time_consume_me

I’m so sorry! I didn’t see this part of your message and I apologize for my rudeness. And belated thank you!!! 
I also got into Stanford, UMich, UCLA, and Duke, but I am accepting the Harvard offer. 

The fact that there still exist programs like this in the year of our lord two thousand and twenty...

Honestly, though, modern British history has been going this way for 20 years. The imperial turn is not new; it's almost now a baseline requirement to seriously engage in British studies. And it only takes one or two trips through the British studies conference program to see this in action. Nearly all the new up-and-coming scholars have some imperial/global angle or edge to their projects, if not projects entirely about the empire.
But I also think that a good advisor (certainly a hands-on advisor) won't let you design a project that's 20 years out of date using methods everyone's seen and done before. This goes for any field. It's one thing for a second or third year student to not yet know what is interesting/innovative/new in the field and what isn't. But your advisor does, and should step in before you spend five years on a project that's not going to get you anywhere professionally. Even if you really do want to study a topic that is not, in itself, On Trend, a good advisor should help you find a new angle or method for the topic that distinguishes it from the rest.
And not to mention that everything in academia snowballs, so a project that's designed to be compelling from the get-go will attract funding and grants, and funding and grants attract more funding and more grants, and more funding leads to a stronger project (because more time to research or write), and a stronger project backed by lots of research and institutional funding will lead to a stronger job market application... etc, etc.
Ah yes, the old "I'm a British historian and Britain had colonies in the Middle East so I'm obviously qualified for this Modern Middle East job!" switcheroo. The idea that British historians should respond to the job market crisis by applying to regional studies jobs has always struck me as somewhat neo-imperialist. 
 

For everyone still in a liminal state of not knowing, hang in there and at least try doing something you enjoy instead of being in nervous anticipation.  It does not change the application process unfortunately.  The academic gods decide, so have a good read, listen to good music, eat a good meal, watch a good flick, and engage in a great conversation with friends.  The best of luck for everyone still waiting to hear!   

Looks like UPenn is starting to send out emails, good luck everyone!

Accepted to University of Hawaii at Manoa!

I'm really hoping UPenn starts sending out news soon, they're probably the last big hurdle I'm facing right now, beyond the waitlists.

HEAL results went out last Thursday.

has anyone heard anything from harvard history of science? 

Not me! I like your username  

Harvard's EALC decisions (don't know about HEAL) are officially out next week, some applicants have been contacted already.
I've not heard anything one way or the other from Columbia, though, so it seems like not everyone are notified at the same time.

I just spoke to one of my POIs at NYU, and he told me that they're planning to take in a cohort of nine new students this year for the history department (down from their usual ten because they had a higher yield than expected last year). Apparently, four offers have already been sent to modern Europeanists, including me, and there may still be a fifth going out sometime soon. Unfortunately, I don't know anything about the other fields, but I hope that people find this information useful!

To piggyback @Sigaba's usual wise advice, I completely agree with the phone.  While we all can't stop checking our phones every two minutes or want to hide our nervousness behind the phone, having it out and being on it do send very strong signals to others.  We had an incoming grad student who literally couldn't keep her hands off her phone during visiting weekend andI tell you, no one bothered to interact with her from there on, even though she came in the fall.  My thought was, "So rude. Does she even care about being part of the program and getting to know us?"

Truly shocked I got into Michigan. I had totally lost all hope after my last rejection from Indiana Bloomington. Was late to work from getting sidetracked celebrating. 
Accepted for comparative genocide studies, US Native Americans and German Jews in contemporary society. 

I was accepted to Columbia with guaranteed campus housing for 5 years, which sounds like a pretty good deal. How is the grad student housing/the environment of the Morningside Heights area in general? If I’m in lab late and need to walk home, is it safe? (Petite female, if that makes a difference)

Yes
I wouldn't count on going to Princeton for a visit on their dime if you are waitlisted. I seriously doubt anyone would reject the offer before the visit in time for them to arrange your visit. 

Rejected by one of my top choices literally ten minutes before receiving an acceptance from my top choice! Incredibly happy and relieved! No more waking up at four in the morning to check my email!
 
Good luck to everyone still waiting! The wait absolutely sucks, go see a movie, take walks, be with nice people!

Students in the program brought up issues from their perspective, stuff the professors courting me either wouldn't say or wouldn't know about, and most of it came out in informal settings during prospie weekend. Funding packages are all well and good, but they're pretty meaningless when you don't know stuff like cost of living, what happens if you need an extra year, if the department will defer funding in your offer for a year if you get an external fellowship, what sort of support the department/university offers (for me, stuff like child care), if the insurance is just medical or includes dental/vision (maybe less important if you get one offer and it comes with just medical, but I had multiple offers with the full suite).
What's the department culture like (hard to tell from afar, you get a better sense of it after the prospective student events, usually when current grads take prospies out for beer at the end of the day)? Department tensions (for example, one program seemed to show a lot of preference for a particular field, the students in other fields couldn't hide their resentment. Some programs fully fund some students, only fund others term to term, which can also breed resentment)? How supportive/what are the advising styles of the professors you want on your committees and, importantly, how do the professors you're eyeing work together (need to talk to their grad students, think about what happens if there are specific people you NEED on a committee and they don't get along)? Do you not want to be one of two women in a cohort of 20 (this happened to one of my friends)? If the department offers grants for research/conferences, how do those shake out ("We offer grants each year" can translate to "we offer one grant to one student each year")? Common element: talking to grad students in informal settings. You may be able to achieve this over email/phone, but I didn't get nearly as much information from the grads hand-picked to talk me into attending each university as I did when out to beer with grad students during prospie weekend. Hope this helps!

Departments can/do/will hide attrition--ask students in 3rd year and above how many people were in their cohort when they started. Ask how funding has changed and how the department has handled it. Ask what kind of support there is when it comes to grants--personally, I cannot overstate how useful it has been to have substantial grant-writing workshops built into our requirements. Ask people what it's like to take exams (at schools where there appear to be regimented requirements around exams, ask around to find out if those are in fact more flexible--and ask if they're more flexible for some people than others [better to know this stuff now than to be overly optimistic]). Ask who's going to be the DGS in the coming years and work out how students feel about that prof. First years don't actually know much about the program but some will think they do (I realize this sounds harsh but I wish I'd had this word of warning before visits). Sometimes at a visit you will meet a lot of chuffed first years and it can be misleading, so try to talk to people across varying fields, in the various years. If there are social events then go to them and ask honest questions--grad school is a really weird job to commit to, and I strongly advise forgetting about your future dreams for a bit and asking what it's like, materially, spiritually, etc. (I like etc) to be in a given program--especially if you're going to move, leave a job, uproot your family...
 

This was my situation last year. @psstein's advice is solid and was the approach I took. I also asked the DGS if wait list students can visit campus to meet with professors, tour the campus, etc. I did it on my own dime, which is not possible in many cases, but feel very lucky and glad that it was an option for me. Regardless of whether it's in person at a campus visit or via email, express to your POI how and why your work fits well with University of Zed's strengths and how you're eager to pursue your research with them. 

Yes, it's how they fund their PhD programs ?

I'm very glad to hear that. I hope they also adjust their advising so that they can help these students carry out that plan.

As a Yale prof told a friend of mine when he was a prospective, "You know, John, New Haven - it's not as bad as people say."

That's because cohort sizes of 20 are quite frankly irresponsible.

Wow congrats! What a way to find out... I can't imagine.