Haael

Me neither. My friend and I both haven't heard back from the program. However, he called the director of the program today and was told that some cohorts have already reached out to applicants for interviews. Made us worry...

I'm with Hk328 on thinking that these deferments are for very special circumstances (and most likely relationships are not one of them, sry). Since this is something that they expect applicants to have in mind (family distance, relationships, etc), I don't believe a committee will give defer on such grounds, so ultimately it is up to you to decide.
There are some questions that you may ask yourself to find out where your feelings and motivation are (at least I considered these before making a decision):
-  if suddenly you find yourself without your partner after rejecting an offer (for any reason), do you think you would be happy with your decision?
- is the presence of your partner essential for you to succeed in your studies? usually, the first years are brutal and you don't have much time anyway
- do you think s/he would do the same for you?
- if you are rejected for asking a deferral, how do you think you would feel? 
- if you receive an offer and not get the deferral, decide to maintain your relationship and reject the offer, but next year you don't get an offer and your partner gets one, how do you think you would feel?
- if you don't apply (or enter) now, what are your plans to still be competitive for the next applications round?
- If ten years from now you are either 1) with this partner but without dream degree OR 2) with dream degree but without this partner, which one would you choose?
Don't need to answer here, those are just to help you to think about the situation.

I'm with Hk328 on thinking that these deferments are for very special circumstances (and most likely relationships are not one of them, sry). Since this is something that they expect applicants to have in mind (family distance, relationships, etc), I don't believe a committee will give defer on such grounds, so ultimately it is up to you to decide.
There are some questions that you may ask yourself to find out where your feelings and motivation are (at least I considered these before making a decision):
-  if suddenly you find yourself without your partner after rejecting an offer (for any reason), do you think you would be happy with your decision?
- is the presence of your partner essential for you to succeed in your studies? usually, the first years are brutal and you don't have much time anyway
- do you think s/he would do the same for you?
- if you are rejected for asking a deferral, how do you think you would feel? 
- if you receive an offer and not get the deferral, decide to maintain your relationship and reject the offer, but next year you don't get an offer and your partner gets one, how do you think you would feel?
- if you don't apply (or enter) now, what are your plans to still be competitive for the next applications round?
- If ten years from now you are either 1) with this partner but without dream degree OR 2) with dream degree but without this partner, which one would you choose?
Don't need to answer here, those are just to help you to think about the situation.

I'm with Hk328 on thinking that these deferments are for very special circumstances (and most likely relationships are not one of them, sry). Since this is something that they expect applicants to have in mind (family distance, relationships, etc), I don't believe a committee will give defer on such grounds, so ultimately it is up to you to decide.
There are some questions that you may ask yourself to find out where your feelings and motivation are (at least I considered these before making a decision):
-  if suddenly you find yourself without your partner after rejecting an offer (for any reason), do you think you would be happy with your decision?
- is the presence of your partner essential for you to succeed in your studies? usually, the first years are brutal and you don't have much time anyway
- do you think s/he would do the same for you?
- if you are rejected for asking a deferral, how do you think you would feel? 
- if you receive an offer and not get the deferral, decide to maintain your relationship and reject the offer, but next year you don't get an offer and your partner gets one, how do you think you would feel?
- if you don't apply (or enter) now, what are your plans to still be competitive for the next applications round?
- If ten years from now you are either 1) with this partner but without dream degree OR 2) with dream degree but without this partner, which one would you choose?
Don't need to answer here, those are just to help you to think about the situation.

I'm with Hk328 on thinking that these deferments are for very special circumstances (and most likely relationships are not one of them, sry). Since this is something that they expect applicants to have in mind (family distance, relationships, etc), I don't believe a committee will give defer on such grounds, so ultimately it is up to you to decide.
There are some questions that you may ask yourself to find out where your feelings and motivation are (at least I considered these before making a decision):
-  if suddenly you find yourself without your partner after rejecting an offer (for any reason), do you think you would be happy with your decision?
- is the presence of your partner essential for you to succeed in your studies? usually, the first years are brutal and you don't have much time anyway
- do you think s/he would do the same for you?
- if you are rejected for asking a deferral, how do you think you would feel? 
- if you receive an offer and not get the deferral, decide to maintain your relationship and reject the offer, but next year you don't get an offer and your partner gets one, how do you think you would feel?
- if you don't apply (or enter) now, what are your plans to still be competitive for the next applications round?
- If ten years from now you are either 1) with this partner but without dream degree OR 2) with dream degree but without this partner, which one would you choose?
Don't need to answer here, those are just to help you to think about the situation.

My PhD advisor didn't have an overwhelming number of students (my department was smaller when I was a student there) but he was a Distinguished Professor who traveled a lot, had a lot of collaborations, and sat on a lot of PhD committees (nearly every PhD committee in our department and the external committee member for a fair number of students in other departments, e.g. CS and Biostatistics). Nevertheless, I still completed my PhD in just under 4 years. 
If you want to work with a very busy/distinguished professor, my suggestion would be to make sure to be persistent about meeting with them and to make sure that *every* meeting you have with him/her is productive and moving you forward. I personally would type up a "progress report" in Latex before every single meeting I had with him outlining what papers I had read, what questions I had, and what my thoughts and ideas were -- even if I hadn't made any progress on my research topic or even if I had to completely abandon an unpromising research direction, I still wrote up what I had done for that week.   We would then go through that every meeting and decide on the next steps.
Once I began generating my own ideas more successfully, I would write summaries of them, write out the technical details thoroughly, and type up any theorems and proofs for him to review. When I began writing my own papers, I would email him revisions/new drafts at least four days before our scheduled meeting so he would have time to read the draft and give me feedback in our next meeting. In my experience, this helped a lot.
Finally, don't be afraid to chat with the other PhD students of your advisor. Chances are that you will learn just as much or more from talking with them about research than from completing a problem set or trying to make sense of a very difficult paper. Sometimes you have a general, vague idea of what is going on, but you just need that "a-ha!" moment, and chatting with more senior students can give you exactly that to make things click.

