Olórin

Accepted applicants have until April 15 to say yes or no. After that, programs can rescind their offers if they haven’t heard back and give them to someone else. It is not unusual for programs to accept waitlisted applicants after April 15. Lots of programs over-admit on the assumption some will turn down. You’re right that you can’t swap your spot with someone else, you have no way of knowing you’d get an offer if some gradcafe person says they’ll turn down an offer. Even if an offer was made to someone, it might not be to you (same AOI doesn’t mean you have a claim to the spot). Bleak is the name of the game.

5 hours in class 6 hours of assistantship duties ~10 hours reading Sometimes some hours of writing Sometimes 6 hours of departmental obligations (job talks, workshops, prospective student visits) I used to work more but meh, not worth it most weeks.

You stand a chance. Don’t worry about the gpa, it’s not going to be the thing that gets you rejected in most cases. Apply to PhD programs too.

Re: adcoms: it's not just about how brilliant you seem to them. If they have a choice between two excellent candidates in an area, they might go with the one who seems more collegial to them, or the one who seems like a better fit with the other members of the new cohort. These adcoms are selecting people they'll be with for the better part of 6 years, and they're trying to create what they think is a well-balanced cohort. You might be a genius, but if you're a genius with an ego and it shows, that will get you rejected at some places. In other cases, adcoms will have decided to introduce different areas of interest into their program, and that might mean they select students with those interests even if they do not already seem like a polished genius. Also, lots of programs look for potential rather than genius or highly developed professional skills (and if you publish early, you're stuck with that publication for the rest of your life, and you might regret it one day). Basically, the quality of your application and all the accompanying details matter, but whether you get in or not cannot be reduced to how outstanding this or that application is. Other factors matter to them, too, and you can't guess what those are.

I know someone who chose an MA program over a PhD program, then got rejected from every PhD program this year. A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. Don't overestimate your ability to navigate grad school admissions.