So far, I've only seen or heard two rejection emails that weren't the same message that the rest of us got. I don't doubt that the number of submissions were in the hundreds, I knew that with an opportunity like this, they were probably going to get slammed with tons and tons of submissions. I honestly don't know who else got accepted, I've heard this James Kemp person's name come up a few times, but I haven't heard of anyone else from here at MC, or elsewhere, practically everybody I know who sent in a submission got the exact same rejection letter. But, again, they made it clear that there was limited space, and that it would be first-come, first-serve... I don't even remember when I sent in my submission, without looking, but I believe it was about a month or so after I heard received word about the workshop.
I don't believe we'll be seeing an opportunity like this again anytime soon, however; such opportunities like this are extremely rare, getting in is even rarer, and actually being able to work for SST (or any other Muppet/Henson entity) is incredibly, incredibly hard... and I've heard that from people who have been in the puppeteering profession a lot longer than I have.
I will be honest though, I wonder what they specifically would have said had they not sent me the same form-rejection, because I've given demonstrations for puppeteers who have worked for Henson before, such as Ed May, and he said he saw no flaws in my performance technique whatsoever, and like some people have said, "Your performance technique isn't quite right for the Sesame style of puppetry" doesn't quite sound like the best thing they could have said.
But oh well.