eternallyephemeral

Maybe email professors you're interested in working with to ask if they take research students over the summer?

First, let me preface this by saying that I am in the Humanities, so there may be differences (and anyone should feel free to correct me!), but I want to at least provide a peer's thoughts on the topic. I would say that not hearing back from a couple schools is annoying but normal. However, not hearing back from 10 schools seems extremely unusual to me. That being said--how many programs did you apply to? What percentage of your schools have you heard back from? And were those rejections or acceptances? And finally, have you checked their websites/online portals? 
Since we are just two and a half weeks away from the April 15th deadline, I would encourage you to email the graduate advisers of your programs asking for an update about the status of the application (though maybe wait a couple days for the Feb 1st apps, since I've heard that 2 months is when it's polite to ask). Your other option (and what I did for the one school I hadn't heard back from) is to call the department administrator and ask whether acceptances/waitlists/rejections have been sent out yet. It's extremely likely that the first wave of offers have already been made by all of the programs. They may send rejections out late in the game (why schools do this, I do not know), or you may be on a silent waitlist. Either way, a polite email or phone call to the appropriate people in the departments will answer your questions. Good luck!

It's important to remember that a lot of these programs are self-selective. In other words, you are less likely to apply to Yale, UCSB Bren, Duke, or Michigan if you had horrendous GREs, a bad GPA, no environmental experience, etc. It means the programs are able to accept a larger percentage of applicants simply because there isn't a massive number of people applying like in undergrad, nor does every student have to be tied to a professor so there's slightly greater capacity. I believe I heard once that Yale's MEM acceptance rate is something like 35-40 percent, but no one on this forum would tell you that Yale FES is easy to get into by any stretch of the imaginnation. With these programs, you're competing in an already well-qualified field. 
As has been said, you can still put MS on your resume (or MEM, or MESM) and you will still be a graduate student in graduate school. 

I think the best things you can do studying-wise are brush up on the basics of each section, then learn how to take the test. Go through the topics that are generally covered and make sure you can do each one/understand each topic. Read some more difficult literature, books or articles, and look up words you don't know to build up your vocabulary. Then do practice questions. A lot of them. Buy a review book and practice their strategies or work to find strategies that work well for you. I liked the Princeton review online course (the cheap one <$200) because the practice tests were on the computer like the actual test and they were thorough with testing strategies and they paced you through it based on when you were taking the test (so no last minute stress piles up trying to cram) . I have also heard good things about the online review on Magoosh. 
Another winning strategy, which helped me more than any test prep, was being more relaxed and less anxious during the actual test. Take computerized practice tests alone in a quiet space with no distractions so you feel confident in the context you will take the exam. Don't freak yourself out the night before of the exam (and stop studying 24hrs before you go for the test).  Seek out support and validation. Write down your feelings and "vent" before going into the test center. Being more calm the second time around helped me improve my scores much more than any review helped me the first time. 
I hope this is helpful! 

I agree--this is not really a negotiation. A negotiation requires both parties to want the deal to work out, but it does not seem like the case here. Instead, this conversation is purely information gathering---you want to find out what the actual support is so then you can decide whether or not you can attend. I think @MathCat original advice still applies---be honest and clear on the fact that you cannot attend without better funding and ask for it politely. Express how interested you are in their program and see what they say is possible. You don't have to worry about being "firm" because there is no way you will walk out of this conversation being "forced" to take an unfunded offer: the worst case scenario is that you walk away knowing that you cannot attend this school with the offered package. You also don't have to worry about burning bridges because you aren't going to be making demands either (since this is not a negotiation). Think about it as getting clarification and details on what the funding package really means and what the future possibilities are (i.e. is there a chance that you'll get a different offer closer to April 15? etc.)
Another important factor is comparing this offer to the norms of your field. Is your field one where fully funded PhDs are normal? (by fully funded, I mean all tuition is waived AND you get a paid al living stipend). If this is true, then I would actually consider unfunded (or partially funded like this offer) offers to be soft rejections. Basically, they did not accept you but want to give you a chance to still attend if you are somehow willing or able to pay for it yourself. In this case, I'd echo the above advice---don't do an unfunded PhD.
Also related is whether or not this offer is the same for all accepted PhD students at this program. If all of the other PhD students have fully funded offers but you do not, then you are essentially a second-class student. Again, I would not advise taking such an offer and I would consider this "offer" as a soft rejection.
However, if this type of offer is normal in your field and all incoming students have similar partial funded offers, then it's up to you whether or not this offer is worth the cost of grad school. I personally would not pay for graduate education, but I know fully funded offers don't exist in other fields. At least if you take a partially funded offer in this case, you know you are not in the "soft rejection" case and unfortunately this is just how the field is and you have to decide if you want to be a part of it. 

