Kinda Disappointed.

No clue on Scholarship/Aid. Unlikely to attend, Non CS/EE major from Top 5 IITs, no pubs, CGPA in mid 8s.

First reject. 1 Journal submitted, 1 Conference accepted working on another paper, 3 internships(all relevant). currently, Assistant at a lab working on self-driving cars. Applied for Intelligent systems and controls, undergrad majors is control systems.

Got the following notification. To others accepted to USC MS ECE: Is there a deadline to provide financial proof statement (to obtain official admission letter) ? "We are pleased to inform you that you are *academically eligible* for admission to the Fall 2021 semester as a graduate student majoring in Electrical and Computer Engineering (Machine Learning and Data Science) leading to a Master of Science. To receive your official offer of admission, you must first demonstrate proof of the ability to pay tuition and living expenses."

Accepted via email. Said nothing about funding.

Got acceptance notification on application portal. They emailed me the notification about a week later. Said nothing about funding.

An email asked me to check portal for decision. Wouldn't have joined Duke University anyways. Got a far better offer.

Ignore waitlist, Is there anyone else waiting for response from ECEN department? I tried multiple times. No one is responding.

The wait is killing me. Any news from the uni??

Expected rejection! Like their EMAIL, wish you guys much continued success in all of your academic and professional endeavors. Most importantly, wish you guys good health and hope that you remain safe from the Corona-19 virus.

TTPB: I agree. I was one of the people who emailed asking for a status update. I got rejected but it had nothing to do with my email. I obviously knew I was getting rejected (since its march 18th), but just wanted to be sure so I could commit to a different school (still waiting on others xD). Literally everyone today that got an email got rejected, so they clearly knew the status of me (and many others). I totally agree this lack of transparency is cruel. If they knew they were going to reject me they should have let me know right away, not make me wait. Same with all schools. You should not have to wait until like April.

Generic rejection email (copy paste), it was expected ofc. I think I had a strong case, but I think that they look at your university status before anything. The one thing that bothered me is that a lot of people asked about their status for the past two weeks and no answer was given to them (they were already rejected) I think it is cruel to make people wait for rejection with small hope, they should have told us as soon as they made up their mind which was obviously a while back.

4 years of post-BSc research experience with 4 Journals and 2 Conference Publications, all IEEE. Dear XXX: We are very sorry to inform you that we are unable to admit you into our PhD program for 2021. As you may have anticipated, we receive hundreds of excellent applications such as yours, but yet we are only able to admit a limited number. We know this decision is a disappointment. However, we are confident that you have other wonderful options for your graduate education. We wish you much continued success in all of your academic and professional endeavors. Most importantly, we wish you good health and hope that you remain safe from the Corona-19 virus.

As expected, a failure fails everyday

Interview in January, but nothing since then. At least the wait is finally over :)

Backend VLSI/CAD

Interviewed in late January. Got admitted in computer engineering.