So is this the 'new wait list?"

[Haustier]

So I applied to 10 schools and have only heard from 2 of them as of Feb. 2 The odd thing is that most of them are very close (within 2 weeks) of finishing all interviews, so I would assume that as I was not invited to interview that I am rejected. However, I wrote 3 of the schools in question asking for an update to be told that my application is "on hold." Now I asked and they said I'm not wait listed, not rejected, not accepted, and my application is indeed complete, but they are rather 'holding the application.' Anyone care to speculate what in the world this means?

[newms]

Maybe it means they're processing it, maybe it means that it's been forwarded to the adcomm for review? Maybe it means that they are waiting to hear back from the adcomm/program to do anything else?

[LJK]

It could mean that they don't have an official wait list until April. You weren't someone who was invited to interview but neither were they sure that they didn't want you. They have no reason to contact you with a 'waitlist' decision this early, they can literally be holding your application in case they don't get enough students with their first/second wave of admits who were interviewed.

This is why I am annoyed by people who write that they are rejected in the results section because all interview invites have gone out and they didn't get one. Of this year's first years in my department 1 of 5 or 20% of the phd cohort was not invited for an interview. One prospective student for the slot he filled was an arrogant ass talking about the top program he was days away from being admitted to (which begged the question why he was wasting our money visiting our program), and the other prospective student invited was probably admitted but decided to go elsewhere. The student who is attending was probably the second person admitted to the slot even though he was not interviewed in person and a number of people interviewed with different interests were not accepted. No one knows exactly what is going on at a school unless explicitly told. I know that we as applicants want to know and perforce must speculate but you really can't know until an official decision is issued.