lewin

What the heck does her being unmarried or younger than you have to do with it?

I applied to Harvard (a few years ago) and have two letters from them: The first in March saying they were unable to offer me admission. The second in July saying that there had been a "security breech" of their admissions database and my personal data may have been compromised.

I applied to Harvard and all I got was a lousy year of free credit monitoring services.

To me, a lot of the interest you mentioned falls in the realm of social and i/o psychology (unsurprisingly); however, I would focus less on the area of psychology and focus more on the actual people conducting research on your topics.

Lewin mentioned Dunn.

I actually do work on the relationship between money and happiness (well-being). Here are a few other names:
-Ryan T. Howell (my adviser)
-Tom Gilovich at Cornell
-Peter Caprareillo (I forget where he's at, but he graduated from University of Rochester)
-Amit Kummar at Cornell. Works with Gilovich.
-Travis Carter. Graduated from Cornell
-Leaf Van Boven. Graduated from Cornell. He is now at Boulder, Colorado. He may have moved away from this research but check out Van Boven & Gilovich (2003). If you do a forward literature search of this article you can see who else is doing reserach on this.

In terms of goal-setting research and motivation:
-Edward Deci and Andrew Elliot at Rochester
-Faculty at NYU (I don't remember their names offhand...Gollowitzer I think and someone else).

Now to do research on your own on the topic. I highly reccomend just looking at each field and looking for a review paper or meta anaysis, then start looking at the faculties cited. That is probably the best way to figure out who the people are in your area of interest.

Look up Elizabeth ("Liz") Dunn at the University of British Columbia and the people she publishes with. A lot of her work looks at how spending patterns affect happiness and she's really well-regarded (e.g., publishes in Science). One of her well-known studies is on how spending money on other people makes us happier than spending money on ourselves.
 
Like above, judgment and decision making ("JDM") and behavioural economics are probably your best bet. These people could be in marketing departments or psychology (cognitive, IO or social).

Honestly, it probably means your'e not going to get in but they don't want to send out the official rejections to the people in the middle until they have all their preferred acceptances confirmed.

Look up Elizabeth ("Liz") Dunn at the University of British Columbia and the people she publishes with. A lot of her work looks at how spending patterns affect happiness and she's really well-regarded (e.g., publishes in Science). One of her well-known studies is on how spending money on other people makes us happier than spending money on ourselves.
 
Like above, judgment and decision making ("JDM") and behavioural economics are probably your best bet. These people could be in marketing departments or psychology (cognitive, IO or social).

1 part Johnnie Walker, 2 parts club soda.

There are two major advantages to a student conference. The first is the experience you get from presenting your work in a low-stress but still formal environment. The presentation will also go on your CV but by the time you apply for jobs you should have higher scale conferences and publications than a student conference on your CV. The other advantage is networking; this will vary by university but often local professors will attend these student conferences (at least in my field) and it can be an opportunity to present your work in front of someone famous and get some useful feedback. Getting to know other students is also helpful - remember, these will be your future peers in your future job, they'll be the people reviewing your papers for journals and conferences, and they might be someone whose house you could crash at when you need a cheap place to stay when attending a conference in their area. It's always a good idea to put your name out there, especially if you can do so with minimal effort (i.e., I would not create a brand new talk for a student conference, but as a MA student and even in the first 1-2 years of a PhD program I think students can benefit from taking an existing talk and giving it at such a conference).

Honestly, it probably means your'e not going to get in but they don't want to send out the official rejections to the people in the middle until they have all their preferred acceptances confirmed.

Honestly, it probably means your'e not going to get in but they don't want to send out the official rejections to the people in the middle until they have all their preferred acceptances confirmed.

Most of these schools (if not all) should have this info on their websites.

I think you're focusing on the wrong things. If your POI publishes regularly, that's a huge plus. So what if he isisn't super well known (and google search results is a terrible indicator of that imo), but is he doing good science based on your readings? I think you need to shift your focus to the quality of science he's doing. I highly reccommend shifting your focus, at the very least, away from prestige. It may really negatively color the perception of your visit and you'll miss an oppurtunity to work with incredibly astute, bright, and amazing scientists. I really only applied to places I could end up in regardless of prestige. The people I applied with are all doing amazing work that I'd like to be a part of.

If prestige is something really important to you then the best people to ask are your advisers. They know the people in your field.