I'm not quite sure what you're asking. The prestige of your graduate program/university isn't a "job skill"; it's simply an attribute of one aspect of your profile.
It sounds like you might be asking whether or not prestige matters, and the answer is that it depends. It depends on the sector, it depends on the employer, it even depends on the hiring manager who reviews your resume. Even within the people involved in hiring for a specific job there might be differences of opinion with respect to how important prestige is.

This is exactly what you want to do! Just be very professional, come up with a few good questions about their poster/presentation, tell them you're interested in their work and ask if they're accepting students. I'm planning to attend at least one conference this year specifically for this purpose. It gets you on their radar, and if you get an interview, you'll be less nervous because you've met them already Good luck!

For a nicer yet not a sneaker option I like Sperry's topsiders.  For more casual but cute and good for walking options or sandals I like Naturalizer, Aerosoles, and Easy Spirit.  For everything from flats, sandals, espadrilles, shooties, boots, gladiators, pumps, heels, wedges, mules, kittens, etc I swear by Clarks.  They aren't always cheap, but if you do some digging or buy in the off season you can find some deals/coupons and Clarks has an outlet also.  
I have what shoe salespeople politely call "problem feet" and on top of that I walk and stand a lot and insist on looking foxy on a night out.  I mean seriously, how often do you see guys hitting on chicks in orthopedic shoes?  Yeah that's what I thought lol.  I have a pair of way to high for me heels courtesy of Clarks that I managed to strut all over town in and height aside they feel a lot like sneakers.

I can't tell you what to choose, of course, but here's what I'm seeing in your pros and cons:
- I don't really know how much the coursework will matter. Either way, you have experience in the field and I don't think grad courses do that much for you if you're already a scholar. So school A having more animal courses probably isn't a big deal, especially because you're not supposed to spend as much time on coursework as you would expect coming from undergrad.
- Is teaching experience really important to you? If it is, then I would use that to help break the tie. Also, how does the school have no undergrads? (that's an aside).
- I come from a cognitive neuroscience background, and there are definitely some people who do say staying at the same school isn't a good thing. I know people who specifically do not take their own students. Obviously, that's not an issue here, but generally you are debating between comfort/consistency and new experiences that could teach you a lot, though they are out of your comfort zone. I would personally recommend not staying at the same place.
- You say the lab at school B is slower to get things going, but there are data sets ready from day one, which would suggest that you could get publishing really quickly. Of course, the only thing quicker would be to have already started (at school A, as you have), but I don't think you'll be losing out on publications that much at school B that it will impact you later. Further, at school A, people will potentially see your publication record as something coming from before your PhD and they will notice that you hadn't been supervised by another person, so there's that perception going on.
I wouldn't put as much weight on guaranteed publications at school A as you have, just personally. Anything can happen and I think the goal should be to learn and put forth great research that you have as much input in as possible. Sometimes a smaller lab can do that; as you said, you would be the only expert in that area, though your prof is very knowledgeable.
Just some things to think about. Good luck!

