kdilks

Not getting anything at this point doesn't necessarily mean you're out. I talked with the graduate chair at my school about this a few days ago. He said (at least here) the first round is obvious admits that are going to get in lots of places, and they only expect maybe one out of ten to actually enroll. I'd imagine responding earlier to these types of top applicants makes them more likely to enroll. Once they start to get idea of how many of those people are going to enroll, then they work their way down the list. He also mentioned that occasionally smaller private schools can be more sporadic in their acceptances, because instead of having a graduate chair/committee focusing on admissions, they'll just give your application to professors in your preferred research area. Chicago might be out of the picture (I think they generally get most of their admissions done in one wave), but I'd still hold out hope for Berkeley and Cornell.

Depends on what you mean by "well funded". Do you mean at least getting a basic level of funding with a TAship/otherwise? Most top schools won't accept a student if they can't provide that, but generally no matter where you are the basic level is barely enough to live off of. I think of "well funded" as getting offered significantly more than the minimum level. Apparently my friend got a fellowship offer to one school that was for about twice as much as the standard TA position.

I mean, if you've got every monkey in the world working on their applications day and night, a couple of them are bound to come up with the perfect SOP eventually...

I'm just waiting for the next issue of Advances in Applied Mathematics to come out...

Actually, I think I'd check this site at least an order of magnitude less if that link didn't make it so convenient....sigh.

"Congratulations on compiling a very impressive record. However, due to heavy competition and limited space, we regret to inform you that we are unable to make an offer for admission."

If it makes you feel any better, the other day my teacher was talking about when he was studying for the GRE verbal section, "because he was over in Europe, and he didn't have anybody to tell him it was worthless". He was talking about how difficult it was to do the analogy section because he only knew maybe 3 of the 10 words listed . I have a feeling you did better than him, and he still managed to get into Princeton, so you should be fine...