Pythia

I used to care. Now I don't. You should keep in mind that a lot of what is obvious to you simply isn't to an undergraduate. They often don't fully understand the power dynamic, and in particular what your place in the hierarchy is. Sometimes they don't really know who is doing the grading, or even if they know the TA does the bulk of the grading, they may assume that the professor is still very much on top of it and looks at some (or all) assignments to see how the class is doing and that the grading is going well. So some may mean well when they go to the professor. And some try to game the system, and they do it because it occasionally works, and it's hard to blame them. You're in luck that the professor did the right thing and told the student to go to you. (I try to have an explicit policy that any grade disputes should go to the TA first, and the TA has autonomy to make decisions about grade changes, (reasonable) extensions on deadlines, etc, and also the right to defer to me if they prefer that I be the bad guy). In any event, yeah, no, dear student, we will not raise your grade just because you want/need us to, but nice try. It makes me feel better to know that these students will have a rude awakening when they graduate and get a job where the boss could care less about their excuses and problems. A deadline is a deadline and results are results, and I don't like it when people try to mess with me. 

Often times I don't respond at all to emails that are rude or abusive. That's probably not the best way to go, however; students generally don't see anything wrong with being rude or abusive to TAs and instructors and therefore don't "get" the fact that they're being deliberately blown off. They see us as rendering a customer service. Therefore, when we don't jump to their demands, they use our lack of reply as more evidence of our lack of professionalism.
 
Sometimes I have indeed replied to students letting them know how rude their emails are. But I think it is best to make a syllabus policy and let them know upfront that you won't respond to rude or unprofessional emails.

The student emails that have no text at all and just an attachment (draft or whatever) are also pretty irritating... 

You're going to have bad days. You're going to have bad days a lot at first, but even after you've been teaching for 5 or 10 years, you're going to have bad days then, too. Just accept them and move on.
 
Related to that, if your students don't like your class or your subject-matter (or even you), don't take it too personally. Remember that you're an "authority" figure in a required class, and that people don't really like authority figures or their "required" courses. (I know that nothing is really "required" in college, but students often perceive general ed classes as a chore.) More importantly, students lose a lot of respect for instructors who seem to take student disinterest really personally. Be open to student feedback (in the form of midterm evaluations) but don't chase after their approval. That just makes you look desperate.
 
Resist the temptation to grade too hard or too easy. Devise a rubric (or borrow one from someone) and stick to it. If it's a choice between being kind and being fair, be fair.
 
Don't lose sight of your own work or the reason you came to grad school. Don't let teaching eat your professional or personal life.

i don't read sop's but can tell you specific, heart-clutching and true anecdotes/or shorter specific points in your life that showed a decision point is what makes the adcom pause, raise their eyebrows and go hhhhhmmm. in other words, this is what distinguishes you from the pack in a VERY good way
i normally don't read sop's but having looked at your ideas for first paragraph - they all suck, are boring, and are no different from the pack
and do you realize in one of your paragraphs you trashed Mormonism? personally, i would have stopped right there and canned you
seriously
everyone at hds for example has a personal narrative and has had struggles, but no one trashes another religion
that aside, paint the picture of your dysfunctional family - what decisions did you make and why?
for mts and mdiv, be personal, but don't just repackage your resume/transcript, tell them about your struggles and decisions
your transcript and lor's will flush out the academic strengths you have, get personal in the sop - but well crafted

My two cents:
My wife and I were just married on the 28th. We met shortly before she needed to move away for grad school. Even though we spoke almost daily similar to @Need Coffee in an IV, and actually became the best of friends while we were apart, the main reason I think that we are together today is that we decided NOT to date while apart. We both dated other people, nothing really took for more than a short while for each of us. Though enjoying each other as best friends was the greatest thing we could do for each other over that time. When she moved home, we were quickly dating again. So, I would say that if you are secure enough to let it go (in the appropriate situation), it will happen eventually if it is meant to. And if it is not, you will at least (hopefully) still have a good friend and will have saved yourself a lot of grief. 

For me, it has come down to faculty, graduate student community, location, and fit. I will be accepting an offer at UMD! 

