praxis34

emails from POI and the department

Grad school has approved admits; expect formal notification by early next week.

Harvard admissions were sent out on this date last year... Has anyone heard anything from them?

For those who like looking at graphs. Wanted to cross-post something from the "Waiting It Out" forum for those who tend to only frequent the History threads.   
@there_is_a_wait_so_long  created graphs using gradcafe data which include :
Decision timeline as a cumulative sum of decisions (accept, reject, interview, waitlist) as a function of time between Jan 1 and May 1 for the last five years combined. Boxplots of GRE Q and GRE V for people who reported both scores. Histogram of GPAs (from 2.5 to 4.0 with 0.1 step).
  Link here: https://imgur.com/a/lXdLe

Source:
 

Hey! I am also one of the UVA admits. It is my second application cycle. Last year I've been interviewed by three schools but wasn't that lucky. My concentration -in broadest terms- is the 19th century global history with an emphasis on the political-economic questions in the history of capitalism. I am not an Americanist, but my research has a potential to explore some historical connections among the North America, Britain, and the Middle East. 

Hey! I am also one of the UVA admits. It is my second application cycle. Last year I've been interviewed by three schools but wasn't that lucky. My concentration -in broadest terms- is the 19th century global history with an emphasis on the political-economic questions in the history of capitalism. I am not an Americanist, but my research has a potential to explore some historical connections among the North America, Britain, and the Middle East. 

The short answer is that it means they like you, a lot. 
If they were lukewarm about your application, they wouldn't bother with calling you. They really would not. I had a really similar experience to yours —  a potential advisor saw my application, turned around and wrote to one of my recommenders (who he knew) and asked if I was a "serious" applicant. Would I actually go if accepted? Etc. It didn't help, in my case, that I hadn't written beforehand, so essentially I came from nowhere with no lead-up, fueling the question of my being "serious."  But this is precisely my point. The POI liked my application enough that he was curious about it and about me. So that's the first and very concrete thing. They're trying to feel you out. 
The longer and more speculative answer is that they are worried you will go somewhere else. Let me be clear that this is truly speculation, based off this experience & others. But one thing that is clear to me is that schools want the best students as much as students want the best schools, and they have a good idea of what schools they can compete with and what ones they can't. So I suspect it is that they want to admit you, only they think you are a strong enough applicant that you will probably have other offers, and they don't want to give up a slot on someone who only thinks of UCLA as their "backup" choice. What makes me think this is that they don't have a waitlist, which means that the pressure is on to admit quality students who will actually come to the program. I'm not remotely familiar with UCLA's program, but I wouldn't be surprised if they continually lost out applicants to the same couple schools and are hoping you're not going to be in that number. 
FWIW I think your response was fine. The "needing to commit" part is a little strong language, but it's coming from your potential advisor and not the admissions director which lessens it a bit. I remember responding much like you did, trying to give myself room in case I wanted to go somewhere else (but knowing I probably wouldn't because this was my top choice), feeling really nervous in case I was too equivocal and I was accepted — I think so long as you didn't blow them off completely, or made it sound like you had your heart set somewhere else, you're fine. 

My timezone is EST + 7.
Sometimes I sleep with the phone on my face.

The decisions at Brown have been approved by the department and are waiting upon final approval from the grad school.
It will all be over soon 

Hey guys! Few hours ago I had a short conversation (over phone) with my POI at Stanford about my application. It was more about my proposal and methodological issues. General tone was encouraging and supportive but he did not mean that the department finalized its decisions and the call does not imply anything for sure. My impression is that probably all sub-fields are very close to decide on the names to be sent to the admission committee, or something like that. It seems they are going to release the decisions in two or three weeks at most, which is consistent with the previous years. 
 

Hey everyone, reporting back regarding my NYU interview. It seemed pretty standard in the sense that the professor talked a bit about his own work, asked me a little more about mine, and then did the whole sales pitch of the department. It did seem like no decisions were set in stone yet though , so to the others who applied- do not despair!