lecturesonnothing

I hope someone from the UK can answer your question, but if it helps, Canada taxes my US stipend according to Canadian rules on what counts as taxable income (like the UK, Canada does not tax PhD stipends) so every year I file a nil income tax return (and get some rebates too, for being a low income taxpayer). In my opinion, I think that barring any tax treaty between another country and the US, the solution that makes the most sense is for each country to treat income according to their own laws, not following US laws. 

@lecturesonnothingCongrats on having so many great options! Our field is very small and it is highly likely that these programs know that they are competing for you. If you've already ruled out Cornell or Chicago as a possibility, I would let them know sooner than later as to free up funds or a spot for other prospective students--since you've already decided on one over the other, this seems the most collegial. Definitely email the professor you've been in contact with and let them know how sincerely excited you were about the opportunity to work with them and perhaps mention grabbing coffee or something at the national AMS; they are obviously very interested in your work and this is a great way to seed staying in touch once the conference rolls around.
As for Columbia, how heavily is it weighed against your current first choice? If you are seriously considering Columbia, I would advise getting in contact with the faculty with whom you're interested in working--you might find that it's not as good a fit as you thought. Also get in contact with some of the graduate students (faculty will most likely introduce you if you ask) and do the research you didn't do initially. Reputation is not everything and given that these are all top rated programs, you have such a great opportunity to go with where you feel the most comfortable and able to succeed. I know it has got to be a tough choice!

Also keen to reopen the discussion for this year – I received my offer on Friday! Like the poster above, I'm excited and apprehensive in equal measure: I've spent my entire life either in big cities or within 90 minutes' travel of London, so Ithaca seems a bit scarily remote. I'm a fan of the whole college-town idea on the whole, having enjoyed my time studying for undergrad and masters degrees in Oxford, but at least from there you can escape to London for the day (or even for an evening out) if everything's starting to feel a bit small and claustrophobic.
The research side of things at Cornell seems like a great fit, and I've got a potential advisor who seems really supportive and enthusiastic (as well as being a big up-and-coming name in my field). From what I've gleaned so far from photos online and Google Street View, Ithaca and the Cornell campus seem like a beautiful environment to live and work in for a few years; I've never experienced anything as cold as it gets in winter, but coming from England I'm well used to it getting dark at 4pm! So, it really is just the isolation issue that's bugging me. Do grad students tend to escape to NYC much in practice?

I'd also be interested to know what the options are like for accommodation: I'm not hugely keen on living in graduate housing (unless people can convince me otherwise), but would ideally like to share a house or apartment with two or three other like-minded people.

Finally, what's the situation re. driving? Is it pretty much necessary to have a car in Ithaca if you want to have something approaching an independent life? (Bear in mind: I'll be 25 when I start, and have had a couple of years out of full-time study, so am keen not to spend all of my free time doing campus-based/'studenty' things.) I don't currently have a licence (though I do know how to drive a car – long story), but if it's going to make a major difference to my quality of life then I'm prepared to put some effort into getting one over the next few months before I go out there. 

Bumping this topic!
Really excited at the prospect of Cornell, but also apprehensive. Definitely used to living in urban environments and hesitant to let that go.
Suggestions on best areas for graduate students to live? Any particular management companies or sites to use for searching (other than the usual craigslist)?
 

UCLA have funding issues for international students because they're a public university so they don't/can't offer identical aid packages for everyone, like the bigger private universities can. Musicology has an easier time than Ethnomusicology though since they're funded from different divisions, from what I remember when I thought about applying (ended up not bothering because of lack of funding guarantees). 
UPenn interviews. Apparently some schools interview only the "maybe" list and admit other applicants without interview, some schools interview the whole shortlist, others don't interview at all. It does seem like schools are very consistent in their process but probably not worth reading too much into it until you start seeing acceptances pop up. I actually had interviews at a couple of schools which don't state that they interview - in fact one such school had me on the phone twice for over an hour each time, and I gather that's pretty normal for them. The other interviews I had were just 15 minute Skype sessions with (in retrospect) quite predictable questions.