Doing a PhD will almost certainly be a more intensive experience than your previous MAs, so I'd question the wisdom of doing an additional job on the sly. At best it would hamper your research productivity. 
Hiding the job from your advisors and the rest of the Department for 5 years would tough, too. People would surely notice that if you were untraceable at set points during the working week. 
 
Without knowing the specifics of the fellowship I can't really comment on how serious the "don't work rule" is. If the fellowship gives you enough money to live on then I wouldn't bother with the second job. 
 
If you are set on working as well, perhaps take a year off from your second job while you settle into the PhD program and concentrate on the research... 

I am 99% confident that SSHRC results, regardless of the competition level, will be announced no earlier than April!

I applied to Harvard (a few years ago) and have two letters from them: The first in March saying they were unable to offer me admission. The second in July saying that there had been a "security breech" of their admissions database and my personal data may have been compromised.

I applied to Harvard and all I got was a lousy year of free credit monitoring services.

Animal research is critical to the success of modern medicine, among other things, and not intrinsically bad. National defence is also important and--without knowing the specifics of the project--knowledge that contributes to the country's security could be construed as a positive thing. Certainly it's not an easy decision... in the end it's up to you whether you can reconcile the potential benefits with the significant cost (to you and to the animal subjects).

Apologies for being blunt, but I think that if you have time for a second job then you should be doing more research... if you want an academic job. It's not just about "degree progress", it's about getting enough material on your CV so that you can get a job afterwards. One PhD + 0 publications = no job prospects.
 
I can carve out a limited exception for the people whose jobs are research-relevant or involved so little work that they could spend their time on homework, etc..

I don't think they do that at all, and I'm not sure if it's a good thing or not. I know I would personally benefit from funding based on how much need one has (e.g. more funding for people with dependents). I believe in getting people to the same level is the right thing to do, instead of treating everyone equally. That is, perhaps the department should fund people to get everyone to the same standard of living, instead of funding people the same amount. So, for example, someone with higher medical needs/costs might get more funding so that they can enjoy the same standard of living as someone who doesn't need to spend money on healthcare, because they are already healthy.
 
In the ideal world, every grad student would have whatever amount of funding necessary for them to not have to worry about finances etc. However, the real world is not like this because it's a "zero-sum game". If we are able to fund those with higher needs at higher amounts, then it would be unfair to take away funding from those with less needs. In addition, it raises the very tricky issue of what counts as "need" and what counts as "luxury". Does having a family count as a "need" or a "luxury"? What about having a car? What about being in-state vs. out-of-state -- e.g. no one is forcing anyone to go to school out of state, so doing say (and the extra costs) are a "luxury"?? The other problem obviously is this now imposes the school's definition of how students "should" live their lives. 
 
To be honest, sometimes I am frustrated when our department chair tells us that "your stipends are enough so that you can afford everything, except maybe a car [i.e. we should save for a few years]". This is simply not true for people who aren't single grad students that want to live on campus housing. While domestic grad students may have partners who are able to find work, the rules are very complicated for international students with partners/spouses. So it's a bit frustrating when the faculty say stuff like "don't worry about money, you're doing okay", and I'm thinking that my current budget is running very negative because health insurance cost for spouses of students are not subsidized at all here etc. etc. 
 
I feel that in a sense, by providing everyone with an equal amount of funding, the department is also kind of imposing what kind of lifestyle they want their grad students to live. But compared to a dictated list of what is "necessity" and what is "luxury", the current system is definitely the lesser of two evils. I don't know how to "fix" the current system either! So we just have to live with it for now.
 
However, there are smaller ways that students with higher needs might be able to access increased funding. At some schools, my spouse's health plan would have been highly subsidized (thus providing more support to those who may have higher expenses). At my current school, there's a benefit for the additional costs of child care. At one of my old schools, when there was additional money allocated for our health benefits (through the TA Union), we decided to reserve a portion of that money to award as grants for those with higher health care needs (instead of simply allocating all of that money to everyone equally, regardless of need). So I think trying to get everyone on the "same level" can work out for small scale situations like this.

I think the opinion of your character will influence the selection process, and it's not just the other students' opinions. You will be meeting lots of profs as well and their opinion probably counts even more! I don't understand why you think you need a very different strategy (if I understood your post correctly) to interact with the other students compared to your interactions with the faculty. When it comes to research related topics, faculty members, post-docs, and graduate students do not act very differently, from my experience. In discussion groups and seminars, all three groups will tend to discuss the science/research as peers and colleagues. 
 
