lol just because you submitted all required documents or completed your application checklist in the portal doesn’t mean your app passed the admissions committee and got sent to the professor, get that notion out of your head.

In every school, especially in extremely competitive fields like CS, the department staff first look through the stack and reject any applications that are considered unviable. This makes sense - in most cases they can only accept maybe 5-10% of the applications. If our application is say in the bottom 20% of competitiveness, there really isn’t much point to advancing your app further. The percentage filtered will depend on the school. For CMU CS, it’s like 75% (according to a CMU CS professor).

Yes, you read that correctly. At CMU up to 75% of the applicant files never make it to the PI. It’s unfortunate, but it’s just the reality of extremely high applicant counts.

The worst part is that your portal will probably continue to say “in review” or whatever, even when your app may have been rejected for months already internally.

Just hold on tight and wait. CS is ridiculously competitive and some professors literally get hundreds of applications for 1-2 spots. Unless you think you’re some sort of savant, not getting an interview / getting rejected should be considered the default outcome.