Procopius

So I had two similar experiences at two different schools. At one school, my advisor was good friends with my poi there. He wanted to read my masters thesis before I applied and expressed great interest in my project. I felt confident and applied there, but I never got in. The poi who I had exchanged a lot of pleasant emails with didn’t even send me an explanation email. I will say however that before I applied he had mentioned that his school lacked a second professor with my particular interests who could help guide my project (he’s a French historian and I needed a Chinese historian who wasn’t there), but he encouraged me to apply anyway. So I think I didn’t get in probably because of fit.
At the other school, one of my mentors was really good friends with my poi there. In fact, at the first mention of my mentor my poi was instantly interested in me. Our interests were also extremely similar, so he thought I was a perfect fit for the school. Two months after I applied there, I got an interview request with him. We interviewed over Skype, and he was throughly impressed with our interview. At that point, I felt that this school was pretty much gonna be my top choice. Fast forward another month, and the school informed that I was waitlisted. I was pretty hurt and still am since it wasn’t that long ago. The poi personally emailed me and told me that I was their top candidate for my field and I still got beaten out. He said there was a possibility I could still get in and i tried to maintain my optimism. Ultimately I never made it out of the waitlist and they didn’t take one person in my sub field. I was really disappointed because the stars seemed to align for me so well and I still didn’t get in. I inquired to my poi why I wasnt admitted and he said it was just competition. I felt like politics or the numbers game may have factored in too, but I truly have no idea. 
@urbanhistorynerd my point is that even if a poi has great interest in you, you still need to deal with forces you can’t foresee. However, it’s still a terrific first step and it’s better to have someone fight for your application than to not have one. Do the very best you can on your applications and impress both that poi of yours and the committee. You have a tremendous shot here. 

So I had two similar experiences at two different schools. At one school, my advisor was good friends with my poi there. He wanted to read my masters thesis before I applied and expressed great interest in my project. I felt confident and applied there, but I never got in. The poi who I had exchanged a lot of pleasant emails with didn’t even send me an explanation email. I will say however that before I applied he had mentioned that his school lacked a second professor with my particular interests who could help guide my project (he’s a French historian and I needed a Chinese historian who wasn’t there), but he encouraged me to apply anyway. So I think I didn’t get in probably because of fit.
At the other school, one of my mentors was really good friends with my poi there. In fact, at the first mention of my mentor my poi was instantly interested in me. Our interests were also extremely similar, so he thought I was a perfect fit for the school. Two months after I applied there, I got an interview request with him. We interviewed over Skype, and he was throughly impressed with our interview. At that point, I felt that this school was pretty much gonna be my top choice. Fast forward another month, and the school informed that I was waitlisted. I was pretty hurt and still am since it wasn’t that long ago. The poi personally emailed me and told me that I was their top candidate for my field and I still got beaten out. He said there was a possibility I could still get in and i tried to maintain my optimism. Ultimately I never made it out of the waitlist and they didn’t take one person in my sub field. I was really disappointed because the stars seemed to align for me so well and I still didn’t get in. I inquired to my poi why I wasnt admitted and he said it was just competition. I felt like politics or the numbers game may have factored in too, but I truly have no idea. 
@urbanhistorynerd my point is that even if a poi has great interest in you, you still need to deal with forces you can’t foresee. However, it’s still a terrific first step and it’s better to have someone fight for your application than to not have one. Do the very best you can on your applications and impress both that poi of yours and the committee. You have a tremendous shot here. 

So I had two similar experiences at two different schools. At one school, my advisor was good friends with my poi there. He wanted to read my masters thesis before I applied and expressed great interest in my project. I felt confident and applied there, but I never got in. The poi who I had exchanged a lot of pleasant emails with didn’t even send me an explanation email. I will say however that before I applied he had mentioned that his school lacked a second professor with my particular interests who could help guide my project (he’s a French historian and I needed a Chinese historian who wasn’t there), but he encouraged me to apply anyway. So I think I didn’t get in probably because of fit.
At the other school, one of my mentors was really good friends with my poi there. In fact, at the first mention of my mentor my poi was instantly interested in me. Our interests were also extremely similar, so he thought I was a perfect fit for the school. Two months after I applied there, I got an interview request with him. We interviewed over Skype, and he was throughly impressed with our interview. At that point, I felt that this school was pretty much gonna be my top choice. Fast forward another month, and the school informed that I was waitlisted. I was pretty hurt and still am since it wasn’t that long ago. The poi personally emailed me and told me that I was their top candidate for my field and I still got beaten out. He said there was a possibility I could still get in and i tried to maintain my optimism. Ultimately I never made it out of the waitlist and they didn’t take one person in my sub field. I was really disappointed because the stars seemed to align for me so well and I still didn’t get in. I inquired to my poi why I wasnt admitted and he said it was just competition. I felt like politics or the numbers game may have factored in too, but I truly have no idea. 
@urbanhistorynerd my point is that even if a poi has great interest in you, you still need to deal with forces you can’t foresee. However, it’s still a terrific first step and it’s better to have someone fight for your application than to not have one. Do the very best you can on your applications and impress both that poi of yours and the committee. You have a tremendous shot here. 

