AtomDance

Okay, so I spoke too soon, friends. I was waiting for my formal rejection because I was not invited to the recruitment weekend. Today I got a very personal email from my POI informing me that I was accepted!  I am completely over the moon. Thank you for all the support and encouragement! I'm getting a Ph.D.! 

That's the way it is in my field, at least. Which is why my old advice was typically to make weather and location a secondary concern. Obviously no one should go anywhere they'd be absolutely miserable 4+ months out of the year. But in my field and many others, graduates of top programs are more competitive and have far more options when they are applying for jobs, as it's generally understood that you can only go down and not up in prestige (this is crude language but you get what I'm getting at). So someone who attends UIUC - a top 5 program in my field - might have to spend 5 years in Urbana in the cold, but their doctoral program is not going to limit them in terms of where they can apply come job market time. Someone who attends Loma Linda might have an excellent five years in southern California but then be unable to find a decent tenure-track job they want to stay in long-term. And let's face it - long-term jobs in desirable locations are very competitive.
BUT...that's the ideal. As I've gotten further along in my career, my thinking has come to lean more along the lines of rising_star's - she has a really good point. So often advice for academic careers involves denying your own needs and desires and pretending that the period of time you spend in graduate school (and a postdoc) isn't Real Life, but it totally is. I went to graduate school in a generally desirable city (New York) and did a postdoc in a small, isolated college town (State College). Five to seven years isn't a short amount of time, really. I loved my time in New York; I made lots of great friends, grew a network, did some exciting and awesome things, and got a chance to live in a city many people dream about living in for the early part of my 20s. On the other hand, personally, I couldn't imagine spending 5+ years in State College. In fact, my experience there, while positive, was one of the reasons I left academia altogether and went into industry. I wanted far more control over where I would live eventually than I would ever have in an academic career, and I didn't want to make a series of lateral moves to get somewhere nice. But some people do want that - or the experience of having lived for 5-7 years somewhere really beautiful gives them the wherewithal to stick out 2-4 years somewhere worse for their postdoc if necessary, or for their first job. I had quite a few friends who actually hated the town but made the most of it because they loved the career that they had built there, and they found ways to make the time bearable. Different strokes.
So, like many things in academia, I think it really depends on your priorities and valuations. There's really not a wrong choice here, because different things are important to different people.
The other thing here is that weather is not the OP's only consideration - there's also departmental fit. Let me say that departmental atmosphere is extremely important to your well-being - and possibly your performance, too. Friendly, helpful profs can make calls on your behalf, help you get publications and generally reach out to mentor and nurture you as a researcher. Top researchers are great and all, but they become functionally useless if they're so far up their own you-know-what that they don't have time for graduate students. Likewise, the doctoral students you go to school with will be your cohort; you will spend inordinate amounts of time with them, at least for the first 2-3 years or so. You will be stuck in the labs with them, potentially studying for comps with them, maybe collaborating on research with them. I love my cohort mates from my doctoral program and I still talk to some of them.
Go where you feel welcomed, for sure.

Got accepted to University of Wisconsin Madison microbiology program.  So excited to be going to graduate school!

Accepted at WUSTL MGG! PI told me in person. YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Calls and emails should go out today and tomorrow.

Accepted to Scripps!!!! This has been my dream school since I was a freshman in high school, I can't even believe it!!!!!!! So so happy

I got a phone call from one of my interviewers today! I've been accepted at Einstein!

Got an acceptance call from my top choice - UCSF BMS!! So excited!

Accepted to my top choice with funding for 6 years + summers!!!! So fricken' happy!!!

Whew, got an acceptance through UMaine! It feels like a big weight has been lifted from my chest, haha. 

Nothing better than getting a phone call acceptance from your top choice 10 minutes before a test!
All I need to do now is graduate and I'll be a grad student this fall!
 
Edit: and second acceptance email 1 hour later... Today is a good day (well aside from probably bombing that test)

I'm in the same position you are, having been admitted to four programs but only seriously considering two. Being a fan of tables, I made a pro-con chart that considers:
location, including distance from friends/family cost of living availability/cost of housing near campus program ranking school ranking outcomes of conversations with current students how well advisors' methods match my research interests my impression of how well-defined and cumulative the advisors' lines of research are advisors' years of experience, number of publications/citations number of students advisor has had in the past, including their outcomes (types of institutions they end up at, # of publications / year, # citations / year after graduation) funding my impression of advisors' personalities overall culture of the program With that chart in hand, what was a difficult and anxious decision now seems obvious!

I've been doing a bunch of googling and looking through threads on here, and this is the categorized list I've come up with that I plan to draw my questions from. (I might be over-thinking/over-preparing.)
 
