waltzforzizi

@waltzforzizi William and Mary would be a great school too to look at for PhD, UGA, BOston U, SUNY Albany, Penn State, umm I’m sure there are others too that would be possible. I know UMass Boston has an MA in historical archaeology 

I don't know a ton about archaeology but I can say that an acquaintance of mine is a first year PhD student at William and Mary and he does historical archaeology in West Africa .  He's really enjoyed the program so far, and has nothing but nice things to say about Williamsburg.  Take that as you will, but from what he's told me W&M is a great place to do Historical Archaeology.

I too have never heard of schools saying they won't accept LORs from schools if its been 5+ years since you graduated.  Are you applying to programs in the US?  If so you would be a nontraditional student, which basically means you aren't applying straight from undergrad and have work or military experience and are likely not in your early 20s.  Every program/field views nontraditional students differently.  It wouldn't hurt to reach out to some of your old professors and see if they would consider writing LORs for you, but keep your expectations low because its been awhile and you admit not being close with them or being the best student.  If you strike out there then think about others who can speak to your ability to handle academic work/research, stress/challenges, and your professionalism.  You can speak to the schools you are applying to about your circumstances and see what they are willing to accept, but keep in mind you may have to pitch them your own creative solutions. 
You don't say what field you're going into, but I'll share what I did if that helps.  I'm in Clinical Psychology and had been out of undergrad for over a decade.  I did a non research focused Master's and figured I could get all of my LORs from there.  Well thanks to unexpected pregnancies, sabbaticals, unplanned early retirement, and job transfers I could only get one LOR from there.  Thankfully I had volunteered at a research lab at another University and was able to get 2 others from supervisors there.  Some programs wanted a fourth LOR and I asked them if one from any of my community service projects (thankfully these were with populations related to my research interests) would work and they said ok.  

I applied to 15 programs (yeah, I'm crazy, but international students have shitty chances, so...), got interview invitation from Wisconsin Madison so far. Not my top choice, but still I'm happy like crazy. Though I see people getting calls from one of my top choices (UChicago) and it drives me crazy. WHY THEY DON'T CALL ME???

This is for future applicants, but I totally disagree with the "deadline" of 4 days.
I've reached out to people from top-notch anthro schools such as Berkeley, Stanford, UT Austin and so on. 
It took 2-3 months for my professors of interests to get back to me. Once they did, their emails contained a lot of text that was very thorough and detailed. They even apologized for taking so long to reply. Our communication afterward was consistent and still very informative and supportive. 
Professors are busy. Professors at big-name universities are especially busy. Just wait it out. If you're that worried, send a follow-up email. You will surely receive a faster response with an excuse or apology for the long wait. Another professor of interest took 4 LONG months to finally commit to an hour longs Skype session with me. Everyone is different, but I would say there is no rule of thumb. If you really care about the university and POI, just wait it out :).  I received no response from two professors at Berkekely, but one is currently the graduate chair, so yeah, haha.

@phyanth I had to cut one of my SOPs from 1400 to 1000 so I feel your pain. Ultimately I got it down to 995 and shed tears of joy haha. Don’t worry, you’ll get it. It also helps to have another pair of eyes on it to catch mistakes and extraneous wording. 
Last year when I applied, I had an interview in October and then one in December. This year, I’ve had interviews beginning mid November and had my most recent like a week ago. Brown told me that they would contact me after I submitted my application to set up a time to chat. 

