<p>Gradcafe.com confirmed interview invites for the two programs I applied to went out today. Empty inbox. Websites for both still say "decision not ready". </p>
<p>Is a rejection forthcoming, or are they telling me to wait for a possible second round? If so, it'll be a long wait. I imagine they don't feel like dealing with PhD junk over break. </p>
<p>Are rejections and interview invites normally sent out on the same day? Or do the rejections come later?</p>
<p>I had some programs give me a No right away. Some happened a few weeks after visiting weekend (I imagine they were waiting to make sure they hit the yield they wanted.). One didn’t let me know until well after the acceptance deadline at all of the schools I was accepted.</p>
<p>Not all departments are great about using wait lists instead of leaving applicants hanging.</p>
<p>Thanks. A crapshoot, I should have expected it 
If I may ask another question, in my case, I made a bad mistake. I didn’t get official ETS results sent to either program. Today I tried to fix it and couldn’t; I guess their secured payment system is shut down while nobody is manning the fort. Might this be forgiven? Say, if I contacted them to say I still hope to be considered at visiting weekend, and I’m sorry for having erred?</p>
<p>Contact the schools and ask if they’ll accept your unofficial scores provisionally (as in you just send them a list of your scores). Many schools aren’t particularly bothered by these sorts of things - For instance, two of my schools managed to misplace my official transcripts and had listed them as “missing,” yet I still got in. </p>
<p>As for rejections, if you haven’t heard from them within a week or two of other people getting invited, it’s likely a no. Some schools will spread it out longer or do waves based on preferences or dates submitted, but that’s less common.</p>
<p>I think it really depends on the school. One of my lab mates got an interview at Penn and our institution early and didn’t hear from Northwestern and some others until February. By then he had already picked a program and declined the interview. I wouldn’t get too depressed until you know they are done with the final wave of interviews.</p>