No interview. Having another email came along, which invited to transfer the phd application to MS application (no guarantee).

MCS

Rejected after interview. PI followed up mentioning if I don't get admit in the initial round, they would keep my application under consideration. But after initial round itself I received rejection and was recommended for Masters instead.

no interview,direct rej

No interview. So kinda expected this.

Official offer updated on the portal on Mar 12th, while department level admission was on Feb 20th.

NUS Mcomp AI

Email saying that a decision letter is available at you.usc.edu

Email in the Spam Folder to check the Portal

Their decision portal login took ~10-15 minutes to get into (thanks to three different captcha-pages, each captcha-page having three separate windows with fading image iterations). I understand that they rejected, but it's a miserable system they have to hop through the hoops to "view" the decision. Have gotten an offer from another school, but just wanted to share here in case someone from USC is watching. Who even is designing these systems? Pathetic.

I applied for the 2nd time to USC. I had contacted PIs beforehand, but never received any interview invite.