Hey anthro applicants,
It's been approx. one month since programs began releasing decisions and I decided to compile data over that time period to have a look at where we are:
Submitted decisions as of 2/6/2017: 98
Accepted: 41 (42%)
Denied 57 (58%)
Only three major programs appear to be completely finished with admissions, and boy was it rough:
Brown (1/16 admitted)
Princeton (2/11 admitted)
UCSB (1/9 admitted)
Many other programs seem to have admitted their top candidates (e.g. Berkeley, Oxford, UCLA), but are waiting to see how the wait list process goes. Hold your fingers. Here's the rest of the data:
School Date Accepted? Alabama 12/6/2016 Y Alabama 1/24/2017 Y ASU 1/20/2017 Y ASU 1/27/2017 Y ASU 1/28/2017 Y ASU 1/28/2017 Y ASU 2/3/2017 Y Berkeley 1/30/2017 Y Berkeley 1/31/2017 Y Berkeley 1/31/2017 Y Brown 2/3/2017 N Brown 2/3/2017 N Brown 2/3/2017 N Brown 2/3/2017 N Brown 2/3/2017 N Brown 2/3/2017 N Brown 2/3/2017 N Brown 2/3/2017 N Brown 2/3/2017 N Brown 2/3/2017 N Brown 2/3/2017 N Brown 2/3/2017 N Brown 2/4/2017 N Brown 2/4/2017 N Brown 2/4/2017 N Brown 2/1/2017 Y Cambridge 12/16/2016 N Duke 2/6/2017 N Emory 1/24/2017 N Emory 1/25/2017 N Emory 1/25/2017 N Emory 1/25/2017 N Emory 1/25/2017 N Illinois 1/20/2017 N Illinois 1/20/2017 N Illinois 1/25/2017 Y Indiana 1/30/2017 N Indiana 1/30/2017 N Inidana 2/6/2017 Y Iowa 1/28/2017 Y Maynooth 12/14/2016 Y Michigan State 1/13/2017 Y Minnesota 1/23/2017 Y Missouri 2/5/2017 N North Carolina 1/28/2017 N North Carolina 1/23/2017 Y North Carolina 1/25/2017 Y Notre Dame 1/10/2017 N Notre Dame 1/12/2017 N Notre Dame 1/18/2017 N Oregon 1/23/2017 N Oregon 1/23/2017 N Oregon 1/23/2017 N Oregon 1/24/2017 N Oregon State 2/3/2017 N Oxford 1/31/2017 Y Oxford 1/31/2017 Y Oxford 1/31/2017 Y Princeton 2/3/2017 N Princeton 2/3/2017 N Princeton 2/3/2017 N Princeton 2/3/2017 N Princeton 2/3/2017 N Princeton 2/3/2017 N Princeton 2/3/2017 N Princeton 2/3/2017 N Princeton 2/3/2017 N Princeton 2/2/2017 Y Princeton 2/2/2017 Y Purdue 1/25/2017 Y SMU 1/27/2017 N SUNY Albany 2/5/2017 Y Syracuse 1/31/2017 Y Texas 1/31/2017 Y Texas State 2/6/2017 Y Toronto  1/27/2017 N Toronto  1/30/2017 Y Toronto  2/2/2017 Y U Conn 2/3/2017 Y UC Davis 1/31/2017 Y UC Davis 2/3/2017 Y UC Davis 2/3/2017 Y UCLA 1/27/2017 Y UCLA 1/27/2017 Y UCLA 2/2/2017 Y UCLA 2/4/2017 Y UCSB 1/18/2017 N UCSB 1/18/2017 N UCSB 1/18/2017 N UCSB 1/19/2017 N UCSB 1/19/2017 N UCSB 1/19/2017 N UCSB 1/19/2017 N UCSB 1/28/2017 N UCSB 1/19/2017 Y WashU 1/17/2017 N Wisconsin 2/2/2017 Y Wyoming 12/22/2016 N

Hello everyone,
As a form of procrastination I kept track of the anthro program results this year in an excel file. Here are some interesting things I found:
- # of anthro submitted decisions = 490
- # of acceptances = 196 (40%)
- # of rejections = 294 (60%)
- # of programs represented = 109
- Top 10 most applied to programs (# of decisions in parentheses): 1. Michigan (24), 2. Brown (19), 2. Harvard (19), 4. UC Berkeley (18), 5. Toronto (17), 6. NYU (16), 6. Stanford (16), 8. Oxford (14), 9. Princeton (13), 9. UCLA (13)
- Top 10 most selective programs (% admitted, at least 5 submitted decisions): 1. Chicago (0%), 2. Brown (5%), 3. Stanford (6%), 4. Cornell (9%), 5. UC Santa Barbara (11%),  6. NYU (12%), 7. Princeton (15%), 8. Emory (17%), 8. SUNY Stony Brook (17%), 8. Notre Dame (17%)
- Top 10 most selective programs (% admitted, at least 10 submitted decisions): 1. Chicago (0%), 2. Brown (5%), 3. Stanford (6%), 4. Cornell (9%), 5. NYU (12%), 6. Princeton (15%), 7. Michigan (20%), 8. Harvard (21%), 9. Columbia (25%), 10. UC Berkeley (27%)
- February is when the action happens. The vast majority of decisions are made in this month, with many fewer in January and March: 

-I attached the excel file if anyone else wants to play around with the numbers
-As a word of caution, I have no background in statistics and have no idea how the Grad Cafe data relate to the true amount of applications each school received. This is meant to just be a rough idea as to how the application season went and should not be taken seriously. I hope it might help people who apply next year have an idea as to which schools are popular and when schools release their results.
grad school national results.xlsx