I can't speak from the perspective of a grad student at Georgetown but I can speak from an undergrad perspective. I got my degree from a different DC university, but I took classes at Georgetown and commuted a lot. Even in areas of DC that are less expensive and not as swanky, I'd say $1400-1500 is about the average starting price for a studio/1 bedroom, especially in areas closer to GU.
My friend lives in Glover Park in a $1500 apartment with 1 bedroom and a small den (big enough for a roommate) and I don't think she pays for all of the utilities. It is a quiet neighborhood with young professionals and some families, and (if I remember correctly) it's a 15 minute walk from Georgetown. There are buses that stop in the neighborhood, but the metro is a bit far. From what I've seen, generally apartments further from a metro stop tend to be slightly cheaper than others, but anyway, you could always check out this neighborhood and the neighborhoods in that section of DC.
Another consideration is Virginia. A lot of 20- and 30-somethings live there. Pricing is not vastly different from DC but some places are less expensive. Plenty of students at GW and GU commute from NoVA and I know there is a free Georgetown University shuttle from the main campus to Virginia (I believe it's somewhere in Rosslyn).

No problem! I know the feeling and I hope you find a good place to live. If you do decide on the NE, there's also a shuttle line from the Law School as well as from Dupont Circle. I commuted from the NE and sometimes took the Dupont shuttle. I'm pretty sure there's additional routes but the three I've named are the ones I saw the most.

I can't speak from the perspective of a grad student at Georgetown but I can speak from an undergrad perspective. I got my degree from a different DC university, but I took classes at Georgetown and commuted a lot. Even in areas of DC that are less expensive and not as swanky, I'd say $1400-1500 is about the average starting price for a studio/1 bedroom, especially in areas closer to GU.
My friend lives in Glover Park in a $1500 apartment with 1 bedroom and a small den (big enough for a roommate) and I don't think she pays for all of the utilities. It is a quiet neighborhood with young professionals and some families, and (if I remember correctly) it's a 15 minute walk from Georgetown. There are buses that stop in the neighborhood, but the metro is a bit far. From what I've seen, generally apartments further from a metro stop tend to be slightly cheaper than others, but anyway, you could always check out this neighborhood and the neighborhoods in that section of DC.
Another consideration is Virginia. A lot of 20- and 30-somethings live there. Pricing is not vastly different from DC but some places are less expensive. Plenty of students at GW and GU commute from NoVA and I know there is a free Georgetown University shuttle from the main campus to Virginia (I believe it's somewhere in Rosslyn).

@TakeruK mentioned the school's overall ranking in the decision-making process. I just wanted to add on to this because, all else being (somewhat) equal, the overall quality of the school may impact your quality of education and the experience you have more than you think, especially if you plan to do anything interdisciplinary and/or are required/encouraged to have faculty from another department on your dissertation committee. If the program you're applying to is excellent in that field, but only that field, then that could limit the resources available to you in terms of research etc. 
 

How are you a philosophy scholar if you can't accept new paths?  Seems a bit odd to me to have such a black and white perspective about graduate school, and to study philosophy.  Admittedly, you said it ended up being worth it.  I will hold no resentment if I don't get into my #1 pick because someone else deserved it more than I did (most likely), or they don't have the resources to train me in my field. 

We all get bummed out about things not going our way, but you have to buck up and move on because if you stay in the past, those negative thoughts are just going to stunt your potential.

I might have to correct myself already, as the title is misleading: technically, when I applied to grad school, I only had a first choice, and all other schools (about 10) were 'fall-back options'. And this might already be my most heartfelt advice I could give to current applicants: don't do it with my attitude. Because if you don't get into that one school, you might never fully stop resenting them for not having admitted you.
The irony is that my first-choice school was much lower ranked than the school I ended up going to. While I was rejected by my first choice, I got into an ivy league (much to my surprise), and so took their offer. At that time, the fact that I had gotten into a higher-ranked school kind of alleviated the pain of not having gotten into my first choice. But let me tell you, even after almost four years in the PhD program in the ivy league school, I cannot pretend that I wouldn't have preferred the other school.
I want to make this clear: This is a very subjective point of view, and it might not be the case for anyone else. And also: I think it was ultimately for the better that I ended up at my current school instead of my first choice. Academically, I've learned about so many new approaches to philosophy that I would not have been confronted with at my first choice. And I would not have lived in this very exciting global city that I live in now, an experience that is worth having in itself. And perhaps it's true that my chances on the job market are better coming from this school instead of from my first choice.
But there is this curious and irrational phenomenon of knowing that this was not my first choice. I was, in some sense, forced to be here as opposed to my first choice, and I know that, despite all the good things, I wouldn't have done it if I hadn't been forced to. Do you know the feeling of 'this person looks good on paper, but I just can't fall in love with them'? That's how it feels. I just can't fully fall in love with my current school. And my first choice is a school I had fallen in love with, but was never able to get to know fully. I'll never forget that my current school had always been 'only' my second choice.
The irony is, again, from today's perspective, that I might not be happy if I were at my first choice school. But at least I would have gotten the chance to not love it anymore, to grow wary of it. After a while there, I might have felt the same frustrations that I feel at my current school. But I would have gotten it my way, and the only one to blame would have been me. This way, I can never fully get rid of the feeling that the things that are stupid at my current school (and there are many!) might not be a problem if I had only gotten a chance to go to my first choice.
As I said, I think that being at my current school is on the whole actually better for me than if I had gotten into my first choice. I just want to express this fully irrational feeling about my first choice that never went away. Perhaps someone can relate?