Okay, so as I'm not a woman, I'm not sure how well I can give recommendations.  However, I have done kitchen work and am on my feet quite a bit, so I thought I'd share some brands that might offer professional-looking, comfortable options.
Two brands immediately pop in my head that you might consider, and neither are especially cheap: Danskos or Eccos.
Eccos are among the most comfortable shoes I've worn in my life, and they have quite a few professional, dressier options. And Danskos are incredibly comfortable and last forever. I'm a trained pastry chef and my Dankos have been put through the ringer. As long as you take care of the leather, they should last for a very, very long time.

They both sound like they are a good research fit for you. It's good to go beyond your MS research to do other things (by which I mean gain more skills) because it can make you more valuable as a postdoc or if you go into industry. I'd go with B because the professor is experienced and because they're giving you more guaranteed years of funding.

You're not one of the 35 percent, since you wrote you are not being funded, so it is not as if my conclusions are wrong. How much funding is available for your second year, if you're lucky enough to get it?

There are several things you can do now to set yourself up well for your future applications if you end up deciding to apply to graduate school later down the road. 
1. Keep your grades up! This goes for getting a job post graduate school as well, but GPA tends to be a reasonably large factor in the admissions process. The most important classes will be those related to your field of study, but you will also want to have the highest overall GPA you can manage. 
2. Start/maintain strong relationships with a few of your professors. Talk to them during their office hours, go above and beyond in their class, chat with them regularly, create relationships with them. When the graduate school application process rolls around, you are going to need professors to write recommendation letters for you where they vouch that you are an amazing student and have strong potential to succeed in graduate school. The best letters come from professors that actually know you well and can speak to their personal relationship with you. 
3. If you end up in a lab research-centric field (like biology), start in undergraduate research as soon as you can. The best way to do this is to poke around on professor and department websites and search for their research blurbs. Read through those until you get a feel for the types of work that interests you. Obviously your interests are going to be broad and undefined at this point - that is absolutely fine. Just find a few things that sound fun and roll with it!
Reach out to those professors (either by email or by actually going to their office) and ask if they have any openings for an undergraduate research assistant. Be persistent! It is HIGHLY unlikely that you will be able to get into the lab of the first person you talk to (depending on your department/university), but you will get absolutely no where if you don't try.
The easiest professors to get in with are ones who you have had class with and already have a good relationship with (see #2), so you can always start there!
4. Use your summers wisely - do something with your summer breaks that is meaningful. This can be a summer internship, a volunteer experience, an outreach program, a study abroad term, or something similar. Whatever you do should be something that gives you a new experience and helps you grow as a person. Get out there, explore, try something brand new, broaden your horizons, all those cliches. Not only will you grow, but you'll get a better feel for who you are and what you want you want to do, and you'll also have something to talk about in that beast of a personal statement you eventually have to write.
Summer internships are an amazing way to get some research experience. If you are having difficulties getting into a lab at school, look for an internship that typically takes students with little research experience and use that as your springboard into the field. Internships are also a great way to explore research that's different from what you are doing at school and can help you narrow your broad research interests!
5. Do something with the research you're doing. Publications are the gold shining star of a graduate school application, but it can be extremely difficult to publish your research as an undergraduate (this depends on your lab). Whether or not you are going to be able to get a paper out of your research, try to find avenues to present it. Most research universities offer some type of undergraduate research symposium where undergrads present what they've been working on. There are also regional conferences as a part of the big national societies that students frequently present at. You can also present at a national conference (depending on your lab)! This is also an option with any research you do over the summer - be sure to talk to the people you intern/work with to see if that is an option. 
6. Get involved with something you are passionate about outside of the classroom. So now that I've harped on the huge importance of research, I can move on to the other stuff. Do something outside of your classes/research that you are excited about. This can be band, sports, outreach to local schools, volunteering at a food pantry, working for the school newspaper, photography, something.
Get involved and not just on the surface level. Show commitment to the activity/organization. Take on a leadership role, branch out and start a new organization, or something along those lines that shows it is important to you. The goal here is to show that you are a real person with interests outside of school and also that you are committed and motivated. It's much, much better to be deeply involved in a select few things you are passionate about than to be barely involved in twenty different activities. 
7. Look into awards, prestigious scholarships, etc. that you may qualify for. There are tons of awards and scholarships out there that will recognize you for all of the hard work you have been putting in. Depending on what your interests/fields are, you can join honor societies like Phi Kappa Phi or Phi Beta Kappa or field-specific ones. You can apply for the Goldwater Scholarship when you have one to two years of college remaining if you stay in STEM. There's also Fulbright, Truman, Marshall, Rhodes, Gates Cambridge, and a whole slew of other prestigious scholarships that you can look into applying to. A lot of professional societies also have undergraduate awards and scholarships that you can consider for your individual field.
Your university probably has an office/person to assist people in applying for these types of awards, and I definitely encourage you to find them and talk to them about your options! There are also specific awards for minorities if that applies to you and first generation college students. While these are not nearly as important to your application as a strong research background and recommendation letters, they can definitely be extra jewels in the crown. 
8. Keep track of everything that you are doing. You are going to be busy during college with lots of class, activities, research, and summer plans! Start a resume, CV, and list of classes (with course number, full title, number of credits, professor, textbook, your grade in the class, and a one-line blurb about what you did in the class). You can find good templates online for a resume and CV, or you can talk to the career office at your school for help. You will thank yourself later for starting early because it's so much easier to remember all of the details about your involvement when it's actually happening than three or four years down the line! 
9. Keep in mind the components of the graduate school application so you can plan ahead as necessary. For every field, your graduate school application is going to have several key components: GPA (major and overall), GRE scores (verbal, quantitative, and writing), two to three recommendation letters from faculty, a CV, and a personal statement. For some fields, you may also need a subject GRE score, a writing sample, and/or a portfolio of your work. This is why I said keep your grades up (#1), have good relationships with faculty (#2), do research (#3 - 5), and start your CV early (#8). 
10. Do your research! When you reach your junior year (probably the spring of your junior year), you should start thinking about what grad school programs you might be interested in, what you want to study, and what you need to prepare for your applications. You should also think about when you want to take the GRE and set up a study plan. I won't go into more detail here because there's TONS of information about both of these things on the site, and that's still a while away for you. 
11. Take a deep breath and enjoy college.  I gave you tons of advice here, but the last thing you need to do is stress out. By already thinking about what you need to do to prepare for grad school, you're way ahead of the game and you're going to be just fine. Take the time to enjoy your college experience because undergrad can be a whole lot of fun, and you don't want to miss out on that! GOOD LUCK!  

