Email of admission decision, told to check the application portal to view the decision.

No email, but the application portal updated with a rejection letter.

Same offer as posted below

To the USC social poster below: Congrats! Do you mind sharing the initials of your POI? And did you receive the notification from your POI or the department? Much appreciated!

TTPB: I would assume it's a rejection (I was one of the ones who got an interview) based on the email's wording. Looks like that's the pool who is offered admission. But 2 notes of consolation -- since I have been in your position for a few schools I really liked this cycle! (1) The acceptance rate at programs like this are very low so by definition many qualified people won't be accepted. This happens because (1a) MIT would rather risk a false negative than false positive and (1b) sometimes really idiosyncratic things come up, like who has funding for a particular project. But ofc none of this is necessarily a reflection of you as a candidate since you can't control MIT's risk tolerance or projects of faculty. (2) In general, I think this was a bad year to apply for PhD programs because so many people applied for PhD programs. So many people who would have been accepted last year will not be accepted this year simply based on numbers. And in that case, it's always worth it to shoot again next year. And your experience of applying this year will be helpful. Hopefully these comments are somewhat useful/consolatory. And ofc, best of luck with your other choices since there are many amazing programs out there :)

one 1st author publication, 4 poster presentations

Speechless

Recommended for admission!

I received the same waitlist offer as the post below.

TTPB: did you receive a general rejection email from the department?

TPB: I think one reason why they are holding rejections from now is that they are waiting to fill their places in case someone declined the offer. That could be an informal waitlisting for the programs that don't officially have that policy. Another reason could be that they are sending acceptances out on a rolling basis (instead of in batches).