philosophile

Well I think you'll enjoy Pittsburgh! Congrats!

it seems as though it just depends on the school and the year. if you haven't heard so far the 15th tends to be the deadline for applicants to accept / decline an offer & secondary offers would be made shortly thereafter.

what did you decide to do?

I'd accept for the MA. Then by the time you're finished and go through the whole process again, you'll be applying to PhD programs already with a graduate degree! You'll get into more schools, get better offers, and have more options in the end.

I would definitely choose Carnegie. They have a great program and Pittsburgh is a great place to study philosophy! There are 3 great schools (Carnegie, Pitt, Duquesne) all with grad programs in the city, and you can easily sit in on classes offered by other programs etc. In addition, the cost of living in Pittsburgh is very low despite the fact that it is a decent sized city. Hope this helps!