I understand you don't think you are looking for compliments, despite saying earlier that you are unhappy as none of your professors so far have complimented your work. It can be difficult to come from doing very well in undergrad to struggling in grad school, as the different program requires some adjustment. A lot of people have this issue from high school to undergrad, and again from undergrad to grad. You're not the only person facing this, but that doesn't mean that you don't have to be self-reflective.
You said the comments from professors make you feel worthless. No one can tell you that isn't how you are feeling, but that is not 100% about the professor. How they communicate and how you interpret their comments both interact to make you feel this way. And because sometimes you can't change how they communicate, you have to either get out of that relationship if you can, or change the way you interpret their comments to preserve your sanity. I would recommend the second one.
The writing centre should be very helpful, and you can always google what books to read. I don't think anyone else should need to tell you what books to read in graduate school, but if you want some recommendations on books about writing, here are some below:
APA 6th Edition Manual - even if you are not in psychology this is very helpful with writing introductions, discussions, formatting tables, figures, papers in general, and it gives you tips on style and word usage.
Elements of Style - William Strunk and E.B. White - this is the major book about how to write well. it has been around for almost 100 years and still holds true today.
Sense of Style: Scientific Writing in the 21st Century - Steven Pinker - this is an excellent book by an excellent writer, who talks about communicating clearly and without jargon/excessive complexity. Dr. Pinker also studies these topics in his research, and has great talks based on this book that you may be able to find on the computer.
I hope these are helpful. I use all three when I train editors that work for me at our undergrad journal.
That's great that you are determined to finish this program. My recommendations from my other post still stand, because they should be implemented whether or not you are staying. What you've been doing so far hasn't been working well for you, regardless of your marks (that's not what I'm referring to), so you should make some changes before things get even worse. We all have to improve and constantly evaluate how we're doing and how we're feeling, so don't just continue to do something if it causes you stress and if you feel worthless. Change it instead of 'dealing' with the misery.

