Emails to the 5 remaining schools that have treated me with total silence and got unofficial rejections from SUNY Buffalo ( but not care to change my status on the website , as if a "Not Reviewed" is so much better for my nerves) and from UC Davis (for PhD in Comparative Lit.; no show on the website either).
So far no noise coming from Vanderbilt, UVA and Maryland. A cohort of 7 + is what I heard from Vanderbilt earlier this application season. I still hold out hope for UVA and Maryland, but I have to stop kidding myself over Vanderbilt. March basically is, as far as I know, its Month of Rejection, a massacre preferred over stray kill, the beauty of streamlining.
But why the silence treatment still when I am desperate enough to urge a direct response? because they have a protocol (for rejection) to follow?