Thank you so much for the link, I really appreciate it!

I also haven't really heard back from a lot of programs, but I'm thinking of it as being somewhat good news? Because silence isn't a "no"; you're still in the running, so to speak. I was rejected from some very competitive summer programs last year and the one where I had the highest chances took the longest to turn me down.
 

I am adopting a dog tomorrow!!!! After years of wanting to, my living situation finally is right, and I am beyond excited!

Yes, something seems different this year. In my UC Irvine interview, professor mentioned that they received 400 applications and were only interviewing 20 of them. Idk what is typical but that sounds like an absurdly high number for that tier. 
If the applicant pool is so unprecedentedly large this year, it's possible Duke changed process to accept the top ~ 2% or something ridiculously low, and will proceed in stages, interviewing some in the next batch..
Idk, just speculating in ways that don't crush my dreams?

accepted to duke as well just now (no interview)!

Thank you!! I almost had a heart attack when I got an email from Duke, and I immediately assumed I was rejected (since it only said to check the application portal, plus I also thought they do interviews). But I guess this time they're only interviewing some applicants. 

I literally just got emailed by Duke to check the application portal, and it was an acceptance letter from the department!!! I am beyond ecstatic, after checking my email almost constantly since last week. This is the first correspondence I've had from Duke (there was no request for an interview or anything like that). 

I think mine will start coming in two weeks or so but still checking email and all my application portals constantly even though I know its the weekend and theres no chance to hear anything right now. Applied to 5, wish I applied to 10 just  in case.

I wouldn't take everything you read on thegradcafe as gospel... For instance in the math results, there's someone (or maybe a group of people) who keeps on putting fake acceptances. It's better to just be patient and stop obsessing over the Results page (easier said than done, I know).

I relate so hard to this; I applied to 9 schools as well and people have already started getting phone interviews and acceptances, but I have yet to hear back from any program, even as a rejection. Like what @historygeek said, my programs will probably start posting en mass in the first week of February and I'm petrified but also want to get it over with. It's the worst. 
Good luck to everyone waiting it out! This too shall pass.

Seems like a strategic move by Duke to up the yield rate. Making us sweat. And even putting out some word-of-mouth "we finalized things yesterday" ?

I just asked some Duke faculty and he told me they just finalized the application process yesterday and haven't sent out the interviews yet. So don't worry guys!

Sorry for the confusion. He said something is finalized (I forget the exact words he used). He means they haven't sent out any letters yet. So don't worry!

I'm with Hk328 on thinking that these deferments are for very special circumstances (and most likely relationships are not one of them, sry). Since this is something that they expect applicants to have in mind (family distance, relationships, etc), I don't believe a committee will give defer on such grounds, so ultimately it is up to you to decide.
There are some questions that you may ask yourself to find out where your feelings and motivation are (at least I considered these before making a decision):
-  if suddenly you find yourself without your partner after rejecting an offer (for any reason), do you think you would be happy with your decision?
- is the presence of your partner essential for you to succeed in your studies? usually, the first years are brutal and you don't have much time anyway
- do you think s/he would do the same for you?
- if you are rejected for asking a deferral, how do you think you would feel? 
- if you receive an offer and not get the deferral, decide to maintain your relationship and reject the offer, but next year you don't get an offer and your partner gets one, how do you think you would feel?
- if you don't apply (or enter) now, what are your plans to still be competitive for the next applications round?
- If ten years from now you are either 1) with this partner but without dream degree OR 2) with dream degree but without this partner, which one would you choose?
Don't need to answer here, those are just to help you to think about the situation.

Anyone hear from Duke stats PhD yet?

Do you have an offer? If you do, then the deferral is easier because you are–to some degree–"in". 
Now, in my program I've seen deferrals only when incoming students won fellowships and needed to postpone the starting of the doctoral degree. This was something the program saw as an opportunity for those students to grow intellectually and professionally, which is why I suspect they granted the deferrals. 
We've had many international students apply (myself included) but I've never heard of granting a deferral for long distance relationship issues. Furthermore, most of us conduct international research so most of us (married people with kids included) have to undergo the long distance at some point. 
This is clearly a conversation to have with your partner first (if you haven't already) about your professional goals and how to pursue them. And if not, it is totally fine not to go the distance. 

I'm with Hk328 on thinking that these deferments are for very special circumstances (and most likely relationships are not one of them, sry). Since this is something that they expect applicants to have in mind (family distance, relationships, etc), I don't believe a committee will give defer on such grounds, so ultimately it is up to you to decide.
There are some questions that you may ask yourself to find out where your feelings and motivation are (at least I considered these before making a decision):
-  if suddenly you find yourself without your partner after rejecting an offer (for any reason), do you think you would be happy with your decision?
- is the presence of your partner essential for you to succeed in your studies? usually, the first years are brutal and you don't have much time anyway
- do you think s/he would do the same for you?
- if you are rejected for asking a deferral, how do you think you would feel? 
- if you receive an offer and not get the deferral, decide to maintain your relationship and reject the offer, but next year you don't get an offer and your partner gets one, how do you think you would feel?
- if you don't apply (or enter) now, what are your plans to still be competitive for the next applications round?
- If ten years from now you are either 1) with this partner but without dream degree OR 2) with dream degree but without this partner, which one would you choose?
Don't need to answer here, those are just to help you to think about the situation.