sent them.  Send the cover letter also by courier (FedEx, DHL, UPS) to the DGS, Chair of AdComm (if you know their name) and the Department Chair.
 
I wish you success!
 
P.S. You said: "I have a crisis that I'm pretty sure won't be resolved positively".  This is the  wrong attitude.
  STAY POSITIVE.

We appear to have a massively lame troll this year. Harvard acceptance? I highly doubt that. The University of San Diego doesn't even have a PhD program according to their website. 

A 450 in verbal is low. That's really low. I mean atleast a 500 would look good. But 450..sheeesh

Your fortune cookie just compelled you to kill. That's troubling.

COACHRJC PLEASE INCREASE THE NUMBER OF ADMITS

In an "informal interview" like the ones OSU has done this year (though as I understand it - and I'm not an OSU applicant - this is more of a preliminary recruitment/getting to know you process in OSU's case, no?), what would be the types of things the interviewer might be looking for (positive and negative)? If a University has granted an interview, are they at this point gauging student interest, seriousness, etc. or might it be the make or break of the application?

While it hasn't come up too much in this thread. it looks like Rochester will not be making decisions this week.  Sounds like a slightly bigger pile than usual (though the pile is never very big relative to competitors).
 
Anyway, one less thing to gnash teeth about.  OH DEAR GOD LET ME GET INTO ROCHESTER SO THAT I CAN ENJOY COACHRJC'S WONDERFUL COMPANY AND ROCHESTER'S WONDERFUL WEATHER.

Professor Nooruddin last year:  "Do we assign weights to the probabilities a given admit will come (i.e., do we have models of the yield?)? Of course, we do. But top departments believe they can compete and do."

Just wondering, how can admissions committees tell if someone is likely to come or not?

I ended up taking RWBG's advice for calculating probability. Nothing exciting, really. Just common sense. The probability increases greatly from 5 to 10 schools, but little is gained from 20 to 25 (depending on your assumptions of X). The ideal number is around 15 (assuming X = .1 or .2). 

*I have decided to not post the chart. I do not want to lead someone on to thinking that if they apply to Y number of schools they will be accepted somewhere. There are lots of variables that I cannot account for like Professor Snodgrass being swamped with work already. Also, luckyducky does not want to be cited for years to come on gradcafe. 

It's not so bad