MEESASOBOREDSA

Also, I fail to see the benefit of saying yes to two places. After all, you still are going to go to only one place. Worst of all, what he/she is going to say to "the other university" when the 15th comes? Ehmmm I am actually not going to go to your program, which I had said I would... doing that is far worse than just postponing the decision to the last minute (I think it is only "decent" to give your choice on the 14th -maximum- since there are other people on the line, but even wating that much with no strong reasons is not that good I guess, but it is possible and I am sure it happens).
I mean, the profession is small, so people know people, and it is a bad idea to start with "that reputation," not that you cant shake it off or cant correct the mistake. Actually, him/her can and should correct the mistake as soon as possible.
Any day that goes by in which you have misled the program administrators is wrong. If she/he cant decide, well, just flip a coin and be done with it! 

I do agree with the above comments. I am also telling him just pick one. Extra time he will get like 15 days or even a month won’t change anything his life but would have a huge effect on others. He is in the psychology department by the way- most political science applicants asked me the name of the schools. One reason, I guess, why he does this that graduate director from one university pushes him to accept or decline the offer as soon as possible even the deadline is the midst of April. It does not legitimatize his actions but he received four or five e-mails from the director. I think it is also weird but anyway I will tell him to decline other offer since those two universities, as you said, are not different that much from each other. Thanks everyone!! I will show him the comments too which can be harsh but maybe can make him decline the other offer!!

I do agree with the above comments. I am also telling him just pick one. Extra time he will get like 15 days or even a month won’t change anything his life but would have a huge effect on others. He is in the psychology department by the way- most political science applicants asked me the name of the schools. One reason, I guess, why he does this that graduate director from one university pushes him to accept or decline the offer as soon as possible even the deadline is the midst of April. It does not legitimatize his actions but he received four or five e-mails from the director. I think it is also weird but anyway I will tell him to decline other offer since those two universities, as you said, are not different that much from each other. Thanks everyone!! I will show him the comments too which can be harsh but maybe can make him decline the other offer!!

I doubt that most universities will have that knowledge. However, in the upper tiers it would not surprise me if adcoms across schools were in conversation with one another in order to admit as efficiently as possible. They all know one another anyway.
Having seen many people struggle through this process, I have fairly strong opinions about this stuff.
As you suggested yourself, the real problem is that it's really unethical to accept two offers knowing that one will ultimately have to return to one of the schools with some excuse. There are so many waitlisted people, sitting on the edges of their seats, waiting to hear back from somewhere. And it's devastating to have no where to go after after having been waitlisted for, say, three months. Maybe it is possible to admit people after they have been rejected from the waitlist, but it's not very nice for anyone. Besides, persons rejected from a waitlist (due to your friend's decision) may then make other arrangements and then accept other offers if they have any. So people who are re-admitted off the waitlist must now 1. either do what your friend did and turn down a school from which they had just accepted an offer, or 2, still due to your friends actions, loose out on (maybe) their dream school and stick with their original acceptance. And this is all because your friend could not decide between two offers. Your friend's actions may have pretty far reaching consequences and I would appeal to him by pointing these consequences out.
An even more serious problem is that your friend starts his career in political science by lying, or being deceitful at least, to a whole bunch of people who have decided to take a chance on him. Perfect strangers who wanted to give him an opportunity. It seems to me that people like your friend is not just a "person who happens to lie" at a moment, he is just a liar. And it would not surprise me if his general attitude is in favor of cutting corners and do whatever is expedient in any given situation. This does not bode well for a career in academia and I would hope that such a person would reflect on his priorities. I do not know exactly what it takes to succeed in academia (does anyone?) but I do know that the kind of attitude that your friend seems to embody will not get him far. Literally everyone sees through that stuff right away.
I said above that adcoms will likely not find out that one has accepted two offers - but if they do it would not surprise me for a moment if both programs retracted their offers. This should be deterrence enough. If I was you I would grab my friend encourage them to do the right thing. Besides, if your friend has a hard time choosing it's likely that the two offers are equivalent. So just pick one.
I don't mean to come across overly harsh, but the whole application process takes a psychological, and even physical, toll on so many people and what your friend is planning on doing makes this, already very difficult process, even harder for everyone.

I can log in to portal, too. I guess it was just an error that they fixed. I e-mailed York again telling that almost all universities in US and Canada released the results. They responded  "Unfortunately due to circumstances beyond our control, we do not have results to report on PhD admissions for international students. We are hopeful that these results can be released in the next few weeks."

Anyone who applied to York: are you also having difficulties with logging into MyFile? 

Hello! Yes,indeed, thats what they have told me too. Lets wait for some time and keep each other informed if we get an update!

Hello! Yes,indeed, thats what they have told me too. Lets wait for some time and keep each other informed if we get an update!

Yeah, the acceptance-rejection ratio for international students is simply nuts... I will definitely post here when my application status changes, and I'll be grateful if you do the same. Best of luck to you as well!
By the way, I noticed that you have one admission already, so congrats!

Claiming a South Florida acceptance!

Northwestern Update -- I just called the department and whoever answered says that they're working as fast as they can to notify applicants. I asked if all the acceptances have gone out and he said he did not know and that they work on each file one at time. In other words, they don't send all acceptances and waitlists and then all the rejections. They send them all mixed throughout. No clue when they'll be done.

Claiming a South Florida acceptance!

Claiming a South Florida acceptance!

Claiming a South Florida acceptance!

Claiming a South Florida acceptance!

Guys do you think that NW will only release rejections from now on? I saw many acceptances already and based on previous years statistics it is highly likely that it will be rejections as they send them later. Does any one of you have an idea about this?? This is SO FRUSTRATING... 

It seems like may programs are releasing their top choices for admissions and rejections for those that clearly wouldn't be considered.  Rather than explicitly saying someone is on the waitlist, there appears to be a 'wait and see' approach for those in neither category from what I have gathered.

Wow. Sorry about that  Glad you’re not waiting pointlessly anymore though 

I would suggest emailing. 

Guys just come here to say that I am also expecting a rejection from Northwestern(and also Indiana) but still wanna know so it would be clear and I can move on ? 

Since so many acceptances have gone out for Northwestern it is going to be rejects and I know it but a part of me just doesn’t wanna see it cause then it makes it real 

Northwestern hasn’t sent me an acceptance but there’s no rejection letter either. I wonder what’s going on?

Hi! I applied to York as well, but I'm not sure if they email you about their decisions. At least you can check how your application did on their online system (MyFile). I've been checking the portal constantly ever since I submitted my application (lol), although I know it's most likely too early to hear from them. Looking at past trends, I suppose we will get the decisions late February or early/mid-March. (I hope I understood your question correctly, and wasn't just stating the obvious.) Best of luck!

I applied to York.  I just checked the application portal, and it says no decision has been made yet.