SomeSortaPsych

As far as I can tell (and this definitely may vary with your own experiences) a lot of that may have to do with the difference in culture between terminal Masters  and PhD programs. Most people I've met who tend suffer from impostor syndrome (myself included) tend to follow more research-oriented career trajectories.

Not to mention, just because (let's assume at this point) you're going to school C, doesn't mean you have to be completely done with schools A & B. Hell, you've stated they're already doing things you're interested in, and that could potentially lead to building relationships with the PIs there as potential influences and collaborators. Besides, you've gotta work somewhere once you've finished with all of this, right?

The reason that it is relevant whether or not you're in grad school, and what experiences lead you to give this advice, is that this thread was specifically asking for current graduate students to give advice to new graduate students on how to be successful. 
 
You came into an advice thread as (a) not a current graduate student, and ( giving advice that runs contrary to, well, everyone I've ever heard giving advice about graduate school. 
 
It may work for you, but since this is an advice thread, it's not exactly the best place to post your opinions about what will work best for you in grad school, especially when you don't have any experience actually trying your advice, just a feeling you think it will. 
 
Personally, I don't want new graduate students coming here, reading an advice thread, and thinking that having a life is a bad thing in grad school, will be detrimental to their studies, or make them a lesser student. It's not true, and in fact could put them at a disadvantage in all of the aforementioned areas. 
 
Also, you keep saying you're not generalizing, and then you make a general statement (i.e., you think students who put things on hold will be more successful, productive, and finish quicker) when I've already posted at least one study that shows that people in relationships are more successful, more productive, and finish quicker than those who are single. If you want to make a general argument, on an academically based board, at least be prepared to back it up with some form of evidence- empirical, anecdotal, or statistical, your choice. 
 
Simply stating an untested hypothesis over and over doesn't make it a good, or true.

Ok if people want to interpret it that way fine, maybe its hard too communicate online without sounding offensive but I guess some people are just too sensitive . I am speaking from the perspective of a younger student that goes into a program practically straight from undergrad and who does not the number of attachments or commitments like students who have a family do. I am saying that if you do not have all those attachments already, I do not think they are necessary to develop all the sudden in grad school and you can put them on hold, I think students who do that will be more successful, productive, and finish quicker. 

I don't know what field you're in, so I'm not sure that this will be helpful, but I would tell you to approach your first chapter like it's a 20-page seminar paper. In other words, just sit down and write it.
 
Just write it. It's going to be terrible. It's going to be bad. But no one can help you with it when it's still in your head. You have to produce SOMETHING in order to get to the stage where you can actually receive help on it.

Not all students, particularly in first-year courses, are ready to be there. Giving a student a failing grade does not necessarily mean that you have failed them as an instructor.

This has been my experience as well. My department has an almost weekly happy hour frequented by grad students and faculty. Some people talk about random things (sports, news, etc.), others talk about teaching, others about research. I've found that in some of these small conversations I've gotten great ideas or insights into my research that I hadn't gotten otherwise. Sometimes just being asked to give the 30 second version of your research can force you into thinking about it in a different way or allow someone else to say something you hadn't thought of. Without those conversations, my work would definitely suffer.
 
And yea, I'm one of those people who can't work all the time. Back when I did my comprehensive exams (which were multiple questions over like 10 days), I remember people in my department (mostly those not yet at the exams stage) being surprised that I was still attending the class I was TAing (I was mostly grading but went to every single lecture), working out, and even watching an episode or two of a TV show online. But you know what? You can't work for 16 hours a day for the 10 days without a break. And really, since I was limited to like 25 pages double-spaced per answer, I would've ended up writing way more than I needed if I'd worked that long. Instead, I rode my bike to the gym, worked out with friends (including some who had PhDs and thus totally understood what comps were and why you might need a break), cooked myself real food, etc. It's about knowing what you need to work efficiently and be productive and taking the time to do whatever that is.
 
Back to the original question though:
- Be open and willing to learn.
- If you're in the humanities or social sciences, take the time to just browse the library shelves in your general field and in your intended research area to get an idea of what's been published and what research resources are available to you. (Even better, meet with a librarian early on to make sure you know what your school has and the support s/he can give you.)
- Skim through recent journal issues in your field to get a sense of what topics are current and which are becoming dated. Pay attention to book reviews if there are any and use those to help you find relevant books for your discipline and research area.
- Learn to use reference management software (EndNote, Zotero, Mendeley, etc.) and start keeping track of your references that way.
- Figure out an easy to use system for staying abreast of current/new research in both books and journals that may be of interest.
- Read your graduate handbook (and TA handbook if needed) so you know what is expected of you. Ask questions if expectations are unclear.
- Start figuring out what, if any, courses outside the department you might want to take, how often they're offered, how difficult they are, etc.
- If you're going to need research methods training, figure out how to get that ASAP. In the social sciences, this often means taking courses in qualitative methods, statistics, and/or GIS and seats in those classes can fill because they're attracting students from an array of disciplines. Getting your methods coursework done means you can start collecting data sooner.
- Get to know whomever helps oversee grant apps (NIH, NSF, SSRC, Fulbright, IAF, etc.) at your institution and ask them what you can do beginning now to prepare to apply in the future, when you should be applying, what you'll need to be competitive, etc. And, while you're there, get them to help you set up some alerts for grant announcements.
 