The support question seems to be much more general than this specific assignment. I think you should think deeply about what you are looking for in the program. You mentioned that you haven't received compliments from any professors while in grad school: from what I understand, this doesn't happen in any graduate program. At this level, it's not about rubrics and compliments. If that's whats necessary for you to feel comfortable with your performance, this might not be the right atmosphere for you.
So generally I would think hard about what you really want. Do you feel you need compliments? People constantly checking on you? Extremely clear guidelines? The prof may be able to support you, but most of these things are now your own responsibility. You have to compliment yourself, you have to check up on yourself, and you have to set deadlines and interpret guidelines to make them clear. Grad school is self-directed, so this is the new reality and it can be discouraging.
I think after a bit of a soul searching process, you'll know what your answer is, not just to whether you should drop this class.

They won't get you in but they can keep you out. 

In September or so email POIs to see if they have funding or space to take a new student before spending all your time and money applying to every school you listed. I found some number of POIs whom I was interested in didn't have funding or space and that saved me a lot of extra work and money long term. 

Those benefits don't necessarily make self-funding worth it, unless you're independently wealthy and can pay completely out of pocket - and even then, it's not necessarily worth the outlay of money.
First of all, your actual in-program experience might not be as good as the students who come in with funding. Funding is a signal to the program and department about how much the department is willing to invest in you. If a program doesn't fund you, that means they aren't investing in you as a student and junior scholar. Particularly if you are attending with students who are funded, there's going to be an obvious disparity. If you have to work while you're in the program to support yourself, you're taking away time that all your colleagues will be spending on research and professional development. Even if you aren't working and you're borrowing loans, the perception of you by faculty will be qualitatively different than your colleagues who have regular funding.
Secondly, transferring PhD programs - as @rising_star alluded to above - isn't a simple or easy thing. It's not like transferring undergraduate programs. Most times you can only transfer in 9-12 credits (about a semester's worth). And even if your program technically allows you to transfer in work, your PI may have additional requirements or may be reluctant to let you graduate before you've been in the program for 4-5 years. After all, they are making an investment in you, and they want to get some good years of research work out of you and hopefully some publications. I have a friend who did a few years of a PhD before transferring to my program (for legit reasons); he had to start all over and graduated the same year I did, even though I started from scratch. That was partially because of his adviser's preference. You also need the support from your old adviser, but if he feels like you just came into their PhD program to get a master's and transfer away he may be less willing to support your transitioning to another program, especially if he expected to apply for funding for you and get you to stay.
Thirdly, from a monetary perspective it's not a good ROI. The first 2-3 years of a PhD program are the most expensive years, as you are still taking coursework. Many private universities' tuition is over $40,000 per year these days, which means you'd be borrowing at least $80,000 (if you just had to borrow tuition and fees) and maybe upwards of $130,000 (if you also have to borrow living expenses). Even if you do make it in a career as a successful academic or industry scientist, the salary in those fields is not big enough to comfortably repay that kind of debt. And it'd be one thing if it was like med school or law school in which all of your colleagues have that debt, but it's not. That kind of debt may also force you to limit the kinds of jobs you can take after graduating because some of them won't allow you to repay your loans. In an already competitive market, you don't want that.
In fact, IMO it's far better to be "in limbo" for a year, or at the very least attend a terminal master's program that is designed to be a stepping stone into a PhD program (hopefully with funding, or maybe at an inexpensive public university in your home state). In some fields, there are other things you can do, like do a post-baccalaureate research fellowship or work as a lab manager or research associate. Even working a semi-related research/scholarship job would be preferable - I have some colleagues who worked at think tanks or nonprofits for 2-3 years between college and grad school, and that research can be looked on quite favorably especially in the social sciences. (Often, they are supervised by PhDs who do work that is quite similar to what professors do.)
Even doing nothing in the interim could be preferable. If you only get in without funding, or get into no programs, that might just be the luck of the draw and not due to your credentials or anything. Taking a year to work on your materials or maybe retake the GRE if that's a factor could improve your application, and in the meantime you aren't racking up debt.

