Thank you for your kind words. It helps a bit.bfollinprm wrote: Most top schools havent finished their admissions. Hold tight. Fellowship offers have gone out, but most big schools haven't filled their TA positions. I shouldn't say this, since your SO is in direct competition with me (similar stats), but if you send an email that probably wouldn't be inappropriate. They obviously like you (they gave you a fellowship), and if accepting your SO (who has an application that indicates she'd be successful as a grad student) gave them a better chance of keeping you, they have a good incentive to accept her over similar applicants (like me ). Good luck!
We have two recommenders working in world-renowned insitutions: one is a well-known professor from a top-5 european medicine institution, another works in a top-5 US university (he is not a professor though). The problem could be that they both are from the same country as we are. However, she has a paper in an international journal with Impact Factor ~4.5, which is ok for our field. Another paper was submitted to a less popular and more specialized journal. As you can see, it is hard to estimate her chances, because there are a lot of details.bfollinprm wrote: EDIT: To be clear, an experimentalist with a PGRE in the 65-80th %ile range is not a bad applicant; that's not a bad PGRE score for an experimentalist. It's a good score. Assuming good LoR's and good grades, she stands a good (<30%) chance of getting into top schools on her own merit (this is from the mouth of my PI at a top 5 school). Emailing the department is just giving them a reason to break the ties at the fringe of the acceptance pool (which is where someone with those stats will normally lie) in favor of your SO.
EDIT2: I forgot you were an international. That changes things. Where has she published, and does she have US LoR writers? If so, she has a good chance. If not, that PGRE might be the only data point they trust 100% (it's hard to compare GPA/LoR's across cultures). In that case, still try, but don't get your hopes up.
Another question, what could I write to them? "Hi, I've got accepted, but what about my SO?". I don't see a right form for this enquiry.
Thank you!