AnotherKantFan

I disagree about the importance of highly attractive funding packages.  If you are really serious about making a career in academia, then you should attend the school that is best positioned to give you the best academic experience for your area of specialization and frankly the best letters of recommendation and credentials you can possibly get when it comes to going out on the market.   Those letters will make a huge difference for you!  The market is so absurd right now that really the only people with good to decent chances of jobs are those coming out of T10-15 schools.  It's just not worth it to take a couple thousand dollars more for the sake of creature comforts in your grad school school years when the school you go to plays such a huge role in whether your dossier gets reviewed in job applications.   Of course, if you can't actually live on the funding offered, or you have a child you are rearing, that is certainly something to consider.  But usually decent programs offer funding that is enough to make it by on (or better) in the location the university is located.  That's my 2 cents.

In reply to SamStone's question:   I have no specific info on Johns Hopkins per se, but the unfortunate answer is that it seems that not everyone who lurks around on GradCafe to check results necessarily shares their own results.  So we are not getting a complete picture of the whole acceptance/wait-list situation.  So there are likely to be a number of JH acceptances that have not posted their acceptance.
Also, I am familiar with at least two methods departments use to make decisions:   
(1) They have X number slots available, but they make roughly 2X admission offers, on the idea that they will get around the right number of people to accept their offers as they have slots available.  They have a wait-list, but the wait-list is already fairly disadvantaged and perhaps they don't notify those people what their status is unless they have to.
Method 2)   They make offers to their top choice applicants and send out wait-list notifications at that time, see who bites, then start making offers in a second round after they get some people who decline.   But-- and here is the sticky situation that I was in several years ago-- they do not always tell all wait-listed people that they actually have been wait-listed.   They just simply keep them in limbo in case they have to go that far back before getting a bite.   I was finally made an offer 5 days short of April 15 the year I got admitted to my PhD program.   I had no idea I had been wait-listed because I had never heard a thing from the school that eventually made an offer to me.  And I was also in that very same situation at another school as well, and they weren't able to make an offer till AFTER April 15!.  
Also, many departments divvy up the slots they have according to area of interest.  They want to bring in a class of people that represent all the different areas in the field, rather than pick just the absolute top applicants.  This way they don't end up with, e.g., all M&E people and then make their ethics and philosophy of language faculty ticked off for not bringing in students for them to work with.  So if you get wait-listed at various places, you gotta hope that the correct applicants (the one's in your AOI) decline their offers, because that is the wait-list line you are in.   And that's why it's extremely difficult to gauge your chances based on the postings here on GradCafe.  You rarely can tell most people's AOIs since most of the Results posters are not forum participants and many people are not even posting in the Results.   
If you don't hear ANYTHING from certain schools you applied to by mid-March, I would suspect you are on one of those wait-lists where they haven't yet told you that you're wait-listed.   Unless it's a big bureaucratically run school like U of Arizona.   I didn't hear a thing from them till like June, when I finally got not one but TWO rejection letters from them!  I don't think I was ever wait-listed there.  I think Arizona is just extremely inefficient about sending out rejections.  So, moral of the story:  call the department if you haven't heard anything in what seems like a reasonable time to hear something.   Especially if you are holding onto acceptances while waiting to hear from a school you really have your heart set on.
The unfortunate reality is that this whole application season game actually really does play out all the way to the very last minute, with tons of people making their decisions in the very last week and triggering a cascade of wait-listers to move up a notch, and with many departments having to dig back several people down the line on their waitlists before they get a person to accept their offer.   It's agonizing and brutal.  
 

I don't want to use the "there are starving children in Africa" trope, but this is basically what it is, man. 
 
It hurts to get rejected, even after getting accepted somewhere, obviously. But it's going to keep happening, and it's something we have to get used to. We aren't all little messiahs, as much as I'd like to convince myself otherwise. Some people are really just going to think we're not all that. Maybe that's part of the messiah thing, come to think of it. 
 
I think that what's rubbing people the wrong way is that your posts are making you seem impervious to other peoples' struggles to get even this far. And it may have been difficult for you too, and it likely has been, but it's difficult to see that when you imply that having to study at Cornell was you settling for less that what you thought you deserved. Meanwhile, a whole chunk of us would have never even dreamed of going to a place like that. And Harvard, man. I'd be so damned proud of myself. Nobody in my family knows any of the schools I've gotten into. Hell, they don't even know what a PhD is. They don't even know what philosophy is, really. I had one family member ask me if that meant I was going to work in a hospital with my mom. But even if they don't all know that, they know that Harvard means you're worth something. You should seriously be proud of that. When I got the news from Stony Brook, I was in my aunt's house in Colombia (they're poor as hell and haven't ever even left Medellin) my cousins asked me if I had applied to Harvard and when I'd be hearing back from them.   
 