First off, congrats on starting grad school  Now some advice:
1. Don't worry about being the youngest. You were selected to be there out of many other applicants. They knew your age before offering you a spot so they know you are more than capable of succeeding in the program. I have a friend who is the youngest in her program and she is brilliant.
2. Get close to your cohort. At least one person. This person will be with you through the ups and downs of grad school and you guys can complain as well as praise each other. I had my grad school bestie and man, it helped to know that I wasn't the only one struggling. Speaking of struggling...
3. You deserve to be there. It may sound weird now but imposter syndrome can get to you, especially if you are surrounded by other people who think differently than you do and who are seemingly brilliant. That happened to me a couple times but I was able to get out of it and succeed.
4. Know how you cope and make sure it is not destructive. This was something I wish I knew before going in. I never had a high stress job in my life. Undergrad was a breeze for me and all the actual employment I had at that point was either retail or food. So I never really experienced true stress until I got into grad school. And man...did I have a vice for every semester. I drank a lot, slept around a lot, had a mixture of both one semester, and then shut myself off from the world and became a hermit for my last semester. Was it productive? Eeehhh I mean I got my work done and I survived. But I could see how that could have gotten destructive if I hadn't been able to get my work done. All I can say is that it will be hard. You will stress out. Try to find constructive ways to cope. But if you do like to drink...
5. Find a place with a good happy hour that is walking distance from the campus. While I don't encourage drinking as a way to cope, finding a place (any place, alcohol or otherwise) that other grad students like to go to and hang out after class will help both making friends and taking the edge off.
Hope that helps!

@bloomings I understand. You know, I applied last year to ten universities and was rejected by all of them! It happens and does not reflect your intellectual abilities. Please, let us know if you are finally admitted somewhere...and keep going!!  

@PetiteFilleNoire and @NoirFemme have y'all read Racial Indigestion: Eating Bodies in the 19th Century by Kyla Wazana Tompkins? It sounds like something that would be up your alley.  She explores the ways in which depictions of eating inform the construction of racial difference and political inequality. It's a brilliant book and really worth checking out especially if you're interested in further pursuing food studies. 

I've been really pleasantly surprised at how unpretentious this forum is.

I told my advisor about this place and how it has been nice to get to know some other people who have similar interests/are going through a similar process. She frowned, then cringed, then warned me about people trying to be intimidating via a shadowy and pretentious internet personality. I think she was thinking of her own days in graduate school, when intellectual "sophistication" and cut-throat attitudes were predominant. I'm sure all of us will encounter the pretentious jerks of PhD programs (including some professors), but I've found the environment on here overwhelmingly positive and refreshing, and I'm excited about meeting a lot of these people as we become the next generation of scholars.

I'm especially excited about becoming the next generation of scholars together.

Do you think that being a doctor in something is going to make waiting tables more enjoyable?

Letting everyone else here take the lead on the LOR and application part, I just want to tell you that you are not alone. No one can tell you whether to report this professor or not, but I would really suggest finding someone to talk to about it, specifically a professional like an advocate, social worker, LMHC, etc. Most schools offer free counseling on campus; that is the one thing I would highly suggest doing because even if you handle applications like a BOSS (which I am sure you will), you don't want the trauma to bite you in the ass out of nowhere when you're kicking a** in your doctoral program. I speak from experience, and as a social worker. Before disclosing the name of the professor, or even the incident, I would ask the counselor a hypothetical, as they may be mandated by Title IX to report to the school, and you don't want to be pressured into disclosing.
Being in a country that isn't where you're from can be really difficult and isolating without sexual trauma. Please find someone to talk to. 
Please keep in touch if you're comfortable. Wishing you all the best.
 

Haha. This made me laugh. I lived in Hawaii for 5 years. Poi!