My advice is not to do an unfunded MA, especially not in NYC, unless you have a trust fund or are otherwise independently wealthy. I have several colleagues in Film Studies and most of them did their MAs in English programs where they could concentrate/specialize in film/cinema/media and which offered them funding via teaching assistantships. Could you find something similar? I know Pitt has such a program, just to give one example.

If your concern is getting a post-doc afterwards, going to a globally renowned school (which McGill is) with an established professor who has connections goes a long way.
If you want to know if you have a chance at getting into academia and McGill's program is relatively new, but the advisor is established, look at where their students have gone. Where your advisor's students go is a better indication of where you'll end up than where people in your program in general goes.

The support question seems to be much more general than this specific assignment. I think you should think deeply about what you are looking for in the program. You mentioned that you haven't received compliments from any professors while in grad school: from what I understand, this doesn't happen in any graduate program. At this level, it's not about rubrics and compliments. If that's whats necessary for you to feel comfortable with your performance, this might not be the right atmosphere for you.
So generally I would think hard about what you really want. Do you feel you need compliments? People constantly checking on you? Extremely clear guidelines? The prof may be able to support you, but most of these things are now your own responsibility. You have to compliment yourself, you have to check up on yourself, and you have to set deadlines and interpret guidelines to make them clear. Grad school is self-directed, so this is the new reality and it can be discouraging.
I think after a bit of a soul searching process, you'll know what your answer is, not just to whether you should drop this class.

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.

Sure. I'll put my marriage on hold (so long husband, go find a gf for the next 7 years while I finish my PhD), give my pets away, etc., just so I can focus on research. That doesn't seem like a recipe for disaster. 
 
I am a pretty successful student, I think, and I work maybe 6-8 hours a day (I'm in the humanities, so no lab work, but I do have to work on independent research and I also have teaching duties). That leaves 8 hours of sleep, and the rest of the time to the other so-called distractions. You see, I found that after working more than 6 hours, I was no longer productive. I'd sit in front of the computer staring into space, or rereading paragraphs from a book over and over unable to concentrate.
 
If I didn't have a partner* at home willing to look at my drafts or bounce ideas with (not to mention the emotional support, the cooking when I'm not in the mood to, etc.), a cat to snuggle up to me when I'm having writer's block, or a dog to force me to go outside a couple of times a day so I can go and process ideas during a walk, I would not be successful. Productivity isn't about spending every waking hour "at work," but about making your working hours count.
 
* this could also be a friend/roommate. It just so happens to be my partner.
 
Going out to beer with friends isn't just a "social" activity. We talk about our research... we bounce ideas back and forth. It releases tension but it also allows us to "work" by developing our thoughts. I find inspiration in those moments.
 
The people I know who struggle the most are those who don't have any of those things and who focus exclusively on "work." They live by themselves because roommates are too distracting. They don't have pets. They don't go to anything "social." There's no balance. Their work suffers... they don't really exchange ideas with anyone else, and what they produce reflects that.