My best friend who is the smartest person I've ever met, by far, and probably the biggest reason I've even gotten this far, had so much shit going on during this application season that he probably won't get into the one place he applied to, and he was only able to apply there because there was no application fee. When we complain, we probably sound like we're fishing for compliments to people like him. You got into a school most people dream about AND, most importantly, YOU took THEIR spot. They shouldn't have to console you or feel like they have to console you.
 
But yeah, I do think you're allowed to vent. I myself am feeling a straight panic right now and disdain and contempt, even. I feel like a spoiled bitch, to be honest, and I don't even remember what possessed me to go into a discipline that would turn down so many willing and able devotees. I'm confused and I want time to just stop for a little bit. And I can go on and on and fill whole threads about it. But, again, how can I ask anyone to console me when I'm in such an enviable position? You shouldn't change what you're feeling if what you're feeling is hurt or rejected. You're allowed to feel that way and forcing yourself to feel any other way is dishonest. It isn't that you don't have problems, but you wouldn't go into a leper colony and complain about your sore throat, even though sore throats can hurt like hell. 
 
I've already gotten my lashings worth from people who have told me I have nothing to complain about, even though I truly feel hurt, so don't take this the wrong way. I'm meaning all of this in the friendliest way possible. I'm sure that there are plenty of people who have gotten accepted to multiple programs who feel similarly rejected and hurt. But I think that's part of all of this. At least I'm hoping so. 

Apply to schools that are varied ranking-wise, not just to the ones you think you can get into - often, I've found already several times in my life, better programs might accept you while worse programs will not. 

Claiming the Johns Hopkins acceptance.  

This suggestion is probably only marginally helpful but--if you book a round trip ticket for a large enough window to fit all your visits in, you can then book much less expensive domestic flights between schools in that window. You might even be able to keep staying with grad students or something between visits? idk.  For the domestic flights, airlines like Southwest have no change fees, so if you need to rearrange things after you get more news, you can.  Also there are websites with student discounts on tickets, like studentuniverse.com. 
Congrats on your good (though understandably frustrating in another sense) problem to be having!!

Claiming the Johns Hopkins acceptance.  

Claiming the Johns Hopkins acceptance.  

Claiming the Johns Hopkins acceptance.  

Publishing! Especially academic publishing. For example, [The-University-I-Didn't-Get-Into] Press.

Waitlisted at Cornell too, but will be turning them down - good luck to everyone else on the waitlist!  

Waitlisted at Cornell too, but will be turning them down - good luck to everyone else on the waitlist!  

I know what you mean and I think a lot of us are feeling this. It's hard to be happy with what we have because there's something better (or simply something else) that is right around the corner. I know a lot of us are feeling that even with schools we would prefer less than some schools we're already in. 
I'm not exactly sure what the best advice here is. Look at what you have. Start researching those schools again and remind yourself of how amazing it is that you've gotten in. Get excited again about getting the chance to fly out.
I missed a call from one of my schools and got a really sweet voicemail. I still have the voicemail saved and listen to it again when I start feeling greedy and anxious. Maybe this can help you stop stalking your phone because if you get that voice message you might be able to listen again and again at a POI or DGS saying they have good news to give you. 
Reread an email you got and get excited and dance around again and go buy yourself a steak or something and really celebrate the fact that you did it. 
I know that not all of this will work and that maybe none of it will, but try to find a way to get excited again for just a moment. 
Even posting again on TGC Acceptance forum and say, "guess what? I got into DUKE and WOOOOOODLOOOO!!!" People will be excited for you again and that'll feel good. 

I'm hoping it means that they'll just continue sending out lots of acceptances.

Actually, I'm v. disappointed that prof. Boyle is leaving Harvard for Chicago (official news since Jan). That reduces the number of Kantian scholars at H. by 50%...

Me perusing the admission results page every five minutes in hopes of an update on, well, anything from, well, anywhere.

I'm sure that the accepted list is full of Humeans.

Don't lose heart over being waitlisted, then! My writing sample is on Kant's philosophy of mind, and I was accepted off of it. I'm 99.9% certain I'll turn down their offer for Pitt, so I might be your only roadblock to an acceptance!! I'll make my decision around March 20 after visiting Pitt. I wish I could free up more than one space for everybody 

Hi! I am also claiming one of the Yale waitlists!
@kantbook - yay for Kantians at Yale!

Thanks so much! I found a onesie that I'm going to put on him that says "World's Greatest Philosopher*" with small print reading "*Depending on your definition of 'world,' 'greatest,' and 'philosopher.'" I can't wait!

Where's that end-of-the-day boom we were all expecting?

I got a phone call from Yale an hour ago or so (I had to calm down some before coming on here as I was actually hyperventilating at some point. But !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!). I've still not quite recovered. This has to be one of the happiest moments of my life, if not the happiest one. (And that after I spent most of yesterday utterly depressed and heart-broken about a presumed rejection from them.)