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I was also rejected from UC Berkeley, not surprised. But I do have an interview with UW! They reached out to me yesterday.

@Kim2016Thank you so much for that information!!

On their website it says decisions will be made by mid-March. 

For those of whom still waiting to hear back from UC-Berkeley, I just heard back saying they will send out all decisions by mid-March! Good Luck!

That's a relief. And great news for you! I haven't seen any movement within comp lit so I'm taking that as no news is good news. 

I have and I believe there was someone else in this thread that applied too. Good luck to you!

Sounds to me like it is a guaranteed acceptance with details on finding and official letter later. I saw the same thing happen with someone from UNC for their phd program - phone call with news of acceptance than specific funding details later. 
If so, congrats to you @lingc35!! It’s an amazing program and I’m sure your acceptance is very well deserved. 

Yes!! And drinking Tanq and Fever Tree elderflower helps! Haha. But that's just me (yes, I am drinking now; happy Monday!) ?

Yeah, to the English dept. Perhaps inadvisable; was certainly nervous; lady seemed really nice tho

I applied to English and film and media studies at Yale (my dream program) and haven’t heard anything, prob not a great sign not to have gotten an interview but whatever. Yale English itself said this (hrmmm)/next week and feb 15 at latest. Whoosh

Hi all! I searched the forum and I could not find a topic specific to Film & Media Studies and/or Cinema Studies. I named the thread with both titles for the sake of keyword search. As you all know programs adopt different names. Please use this space to discuss applications, decision anxiety, research and whatever else you see fit!
 
I applied to these programs:
UC Berkeley Yale NYU University of Washington, Seattle USC University of California, Santa Barbara  
I've only heard back from UCSB and unfortunately I was rejected. I'm holding out hope for the others. It only takes one school!
What schools have you applied to? 

Good luck everyone, you got this. 

Feeling a little bit disheartened today as with the closing of UOregon admissions, and notifications sent out for Northeastern and UW Madison, I'm deducing I'm rejected from 3 schools already... not off to a good start. However, all you need is one! 
Congratulations to everyone who has received positive news!

I guess it's just the waiting game right now...
Good luck to both of us!!!

Little late in joining this thread! 
I applied to the following programs:
UT-Austin
UC-Berkeley
Northwestern
UIUC
UPENN
UW-Seattle
NYU Tisch 
Good luck to everyone waiting!! 
 

Welcome everyone! I do think it's a bit premature to expect anything back. I'm surprised I heard from UCSB as early as I did. I would think on average universities may start notifying next week. I don't know if I can stand to be patient through March. The waiting is killing me as I'm sure it is for all of you

Hi all! I searched the forum and I could not find a topic specific to Film & Media Studies and/or Cinema Studies. I named the thread with both titles for the sake of keyword search. As you all know programs adopt different names. Please use this space to discuss applications, decision anxiety, research and whatever else you see fit!
 
I applied to these programs:
UC Berkeley Yale NYU University of Washington, Seattle USC University of California, Santa Barbara  
I've only heard back from UCSB and unfortunately I was rejected. I'm holding out hope for the others. It only takes one school!
What schools have you applied to? 

Best of luck to you! I thought about Northwestern but I had to be respectful of my wife. She supports me pursuing a PhD but wants at minimum to continue living on the coast. East or West, it doesn't matter. 
Do you know when Northwestern has historically informed applicants?

If you are looking for a Film & Media Studies / Cinema Studies 2021 application thread, I created one which you can find here

Yeah, it was the Film & Media Studies PhD program. I have a feeling I wasn't a good fit for their department research-wise. I did add the decision to the results page. I am hopeful and I have a feeling I'll hear back from one or two schools this week! Thanks!

Hi all! I searched the forum and I could not find a topic specific to Film & Media Studies and/or Cinema Studies. I named the thread with both titles for the sake of keyword search. As you all know programs adopt different names. Please use this space to discuss applications, decision anxiety, research and whatever else you see fit!
 
I applied to these programs:
UC Berkeley Yale NYU University of Washington, Seattle USC University of California, Santa Barbara  
I've only heard back from UCSB and unfortunately I was rejected. I'm holding out hope for the others. It only takes one school!
What schools have you applied to? 

Hi all! I searched the forum and I could not find a topic specific to Film & Media Studies and/or Cinema Studies. I named the thread with both titles for the sake of keyword search. As you all know programs adopt different names. Please use this space to discuss applications, decision anxiety, research and whatever else you see fit!
 
I applied to these programs:
UC Berkeley Yale NYU University of Washington, Seattle USC University of California, Santa Barbara  
I've only heard back from UCSB and unfortunately I was rejected. I'm holding out hope for the others. It only takes one school!
What schools have you applied to? 

I heard back from my first program and unfortunately it was a rejection. UCSB wasn't my first choice, but a rejection still sucks. I'm not taking it personally. I'm sure there were other candidates who were likely a better fit for the program.
I'm waiting to hear back from 5 other schools. I just need one. Good luck to everyone!

I have diagnosed anxiety but I must say, this waiting process is causing my anxiety to sky rocket. I've been having nightmares and trouble sleeping. All I can think about these days is hearing back from programs. I know I have to exercise patience, but I'm sure I can speak for many of us in saying that it is a lot harder to put it into action. I can't stop obsessively checking the results on here. Thank you all for providing an outlet and a community here on this forum. Glad to know I'm not alone

Okay, with the disclaimer that absolutely everything I am about to say is total conjecture (aka, I have little to no data, quantitatively or anecdotally)...
I think that because of our near-total lack of information, it's actually pretty easy to make the case for either side here. For instance, one could argue that the programs who paused admissions for this cycle logically make this cycle more competitive (more or the same number of people applying to fewer programs). However, there's no way to know if programs pausing also led some applicants to pause, which might balance it out. Right now, we have a sense of how many programs paused admissions, but there's no tangible way to map how that impacted the applicant pool (yet). Like @kirbs005 says, the pandemic caused some people to apply to fewer programs (1-5 instead of 10-20), whereas I ended up applying to more programs than I anticipated I would last April (14 instead of 5-6). 
Similarly, if we go off 2008, we might be able to reasonably assume that unemployment and other pandemic-related issues will push more people to apply to grad school. At the same time though, I know a few people who are not interested in applying until they can be sure that they'll be able to safely start their program in person. I think there's a bit of an apples-to-oranges element there.
One could also make the argument that more applicants does not necessarily actually make the pool more competitive. Obviously, numerically it does, but I think it can also depend on your subfield--an influx of c19 applicants might not impact you that much if you're a medievalist and not many more medievalists apply. This also isn't even considering applications that don't make it past the "first round" (if that's how the program does their admissions process).
All this to say, I think we can speculate on this, but we truly cannot know anything until schools share data, if/when they do so. I think there's certainly reason to believe that this cycle is more competitive, like@DanArndtWrites suggests. I think it's also likely that this application cycle will simply be weird. Essentially, I think there's no way for us to know, and the lack of data makes it easy to make a convincing case either way.
I don't know if this is comforting or stressful, but as others have said, please remember we are not our results! As a friend of mine currently in a program told me, an acceptance is personal, but a rejection isn't. Wishing us all good luck, and hoping everyone is managing the anxiety of these next few weeks!