So I had two similar experiences at two different schools. At one school, my advisor was good friends with my poi there. He wanted to read my masters thesis before I applied and expressed great interest in my project. I felt confident and applied there, but I never got in. The poi who I had exchanged a lot of pleasant emails with didn’t even send me an explanation email. I will say however that before I applied he had mentioned that his school lacked a second professor with my particular interests who could help guide my project (he’s a French historian and I needed a Chinese historian who wasn’t there), but he encouraged me to apply anyway. So I think I didn’t get in probably because of fit.
At the other school, one of my mentors was really good friends with my poi there. In fact, at the first mention of my mentor my poi was instantly interested in me. Our interests were also extremely similar, so he thought I was a perfect fit for the school. Two months after I applied there, I got an interview request with him. We interviewed over Skype, and he was throughly impressed with our interview. At that point, I felt that this school was pretty much gonna be my top choice. Fast forward another month, and the school informed that I was waitlisted. I was pretty hurt and still am since it wasn’t that long ago. The poi personally emailed me and told me that I was their top candidate for my field and I still got beaten out. He said there was a possibility I could still get in and i tried to maintain my optimism. Ultimately I never made it out of the waitlist and they didn’t take one person in my sub field. I was really disappointed because the stars seemed to align for me so well and I still didn’t get in. I inquired to my poi why I wasnt admitted and he said it was just competition. I felt like politics or the numbers game may have factored in too, but I truly have no idea. 
@urbanhistorynerd my point is that even if a poi has great interest in you, you still need to deal with forces you can’t foresee. However, it’s still a terrific first step and it’s better to have someone fight for your application than to not have one. Do the very best you can on your applications and impress both that poi of yours and the committee. You have a tremendous shot here. 

Choose your dissertation topic very wisely.  Make sure it's not you who will love it to death (you will) but it also excites other people especially tenured professors who review fellowship applications (especially at national level like ACLS, Fulbright, SSRC, etc.).  If you dissertation grabs money from external readers, that shows you have real potential to be a serious scholar.  It's nice to have a full fellowship package (especially from NYU and Princeton) but you can certainly overcome "the lack of placement" with external funding and publications.  Applying for external grants is a skill itself-- another one to put on your CV.

Remember, COL in California is ridiculously high.  Private schools can also afford to offer highly competitive stipends.  Public schools do not as some of its budget is constrained by the state legislatures (*cough*NC*cough*).

You should also consider ut Austin. They placed somebody into duke a couple years ago doing almost the same thing as you but from the Eastern European perspective. 

It takes a lot of money and time to admit you and support you in a PhD program. Knowingly accepting an offer that you will walk out from is not very professional. I agree with @BuckinghamRabbit that you need to think of why you need the MA and not the PhD. I don't think an MA is purposeless. On the contrary, many professions require "only" an MA in history, such as teaching, museum and archives, library service, etc. There is a lot you can do with the MA, do you know what you want to do?
When you know what you want to do (if you don't already), think of what you need to get of another program. I bet you will need letters of recommendation, correct? Do you picture yourself asking people to recommend you if you wasted their time and money? You need to be strategic money wise, because you don't want any more debt, but also professionally. 
That said, I know a lot of people that left the PhD program with an MA. I doubt they came knowing they were going to leave, but they are so much happier that I'm glad they did. Some left in good terms and some in not so good. All of them have jobs. 
To sum up, think of what job you want/need the MA for and then take it from there. 

Make sure the advisor you want to work for at UCLA is taking students for the year you’re applying to. I find that making sure there are advisors who would fight for your app at a particular school is paramount.

Received my Cornell decision in the form of an email that began with "Dear Applicant" and ended by wishing me "success in continuing your studies at another university."  I'm sure the disappointment played a part in this, but that didn't sit well with me.  Really, you couldn't have used software to at least plug in a name before sending me a form letter?  Even the spam emails I got from universities asking me to apply to their culinary/business/etc. programs after I took the GRE managed to handle that.  I recognize that I'm probably being oversensitive, but I'm still annoyed.
In any case, I'll be taking a vacation from these boards for a month or two while I hunt for a job and let my disappointment die down and then I'll be back to prepare for the next (and probably my last, regardless of how it goes) cycle.  Gonna apply to 6-8 schools this time around, which I would have done the first time if I hadn't been in such a time crunch.  Thanks to all of you for your info and encouragement over the past few months, and congrats to all of you who got into fantastic programs!