Not surprised, they only had 8 spots. I got into my first choice anyways, so I'm okay with it. :)

Each year the College of Liberal Arts at Penn State identifies the number of graduate students that our program can admit for the fall semester. Unfortunately, this number is always lower than the number of high-quality applications we receive, and that is especially true in our current environment of concern about budgets. This year, for example, our department's admission target is eight students across the areas of communication science and rhetorical studies, inclusive of both our MA and PhD applicants. With this number in mind, the department's Graduate Committee--composed of five faculty from across the department--examined each application, ranking them both individually and relative to the other applications in the pool. After receiving feedback from the department's graduate faculty on an initial list of potential admits, the Graduate Committee met further to deliberate and decide whom it should admit for the fall 2023 cohort.

Bachelor's GPA 8.71/10 (India), 1 year of part-time research experience during undergrad, No master's, 3 years of work experience, 2 publications

Received a rejection with master's offer

*IGNORE STATUS*To the one accepted-do u mind sharing which track & PI Initials?

masters offer, which i will not attend

pity, just get a chance to attend their 2-yr Master's Program (w/o funding)

Rejected with master offer. LoL!

Accepted with a preliminary offer of $32,256 (12-month stipend) + benefits + relocation bonus. Also being nominated for "several internal fellowships" to boost stipend. Stats: 2.9 undergrad GPA, 4.0 master's GPA, 3+ years research experience, various poster presentations/talks, 2 publications (1 first author), assorted STEM extracurriculars.

I got a rejection. Is there anybody who received acceptance?

Offer for masters. This is bad.

Yield protection?

Same email as everyone else. Offer for masters.

This is the MA not the PhD!