KuroNeko

I've officially received all my rejections from American and Canadian schools. If anyone is considering throwing their hat into next year's ring, you might want to consider doing your PhD abroad and applying to a couple schools outside of North America. In some cases, while the rigor is the same, the competition to gain admission is not as fierce, and it could be the difference between getting to do a PhD or not at all, as was my case. 
In any case, good job everyone! You are all smart and capable people, regardless of how your applications turned out. Whether you decide to try again next year or pursue other areas, I wish you all the best of luck and success. ?

I've officially received all my rejections from American and Canadian schools. If anyone is considering throwing their hat into next year's ring, you might want to consider doing your PhD abroad and applying to a couple schools outside of North America. In some cases, while the rigor is the same, the competition to gain admission is not as fierce, and it could be the difference between getting to do a PhD or not at all, as was my case. 
In any case, good job everyone! You are all smart and capable people, regardless of how your applications turned out. Whether you decide to try again next year or pursue other areas, I wish you all the best of luck and success. ?

I've officially received all my rejections from American and Canadian schools. If anyone is considering throwing their hat into next year's ring, you might want to consider doing your PhD abroad and applying to a couple schools outside of North America. In some cases, while the rigor is the same, the competition to gain admission is not as fierce, and it could be the difference between getting to do a PhD or not at all, as was my case. 
In any case, good job everyone! You are all smart and capable people, regardless of how your applications turned out. Whether you decide to try again next year or pursue other areas, I wish you all the best of luck and success. ?

I've officially received all my rejections from American and Canadian schools. If anyone is considering throwing their hat into next year's ring, you might want to consider doing your PhD abroad and applying to a couple schools outside of North America. In some cases, while the rigor is the same, the competition to gain admission is not as fierce, and it could be the difference between getting to do a PhD or not at all, as was my case. 
In any case, good job everyone! You are all smart and capable people, regardless of how your applications turned out. Whether you decide to try again next year or pursue other areas, I wish you all the best of luck and success. ?

I'd be happy with even a two minute note on the subject, like "vague SOP" or whatnot to give some kind of idea. Then again, many departments probably don't want to give out statistics or any indication of how they make their decisions, which are likely idiosyncratic and based more on interest of a faculty member rather than some objective measure. 
My rejection from UT Austin and Michigan was just a note to check the portal, which were both rather harsh in their wording. Not even a letter.
I'm more miffed by all the schools who wait until the last possible moment to send out their rejections. If I'm not even being considered, at least give me a heads up so I can move on with my life rather than just holding on to the possibility. 

I'd be happy with even a two minute note on the subject, like "vague SOP" or whatnot to give some kind of idea. Then again, many departments probably don't want to give out statistics or any indication of how they make their decisions, which are likely idiosyncratic and based more on interest of a faculty member rather than some objective measure. 
My rejection from UT Austin and Michigan was just a note to check the portal, which were both rather harsh in their wording. Not even a letter.
I'm more miffed by all the schools who wait until the last possible moment to send out their rejections. If I'm not even being considered, at least give me a heads up so I can move on with my life rather than just holding on to the possibility. 

@KuroNekoThank you. It really helped me feel better because I was starting to doubt myself. I will just binge watch Netflix till the results come out and not lose the hope.?

I'm so sorry you're having such rough luck. And it really is up to luck. Getting rejections are the result of any number of things including the fancy of the admissions committee, professors taking students or not, political in - fighting, and so on. It absolutely does not have any bearing on the worth of your ideas or your likelihood of success as a scholar. 
It's not over until it's over, and you might still get an offer, but if you don't, and academia is something you really want to do, there are ways to get there. 
- You can improve your application for next year. 
You can do research. You can go live in the country you want to do research in. You can make sure you are now fluent in your research language. You can read a lot and completely revamp your SOP. You can do programs adjacent that will help you. You can study for and retake the GRE. 
- You can try different programs to apply to or consider getting a PhD outside of the US where competition isn't as fierce and more focused on the quality of your research rather than other factors. 
And other things I haven't thought of. I know people who have gotten good offers in their third round as well. 