I think ultimately, this is a personal decision because all of these considerations depend on what each person is comfortable with and what their experience has been. So, before I say my thoughts, I think I need to preface it with my experience: My parents came to Canada as refugees from a country after a war and they arrived here with nothing. I had many years growing up where financial stress was very high and even the children felt it. Over time, our family's financial situation got better but as a result of this, I think our entire family is very debt-adverse, except for absolutely necessary things like mortgages. Sometimes, I get irrational fears that I'll make a financial mistake and lose everything. So, I worked during undergrad to pay for tuition and I lived at home to save money. Canadian tuition is very affordable ($6000 or so per year) so I graduated debt-free and even had money saved up from working. 
When it was time for my grad school decisions, one of the biggest criteria was not only that the stipend pays for all of the life needs, but I wanted it to pay well enough that I can start saving towards other life goals (e.g. buying a home, starting a family). My opinion is that grad school is not an "investment" on yourself so I would never take an offer that would require a loan. Instead, my perspective is that grad school is an entry level position in a career path. I wouldn't take an unpaid internship in an expensive city to advance my career so I wouldn't take a grad school offer that didn't pay enough either. 
So, if I had the choice between the two programs that you have, I would definitely not take "B". I would not want to have a PhD and $30k-$40k in debt, and I definitely personally would not want to be over $100k in debt with a PhD. I might choose "A", depending on the subjective definition of comfort. I would normally include "living in a safe part of town" as part of the definition of "living comfortably" but I also know that "safe" is subjective (compared to my hometown, the current place I live is very safe but a lot of students here feel it's unsafe). 
Note: I'm not against temporary debt, especially if it is advantageous to take small amounts of debt and/or you have a plan to pay it off. For example, when my spouse and I moved to my PhD program, the plan was to take on about $10,000 in debt for the first year, but then pay it off because my spouse would have work authorization and a job by the second year. It worked out even better than expected---my spouse got a job earlier than 1 year and we got extra funding so there was no debt after all. In our second year, we took out a car loan even though we could have paid the car from our savings because the interest rate was lower than the amount of money we would lose to transfer our Canadian dollars to US dollars to pay for the car. So, I'm not completely against the idea of debt---I am mostly against choosing a job offer / career path that will put you in debt even after 5-7 years of your first position (i.e. grad school).
Again, this is not meant to be a judgement of other people's personal choices on attending school. I am just telling you how I feel and how I made my choice

