Caved

No word for me either, Kam, and my last name is early in the alphabet.

Happy to help, and thanks - I hope they get back to you with good news soon

If you've caved, does that mean I should try and be more hopeful?

Anyone interested in claiming the NWU acceptance off the waitlist? Any other info you'd be willing to share?

hopeful, I posted one of the BU MA acceptances. I heard from the DGS by email a couple days ago - I'd applied to the PhD, but was accepted to the MA with the implication that many/most of their PhD students come from their MA class. They're hosting accepted students in three weeks. She said I'd hear about funding sometime before April 15th. The email didn't say whether or not they'd completed acceptances, but it said their target class was 10-12 incoming MAs and 6-7 incoming PhDs. Good luck!

Don't feel bad in the slightest- enjoy every second of being the one doing the choosing for a change, on behalf of all of us. Take your time, weigh all of the funding possibilities and every offer, and don't rush on account of those waitlisted. Anyone who gets into the waitlist from one of the programs you've been accepted to will be ecstatic, whether it happens tomorrow or a month from now. Enjoy!

popstitute, I'm on the waitlist at a couple programs that you didn't apply to - would you be willing to slip a quick application in now, get accepted, and turn down the offer so I can get in off the waitlist? Just wondering... In all seriousness, congratulations on all of the success! Truly impressive.

As does mine. I mean, I've waited this long - I guess I can wait for the rejection for a little while longer.

Not to deliberately play devil's advocate (I'm bitter too, no worries), but if all the schools that have accepted and waitlisted people are, in fact, done doing so, then this should be considered an early notification from Penn, not a late one. I'm sitting on a pile of implicit rejections, and this notification, impersonal though it may be, makes Penn the first school I can officially scratch off my list. If this is the only notification rejected applicants will receive, that's cold. If not, then I appreciate knowing definitively before they got everything together for the mass rejection mailing/email. (Of course, does that refund the 80 dollars I spent applying, unaware they would be making only six offers? Welcome home, bitterness.)

Thank you for the informative post, keila. I'm still holding out hope for a few programs, but will most likely be reapplying in the next few years, and this is certainly good advice (a lot of it I can see I should have done myself this time around.)

I would second cleisthenes's comment. I asked the head of the PhD program at my undergrad institution about this, and though he didn't come right out and say that it would hurt your chances, he said that it was unnecessary and in his recent memory, none of the people who contacted faculty members had been the ones who received offers.

I'm not in exactly the same position (I've got one definite "maybe"!), but I feel your pain. I spoke to two of my referees yesterday, and both thought by my gloom and doom demeanor that I had already recieved multiple rejections. They both said that it is still very early in the season and they wouldn't have been surprised if no one had heard anything from any program until March. They also reiterated that offers often do not all arrive together (oftentimes due to things like university wide fellowship nominations, mentioned above), and that they have had students in the past hear good news much later than they expected. In other words, no news is good (miserable, painful, excruciating) news. Nothing to do but persevere.

Thanks for the info, strokeofmidnight. I had to reread that a couple times . . . a slightly larger class? That's almost, sorta . . . good news, right? Good luck to everyone.

Thanks for the info, Medievalmaniac. Just checked my Columbia applyyourself page, and it looks the same as it always has. Should I be looking somewhere else for my "status form"? Edit: Looked myself (...followed the instructions...), and I assume you mean Application Status Form under Downloadable Forms? My "At Department" line also now says "YES." I'm going to enjoy that "YES" for as long as it lasts . . . Only one or two more weeks until it changes to "Nice Try"! Good luck to all the Columbia applicants.

But if Penn had made it known they were only making five offers, they would have lost out on application fees from at least of few of their 700 hopefuls! Why would they want that? Good to know they're meeting on Thursday - I've been particularly looking forward to their rejection.