I still think it's a mistake and it will be revoked or something...but I was accepted to UNC! I...I can't believe it. I thought there was no way. Went there for undergrad and will be thrilled to be back on campus. Go Heels!

In a futile attempt to reduce anxiety and speculation a few people thought it would be useful to create a thread where we (present and future Anthro applicants) list schools that interview as part of the application process. As some of you might have figured out, programs do interview for many different reasons: some do it as part of the selection process (which means that if you do not get an interview request, you might as well expect a rejection), others just use it as a way to get to know the applicant either because they're kind of on the fence about them or they are just so impressed by them that professors think that if they reach out early in the process the applicant will be more likely to choose them, or many other reasons I haven't mentioned here. Anyways sometimes it is not the end of the world if you do not get an interview. Feel free to use this space to talk about (Anthro) interviews, share experiences you've had interviewing at different schools, and any information what is the purpose of the specific interviews.
With that said, if you do not get an interview request from these schools you have (probably*) been rejected:
WUSTL (Washington University in St. Louis)
UC Berkeley
UVA (University of Virginia)
Notre Dame
Duke
Harvard (?)
Johns Hopkins
NYU (intermittently)
UPenn
Yale (?)   
*This list is not exhaustive, add schools that are not included and this is not definitive. Sometimes admissions policies change or it depends on the discipline.

Thank you! It's not my country of origin, but the geographic area/country I've been looking to study, which is why I moved here after MAPSS, to get experience in the country and to improve my language skills. I'm hoping that counts for something during this round. But I'm American, applying as a domestic student, out of country. 
As for MAPSS... it primarily exists to serve two functions. One, to earn money for the university. Two, to discourage people from continuing on to a PhD program. My cohort was around 180 students, which meant they basically had no meaningful way to give advising to anyone. They had current phd students serve as discussion moderators during the "core" class in the first quarter, who also helped with proposal writing for the thesis. In fact, many of the faculty don't want to bother with MAPSS students at all, and it was really difficult for many in my cohort, including myself, to find an advisor for the thesis. 
Their marketing is that they get their graduates into funded PhD programs, but they manipulate those numbers. They don't actually support everyone, and they only support those who they think will get in. They seem to be rather successful at discouraging people from pursuing an academic career, and I only know a handful of people personally from my cohort who successfully made it to a PhD. 
It's not a bad idea to do an MA before reapplying to a PhD, but I think just about any other traditional MA will be a better choice than MAPSS. Trying to do nine classes, fieldwork, and write a decent thesis in nine months is nearly impossible, especially given the lack of advising, guidance, or support. I'm currently a research student at an Asian university at the moment (because I didn't have the letter writers I needed, and my MA thesis needed serious work to serve as a writing sample or to be publishable), and the differences are pretty stark. I've gotten so much support from professors in my current department, from writing fellowship applications, work-shopping my writing, and just general camaraderie. At Chicago, I felt unwanted and lacking, a reason why I'm not reapplying to their PhD program either, though I'm sure it's a very different experience for the actual PhD students. 
I won't say I gained nothing, as I absolutely did. I found directions I wanted to pursue further, and I think I did some decent fieldwork in that very limited time. But I could have done that anywhere, and I think the gains I made were in spite of the program, not because of it. 
Anyway, in case anyone else is faced with this decision, I'd be happy to discuss my experience further to anyone interested, or to answer any questions. 

This is my second time applying, and after having submitted my applications, I have just now found out about this site. I spent a lot of time looking at past posts and at the response times of last year, and that's been really helpful to know about when I should expect to hear something. At least for me, that has helped with my anxiety a little, too. 
Anyway, seven years ago I applied to six schools, and after being soundly rejected everywhere, I was offered the MAPSS program at Chicago instead, which I took (and I don't recommend). Then I've spent five and a half years in my country of focus, and I'm now trying again, this time applying to nine schools. 
I've been accepted to one school with funding (in the country where I'm living), but I haven't heard from any schools in the US or Canada. I've been obsessively hitting refresh on my email, and now this website. 
Fingers crossed for everyone!