My heart keeps skipping with all the spam that I keep hoping are app-related emails, but instead are just "FEELING LONELY AND LOOKING FOR SINGLES?" (no, I'm just looking for an acceptance) and "INCREASE YOUR PEEN SIZE BY THE LENGTH OF 3 FOOTBALL FIELDS" (if only there was a pill to increase my application patience that much...)
Signed,
An apparently "under-endowed [nerdy] single"  

Sent in most of my applications a few weeks ago and I've just had the first of what I'm sure will be many heart-stopping/jaw-dropping emails. Turns out that one of the schools I've applied to are starting to review applications and want to double-check that the list of other places I've applied to is correct and up-to-date. (The first line of the email which flashed up on my phone read just like a stock rejection letter: I'm still recovering.)
Any ideas why they'd be concerned enough about this information to email people to confirm it's accurate?  

I'm from the UK, did my undergrad and masters over here and am currently applying for PhDs in the US – so I know what it's like trying to get your head around different requirements and cultural expectations!
To answer your specific questions: no, there's no set format for an academic CV that you have to follow. Just make sure it lists your education in chronological order, with grades etc., and flags up any particularly noteworthy achievements that are relevant to your application. I'd suggest putting your study abroad in the 'education' section, either where it fits chronologically or at the end if it was a year in the middle of your undergrad degree. I was pretty clueless when I applied for my masters and think I just adapted the one I'd used for applying for jobs etc. (note that, as csmreich says, in the UK we use "CV" for what you'd call a resume). I get the impression that for 'pure' academic subjects, as opposed to more professional or vocational degrees, the CV isn't really taken that seriously: after all, what relevant info can most people put on there straight out of undergrad that's not already stated elsewhere on the application form or on your transcripts? I guess it's a good place to list any papers you might have published or conference presentations you might have given (but it's not expected that you'll have done those things to be a competitive applicant).
With reference to A-level grades on people's CVs: personally, I wouldn't include them on my CV now that I'm a graduate – I think it's unnecessary and looks unprofessional. I might have done before I got my undergrad results though, as my degree was based wholly on exams and coursework for which I received the grades at the end of the three years, so A-levels were pretty much the only concrete evidence of academic achievement I had. Also, since we specialise much earlier in the UK (we only take three or four subjects at A level, and then do our entire degree course in a specific subject), I can understand why some people might want to show which subjects they took. In your case, though, I wouldn't advise giving your AP/ACT/SAT scores unless you're specifically asked for them: for one thing, the people reviewing your application probably wouldn't be able to make sense of them (standardised tests are a completely foreign concept over here), and it might come across as naive or as if you're desperately trying to pad out your application.
I'm not sure what subject you're applying for, or whether you're looking at a masters or PhD, but my general thoughts (to be taken with a large pinch of salt: after all, I'm only a fresh masters graduate myself) would be:
a) Be specific about your research interests and aims, somewhat more so than if you were applying to graduate programs in the US. We don't have 'programs' or call it 'graduate school' over here: a British PhD involves working with a specific supervisor on a specific research project from day one, and while our masters degrees are broader and involve seminars and coursework, they're generally very short and intense so you'll need to be starting work on your dissertation (what you'd call a 'thesis': generally a 15,000-20,000 word research paper on a topic of your own devising) within the first few months.
b)) Let your achievements, but most importantly your understanding of and genuine interest in your subject and topic of interest, speak for themselves: don't talk too much about yourself, your background, how you came to be passionate about the subject, or anything like that. Of course you want to come across as inspired and enthusiastic, but it's first and foremost about the research you want to do, not about you as a person. Personal anecdotes are a definite no-no. We're generally a much less demonstrative culture than the US, and anything that comes across as either hokey sentimentalism, or bragging about the prizes you've won and the grades you've received, is a potential turn-off (though any decent admissions committee would hopefully be aware of these cultural differences and make an effort to look past them).