While I have written off the rest of the schools I have not heard from as implicit rejections, it occurred to me today that there are still seven schools from which I have not officially heard. Seven! That's a lot. Half of the schools I applied to. All of these schools have sent out acceptances, however, and some have even sent out some rejections (which I very likely could receive soon). I think a lot of us are in this strange boat, it seems. Do we think a lot of schools have "unofficial waitlists" and they wait to reject the rest of applicants until they've heard back from the first batch that they accepted? That seems like the only reasonable/humane explanation for waiting so long to send out rejections. I am more curious than anything else. What does everyone think?