Graduate Students
Research
What research are you working on? How quickly were you able to start your research?
Life/social
How much of a student community/social life is there (including within cohort)?
Is it an inclusive environment? Have there ever been problems with harassment?
Where do you (and students in general) live? How is living here?
What is the area around campus like? How are the housing options?
Is the university helpful with finding housing?
Is the stipend enough to live on?
Advisors
How is working with your advisor? (intentionally open-ended)
How would you describe your PI's advising style? (hands on/closely supervised or hands off/independent)
What strategies have worked well to maintain a successful relationship with your advisor?
How available is your supervisor? How frequently do you meet with your advisor?
Does your supervisor support support interest in a career outside academia?
How regularly/quickly does your advisor publish?
Would you choose this advisor if you were doing it over?
Program/University
What do you think of the program? Biggest pros and cons?
How easy/hard is it to customize the program? (i.e., taking different courses)
What do you think of the courses? Useful content, well taught, relevant to your research/goals?
How big is the program?
What would you change about the program?
Does the environment feel more collaborative or competitive? Are students generally collaborative or competitive?
How easy/difficult was the process of joining a lab?
What are responsibilities of TAs like? What is the workload/time commitment? How many terms do you TA?
Group/lab
How would you describe the lab group? (Intentionally open-ended)
What is the culture in the lab? How much time are you expected to spend in the lab?
What kind of schedule do you work?
How much collaboration is there within the lab?
Other
Are you happy here?
What do you wish you had taken into consideration when making your decision about where to attend?
Who is on your committee and why?
Do you get to attend conferences?
How is it being a female in this generally male-dominated department/university/field?
Professors & Potential Advisors
Students
Do students create their own projects or work on something already developed/in progress?
What are the expectations for a graduate student in your lab? (i.e., working from home, fixed hours)
What advice would you give to a student who wants to be successful in your program? Are there any specific pitfalls to be avoided?
How much do students RA vs TA? What is the funding structure/guarantee for students?
How often do you sent students to conferences?
How long do students in your lab take to complete?
What do students from your lab typically do after graduation?
Research
I hear you study X. I've only studied a little bit of that so far, but I remember learning about Y. Can you tell me a little bit about your work?
What are your current projects?
What research projects do you have that would be looking for graduate students?
What directions or projects are you thinking about for the future?
University
What is the big picture/goal/focus/priority of the department?
What's the biggest strength of the program?
What professional development services are available?
How/when are students paired with advisors?
What percentage of students complete the PhD? Pass quals?
What are responsibilities of TAs like?
Would any of my master's coursework transfer?
Other
How is your lab organized?
What collaboration goes on? Within/between labs, departments, other schools?
How would you compare this program to X and Y?
Is there funding available for attending things like conferences or summer schools?
Do you have lab/group meetings? What do you discuss? (papers, research in progress)

can anyone tell me anything about UCSD's waitlist for BMS.....
its my only hope...
also congrats to everyone out there who has offers! you've worked hard for them
 

Accepted to Cornell University as a Dean's Scholar!!!

Hmm, UCSD BMS just sent me a waitlist decision which I will likely decline. Good luck to everyone who applied there!
Also. Accepted into Harvard BPH, notified by phone!

Accepted into Duke CMB. Fastest turnaround yet.

got my first acceptance into WashU immunology!

I got my first acceptance  UGA Microbiology!!! 

an offer from UW Madison!!!!!! HOLY SHIT I'm going to grad school. I'm going to grad school.

If anyone is waiting on Hopkins Human Genetics, I just got an interview invite that I declined. Hopefully it goes to someone who is super excited about this program! 
Also got my first acceptance today and it made all the application stress and ugly-crying on my bf's shoulder worth it 

If anyone is waiting on Hopkins Human Genetics, I just got an interview invite that I declined. Hopefully it goes to someone who is super excited about this program! 
Also got my first acceptance today and it made all the application stress and ugly-crying on my bf's shoulder worth it 

If anyone is waiting on Hopkins Human Genetics, I just got an interview invite that I declined. Hopefully it goes to someone who is super excited about this program! 
Also got my first acceptance today and it made all the application stress and ugly-crying on my bf's shoulder worth it 

Currently at an interview, and just saw that I was accepted to my top choice program! 
I'm so happy, and I can finally relax after ~5 months of stress and worry.
Congrats to everyone else who has received acceptances so far, and good luck to everyone still awaiting interviews and acceptances!

Just received my first acceptance to UC Berkeley MCB! So nice to finally hear back from one of my top choices!

OMG! I WAS JUST ADMITTED INTO MY TOP CHOICE. I'M GOING TO GRAD SCHOOL!!