Here's how I see it. It seems a lot of people are angry/frustrated/annoyed/whatever with their wording and their apparent "stringing-along" of students. Maybe that's enough justification to get angry, that varies from person to person.
However, I see a school that is at least attempting to communicate with their applicants. Maybe getting a hold status does mean that you have a lower chance of receiving an II, but at least they are actually constantly going over your application again. A 5 minute dive into the older threads will show that plenty of people who were put on hold received II's later. So what if they tell everyone that they're a competitive candidate? These admissions committees are dealing with hundreds of applicants each (on average) and they're doing what they can to communicate well and keep applicants in the loop. There are other schools who don't send any kind of communication for months, schools who will reject a student and not notify them of ANYTHING until March. I'd much rather at least know I still have a chance at an II and I'm still being reviewed for a possible II later on in the cycle. But hey, that's just me 😉. Everyone's entitled to their opinion, but I'm just voicing a different perspective.