I also think research at the graduate level and beyond is very very specialized. So, the foremost expert in the room will be the person who is currently working on that topic -- it might be a graduate student, a post-doc, or a faculty member. I know that most profs will expect their PhD students to know way more about their thesis topic than themselves. In addition, at the grad school level, most students will start to specialize. For example, during my MSc, I was studying the Physics GRE in order to apply to PhD programs and I started a study group, mostly with other undergrads. These undergrads knew way more physics than I did! This didn't surprise me (in fact, I was counting on it) because they are still learning Physics while my grad coursework had become much more specialized. In many PhD programs, the first couple of years might have broad coursework to build a foundation in the field, but most of the topics are not directly useful to one's research the further along you go.
 
I think it's a bit presumptuous to make the blanket statement that you will know more about "their discipline" than the current grad students. Except for the new students, each grad student has probably dedicated a good chunk of their lives studying something very specific. So it's probably not likely that you will know more about every one of these topics. However, I'm also confused about your expectations of what you think you should "behave like". I'm not exactly sure what you mean by "amicable undergraduate", but I definitely do not expect visiting prospective students to be completely oblivious to their field. In fact, I would expect them to probably know at least the same general stuff as me (since most undergrad core curricula are similar), if not more (since I am further removed from it than them). I would also expect them to have a lot of knowledge about the topic they are interested in studying. When we sit down to discuss what they are working on, I hope that I would learn something cool about their work. 
 
Again, I am not sure what you mean about the role of an "amicable undergraduate". You are definitely not expected to "play dumb" or "hide your knowledge of the field" or whatever to appease the graduate students (why would we want that? we want to see smart, clever, and motivated people as our future colleagues). Being friendly is really all that is important. I think most people would like to work with people that they would really "mesh" with or get along with, but in academia, there's no shortage of people who might be less extroverted/more introverted. So you don't have to fake it as a bubbly, excited, happy all the time person. Just be yourself and be friendly. 
 
However, it also sounds like you feel like you have a certain personality and you don't want to change it. This is fine, one of the purposes of the visits is for both you and the current department to decide if you will get along or not. When you visit, you will probably quickly get a sense whether or not you will get along with these people for the next 5+ years or not. I think this is an important part of the decision on where to go -- you want to pick a school that fits you both research-wise and personality-wise. I might be worried about what you mean by "unempathetic". To me, this means that you are describing yourself as someone who doesn't care about the thoughts/feelings of others in your actions (but maybe I understand this wrongly). For me, the sense of community is very important in grad school because it's a time that is very stressful and can also be very emotionally draining. So, for me, this would be a negative trait / a red flag. But every department is made up of a lot of different people with different attitudes so I don't expect everyone to be a friend, nor should you need to worry about being close with everyone! Just be yourself and find the department that fits you the best

Honestly, I'd see if you can just move the flight up or back by a day rather than not stay a night with the grad student.  Usually this is not a problem if you get it cleared first, especially if it won't cost any extra money to the school.  Here's why I suggest this:
 
1. Staying with the grad student actually is a time you can really learn a lot about the program "off the record" when the grad student isn't worried about what other people are hearing her/him say.  You can ask questions that maybe you wouldn't feel comfortable asking in a group or with faculty in the room.  You can actually see what a typical grad student can afford on the stipend and what housing options are like in the area, as well as get a feel for local neighborhoods that you might actually end up living in someday.  These are things you don't get from being on campus and will remind you to ask real questions about quality of life outside the lab.
 
2. Admissions are a crap shoot and I'd take all the opportunities possible to get yourself an advocate.  Bonding with a current student can only help.  We use hotels, but if a grad student volunteered to share their apartment they probably want to talk to you and they can be useful to you!
 
3. Last year we invited students to visit and 2 of them took off after a dinner with the current grad students to go meet friends--everyone else hung a little to talk. They were already making the least great impression of the group, but having made the plans and run off did sour us on them even more.  It's probably not terrible if you're making a great impression otherwise, but if you're borderline it won't work in your favor.

I applied to Harvard (a few years ago) and have two letters from them: The first in March saying they were unable to offer me admission. The second in July saying that there had been a "security breech" of their admissions database and my personal data may have been compromised.

I applied to Harvard and all I got was a lousy year of free credit monitoring services.

What the heck does her being unmarried or younger than you have to do with it?