Almost forgot I applied caltech

Generic rejection. Wasn't a particularly good match for any PI and didn't communicate with anyone.

emailed prospec. PI for update and she replied that my paperwork got sent to wrong subcommittee, official acceptance within the day

It was a long shot but still disappointing. International master's degree student with multiple research experiences (2 in accademia and 1 in industry), average GPA, good LORs and no pubs. Congratulations to those admitted and good luck to those, like me, not accepted.

I applied for materials chem. This is what they told me: You have many talents and qualifications that we are looking for in our graduate students. With that said, this has been a very atypical year, and we received a very large number of applicants with interests in materials chemistry. Here in Chemistry at WashU, we try to carefully make the appropriate number of offers based on how many students we can support (financially, educationally, and in terms of mentoring) while matching the needs of the faculty research groups. In the end, we want every student who comes to WashU to succeed and graduate with a PhD in a timely manner. The last thing we want to do is to dismiss students due to them not finding research groups. As a result of the large numbers of highly qualified applicants, the competition for offers in these areas is particularly high this year, and we will not be able to extend to you an offer for admissions.