该如何回信呢？

Our admissions committee got its process rolling in full this week, and your file is one that garnered some interest from a number of people on the committee.  We're still one or two weeks away from making "short list" decisions on our applicants, but since your name bubbled up as somebody we should be looking at more closely as we set about making those decisions, I wanted to encourage you to do something.  If you have a chance, I'd love to hear from you as to your progress in the application process more generally; get a sense of your interest in our program relative to others you might have applied to, etc.

我该怎么回答对方？这所学校并不是我最想去的学校，但因为其它学校目前都还没回音，我该如何向对方表明我现在的申请进度，才不会造成对方对我不好的印象呢？毕竟若其它都被拒了，我还是会去这里念的。先多谢了。

谢谢各位的建议，我跟对方表明了想去念的意图，第二天就收到我在PS中注明的那位教授的来信，说想跟我电话谈谈。我担心对方可能会问到如果我的母校(我的一个Master是在美国拿的)也愿意收我，我会选他们学校还是我的母校？我该怎么回答呢？

我好像没有办法说我比较喜欢他们学校，或者他们的课程。因为我的母校在我想念的领域还小有名气，声望也比这所学校要大，我想他们也明白这点。但我又不希望让他们以为我是拿他们来保底的，毕竟我还是有很大可能会去的，如果奖给得多的话。大伙通常都怎么说呢？