what they told us was:
1. when your file is reviewed and voted on by the committee, you receive the initial status page update. this will be either rejection (>3.5) or "hold" (rest). the numbers will not change after this point. applicants are ranked accordingly.
2. on dec. 15, mid-feb., and mid-march, the committee will decide to admit a certain number of students (say, 50). the dean will then look at the top 50 people on the ranked list. if there is a skew as to in vs. out of state, they will temporarily skip out-of-staters in order to keep about a 40:60 ratio for each pool they accept. (so, if all of those 50 at the top were out of state, they wouldn't take all 50 at this time, moving on to in-staters lower on the ranked list). so, dec. you could hear you are accepted or you could remain in the "hold" pool.
3. if you're still in the "hold" category, the next time acceptances go out, you could receive one then. again, the next 50 or so would be accepted. finally, in march, those not accepted, but in the "hold" pool will be placed on the official wait list.
a bit complicated, so i'm not sure if the way i wrote it made any sense. basically, if you got the update and it says you're on hold, congrats! you're not above a 3.5. (this is by the dean's explanation. i do agree that the wording makes it sound otherwise...). also, if you didn't get the update yet, don't worry. they said they had fallen behind more than expected over thanksgiving, etc., so some files may not have been voted on yet.
anyways, that's my long explanation of what i understood from last week... good luck everyone!