There's probably more you could do, especially related to conferences and networking, but I don't want to overload anyone with suggestions.

Feel very annoyed about TAing, and it will alleviate your fears about TAing.

Side Effect: You will feel annoyed about TAing.

There are so many subtle and overt things in what you said that just don't sit well with me. First off, touting one's education isn't useful to ending "discrimination" and it especially isn't useful to ending class-based oppression (which is always already complicated along racialized and gendered lines). Secondly, if you cannot recognize the very real material differences between a black person being called the n-word and a white person being called a cracker, then we will just have to stop the discussion now because I cannot abide that. Thirdly, I do not want to be part of your solution if it is characterized by a praxis of supposedly equity in which everyone always already deserves respect. Do people of color, queer folks, trans people, disabled folks, the poor and the ill get respect already? I am just not here for anyone centering white people's feelings or coddling us in order to talk about respect, or about ending discrimination, or anything at all really. We've always been coddled, why would it be useful to continue to do so if we were trying to imagine a world in which everyone is ~*equal*~?

I find it horribly tragic that educated individuals pursuing graduate study can study discrimination for a living in an effort to stop it, all the while preaching that it is okay to use derogatory language. If you ever want the world to change, you need to treat everyone with respect and stop justifying hate speech.  The ideological mindset you preach toward your “wonderbread cousins” is what perpetuates racism and pejorative behaviors. Your diction is divisive and serves to reinforce racial divides.  
 
In short: You are part of the problem, not part of the solution. 

yeah so like...there are indeed already white heterosexual men in women's studies. and half the time the ones that are "accepted" so to speak in my experience are trans guys who ID as straight. And like...I have a LOT of feelings about trans men in women's studies spaces (just like I have a lot of feels about cis straight white men in women's studies spaces). But honestly like this should be a non-issue. I think that the gender studies, the women's studies, the feminist studies, the whatever the hell studies should operate under the assumption that anyone who enrolls in the class is 1) interested and 2) willing to learn and 3) willing to UNLEARN (just as important). If anyone, regardless of who the person is via identity politics, does not do one or more of those three things...why are they there?
 
also i really need all my wonderbread cousins in here to stop getting so riled up about ~*slurs*~ like whitey and cracker. you're aware that whitey was created in direct response to terms like darkie and that cracker LITERALLY means the one who cracks the whip...a reference to being the MASTER in the context of chattel slavery...so...even if it is insulting what it calls you out on is your white guilt, not whatever parallel negative presuppositions there might be about BEING white. just saying y'all. just sayin. so calm it down.

also the entire conversation that came up about whether or not slang terms with derogatory connotations count as slurs against white folks is further evidence that women's studies is STILL dominated by anglo-feminist ideals...which means that women's studies has such an overarching tendency to serve the needs of the project that is whiteness more than it really serves the needs of those who would consider themselves involved in a social, political struggle connected to feminism.
 
basically...to me and in my experience...women's studies can get hella white washed hella quick and it just makes me so nervous when white cis het men are in women's studies classrooms, but aren't reading works by women of color, or queer and trans people of color, or you know aren't even interacting with actuall WoC and QTPoC ya know in like...real life. </rant>

I wish I could join you, but alas, Berkeley told me no. Oh well. I'll be back for my post-doc. CAL, YOU AIN'T SEEN THE LAST OF ME.

My parents said they would spank me if I dont get a nobel prize and a PhD. 

I'm in the social sciences, and specifically, I'm in public health and social psychology.
 
I started out wanting to get a PhD because I loved research, and I wanted to become a researcher at a government agency or a private or semi-private think tank.  I do social-health research, and I wanted to use the social sciences in public health to study people's health behaviors and help create interventions and programs that would try to make or keep people healthy.
 
In the middle of my program, I started to get more confused about what I wanted to do, and at that point I decided to continue to try to finish my PhD because I wasn't quite sure what I wanted to do; a PhD would prevent me from doing none of the non-PhD-required positions I thought sounded cool, but WOULD prevent me from getting some of the PhD-required positions I thought sounded cool.
 
Now that I'm at the end of my PhD, I realize that I really love both teaching and research.  I love working with students, mentoring them, and trying to show them how they can use social science, statistics, and public health in their every day lives and careers (even if they don't aspire to being a researcher or professor).  I also like helping younger folks figure out what they want to do with their lives, because I explored a lot of fields and felt a lot of uncertainty and I want to let them know that's okay, and it's normal.  And I still really love research, and still want to look at the connections between human behavior and psychology and physical health.  Of course, the job that suits that best is being a professor...so even though I didn't initially intend to become an academic when I started the enterprise, it turns out that's what I really want to do.

For me it's 28% childhood dream chasing, 31% love for research, and 39% "YOU MEAN THERE ARE PEOPLE THAT WILL PAY ME TO DO SCIENCE?" 
 
Beyond all that, there is a logistical 2%, but I don't often consider it. It's just kinda there, like: "Hey, you also have to eat, but whatever."  

PhD students are more important. Get over it please.

Or you could uh... you know, try to lose weight? I don't know your situation at all and don't mean to be judgmental... but if you have to rest after every 20-30 paces you are definitely not getting the exercise you need and should be more concerned about becoming healthier than finding a campus that have seats with no armrests.
 
Edit: oh and to answer your original question...stay away from Colorado I guess. Lots of active health nuts here.