I feel similarly NoirFemme, that I am the caliber of student Yale or NYU is looking for. It's a good feeling. I swear every day just gets more exciting. 

@Noirfemme, Yale seems to have it all lol. I like Minnesota and Brown as well. I was going to apply to Harvard but I screwed up the due dates lol. Also while I would fit in NYU I just didnt end up applying.
I could see your project fitting in Yale, but also in NYU, Michigan, and a few other places. Hopefully, we all end up the best places for us. That's my biggest concern as fit is so so important.

Maybe they want to wish you a happy holiday season with good wishes for the new year!
(And money. They want your money, too.) 

Let me try to answer bit by bit.
"I'm really loath to talk politics on forums etc., but in light of Trump's largely unexpected victory, I think it's perfectly relevant to ask: what does this mean for us as applicants? And what does it mean for us as future English scholars?"
 
To be honest? I don't see how much has changed or will change in terms of net effect on your PhD. The creeping effect of neoliberalism into academic departments and the general decay in funding for the humanities occurred long before Trump and will continue (I'm assuming that any PhD applicant knows about this, but if you want an incredibly current and incisive #hottake, read Newfield's The Great Mistake particularly chapter 3, or even Helen Small's The Value of the Humanities which gives a good map of the various happenings and their value-based implications). However, I'd urge any applicant to consider how protected you'll be compared to others: academic institutions are culturally and financially elevated, mostly white, and fairly wealthy. They are not going to be Trump's first, second, or even third pick for pillaging. 

"These questions are only partially related, of course. The first one addresses whether or not a Trump presidency will have programs pre-emptively reducing the number of applicants they accept in anticipation of major cutbacks to education. There are thousands of similar concerns people will be raising in the coming days and weeks, but since this one affects us directly, I'm curious to hear your thoughts."
 
Yeah so again see above--I think this betrays a fundamental naivety as the "major cutbacks to education" you anticipate have been going on in the USA *for decades* and are mainly enacted on a state level. Read Guillory, Guess, Wendy Brown, etc. This backdates Trump. A lot. And while any funding cuts to the public school system may have implications for public universities, I fail to see the uniqueness, i.e. Republican governors will gradually defund anyway.

My second question is broader, and speaks to the fact (and it really is a fact) that this election was primarily won by the sheer number of white Americans with limited education coming out to vote. In a very real way, Trump's win was about appealing to the masses who have either had limited access to, or a pronounced disdain for higher education. It's impossible to know what is going to happen over the next four years, but how do we persist in the face of a majority that undervalues education?

tldr: the majority already undervalued education! (See above!)
Also I've been seeing this everywhere: framing Trump's victory as a class issue (e.g. access to education = more likely to vote for Clinton.) This isn't really the case--66% of white women voted Trump; a majority of men with and without college degrees voted Trump; women with college degrees voted Clinton but only by a margin of about 5%. It seems you're eliding the bigger issue here: whiteness. Trump won because he mobilised the white vote, not the uneducated vote, though the latter is part of the former, if you get what I'm saying. 
 
As for what changes in the academy, I would hope that it's a call to action, to activism and a revitalized strain of critical theory for the modern age. Who knows though. Just my two cents.

Writing has always been my strongest skill since kindergarten. My writing was universally praised by my professors. It's what got me through college with good grades, and it's what made my professors urge me to pursue a Ph.D.
I got a 4.5 on the writing section.
Meanwhile, one of my friends has mediocre-to-poor writing skills. I tutored him in our campus writing center many times during our undergraduate years. He got a 5.0 in the writing section.
Of course it is possible that he wrote a much better essay than I did on our test days. But, given past history and my familiarity with how he constructs analytical papers, I would be very surprised if he had.
I think the GRE writing section is a ludicrously subjective exercise graded in a pseudo-objective way. I've simply heard of too many of my best writer friends getting 4.0s and 4.5s to believe these scores are good indicators of one's writing abilities. This is not to say that if you get a good score you're a bad writer, I hasten to add; It's just to say I think some really good writers have styles that don't impress the GRE.
I would guess admissions committees realize this. I can't see them rejecting someone simply by glancing at an Analytical Writing score, especially since they will have writing samples from us in front of them, samples that we didn't rush off in 30 minutes sitting in a testing lab, with no chance of thoroughly revising (or properly thinking, even). They'll have our polished "best example" work in front of them, and I'd certainly hope they'd put more stock in that.
Then again, maybe admissions committees do reject on the basis of a score. It's a funny old world.