my rejection letter contained an encouragement to continue to work on my portfolio and to reapply in a future semester -- is that standard language included in all of them (i..e, them just being nice) or is there some significance to that?
Not to take away from the important message there but, yeah, it's standard in all of them. Been rejected twice, and both letters were identical -- including the paragraphs about working on building up your portfolio, applying again, etc.