You are right that academia is a place where things are blurry. This is because your experience depends a lot on your advisor. Two students who are performing exactly the same might be deemed "satisfactory" by one professor and "unsatisfactory" by another professor. I don't think this is entirely fair, because having inconsistent expectations does lead to inequalities across students in the department. And, for small schools like mine, there is usually only 1 professor doing exactly one topic, so it's not just a matter of "If you don't like the professor, work with someone else" because it really means "if you don't like this professor, you have to work in a different subfield". In addition, my field is also really small, so if many professor in a subfield are this way (it's possible for a subfield in my field to be almost entirely dominated by alumni of one or two faculty at a top 10 school), the entire subfield is now pushing away people. To this end, we're working on more standardized expectations of both professors and students. However, academia has very strong feelings about keeping autonomy of researchers and faculty, and to some extent, there is always going to be some room for interpretation by each professor.
While I hope that information makes you feel better that things may change in the future, the reality is that right now, that stuff won't help you. To answer some of the questions that you raised in this thread (either directly or indirectly):
1. How often would a professor compare a new student to old student? All the time. In fact, I think this is one of the main metrics that faculty member use to evaluate graduate students. On the LOR forms, faculty are often asked to rank this student compared to all of their other students. This is also a topic of discussion when a faculty member is presenting their student for acceptance to candidacy or other graduate school milestone. Since it is very hard to set absolute guidelines for performance in grad school (where everyone is doing different things), the standard criteria is "How does this student compare to other students?" Are they progressing as expected? Are they taking more courses? More TAships? etc. I agree with you that it's not very fair for the professor to compare you with his former students only, but that may or may not be a "kick in the pants" type comment rather than a formal evaluation. I think you can at least rest assured that when it comes time for the department to formally evaluate all of their students for funding, they will do so by comparing you to all students in the department, not just the small sample size of your prof's old students only.
2. When will your advisor deem you worthy/not worthy? I agree with you that one semester is too short to kick someone out. But your advisor is not saying "Based on your performance this semester, I am kicking you out". Your advisor is saying "So far, your work this semester is sub-par and I want you to improve". This is not a final evaluation of you---you can think of it as a mid-term review or just giving you some very important feedback. After all, it would also be unfair to wait an entire year, then make a final evaluation "You're kicked out because of poor performance this past year", when you had no warning or indication at all that you were underperforming.
In my program, during Year 1, we take 30 hours of courses per week (including time for reading and homework etc.) and are expected to work about 20 hours on research per week, plus a few hours for department seminars etc. During this time, we must come up (with help from our advisors) with two research ideas and carry them out. We don't have to fully complete them, just a proof of concept that it is a viable research idea and that we have encountered most, if not all, of the unexpected nuances and problems that would arise. At the end of Year 1, we defend both projects in front of a committee of 5 professors (including our project advisors) in a 3 hour oral exam. After this exam, the committee deliberates and determines whether or not you get to continue in the program or you leave with a Masters (or leave immediately with nothing). One very very important aspect is whether or not your advisors recommends you to continue onto a PhD with them. Your advisors being happy with your progress is the most important part---the other committee members are just there to make sure your advisors aren't being overly lenient or overly harsh and that the quality of student that continues is in line with department norms.
So, in my program, the direct answer to your question is after 1 year (or 3 semesters). However, your program is not making the same determination! Again, we get feedback from people at all points during the year so that we are able to do the best we can on the end of year exam. I think your advisor is following good feedback pedagogy by providing you with early feedback now, when you can still take action on it. It would be utterly useless if the only feedback you got was the final evaluation. I'm sorry that you don't like the content of the feedback and perhaps the advisor could have presented it in a better way (I wasn't there so I don't know), but I highly recommend that you reframe this information as constructive feedback designed to help you succeed, instead of a damning evaluation of your performance. 
3. When do people write papers? This depends a lot on the field. Most people in my program will be working on stuff that will eventually go into a paper almost immediately. There is no "transition period" where you only do classes and TA work. From the first day, we are doing work that will lead to a paper. I know this varies a lot from field to field though. Depending on the nature of the work, students in my program typically publish their first paper in year 2 or year 3. For people working on theory/mathematical modeling, a paper can be finished as early in year 2. For those running experiments or working with large amounts of data, the first paper may take longer to complete. 
In summary, here is my advice to you moving forward:
A. As others said, talk to other students in your program about normal progress and expectations. Talking to other students here is a good idea, but remember that things vary a lot from program to program and even advisor to advisor. So, while you will still benefit from hearing more perspectives, it's important to not apply something from another program or advisor to your situation without careful review.
B. Remove your own perceptions and ideas of what is "fair" so that you can properly hear the advice behind the feedback. I agree with you that your advisor may be unfair in determining your performance as sub-par. However, don't focus on that part. There is obviously something they are unhappy about if they are saying this. Find out what it is. You might have to talk to them more about a performance review and ask for specific areas to improve. As Eigen said, this may be a sign of lack of clear communication.
C. Still be yourself though. In step B, I suggest that you remove your own perceptions so that you can hear the "other side" but this doesn't mean that everything you think and feel is wrong. You are still you and you may be right that the advisor is acting unfairly. But you have to first distance yourself in order to understand what the other side is saying. Once you comprehend their point of view, then you can re-insert yourself and decide whether or not you want to do the things they are asking of  you. Sometimes professors ask for unreasonable things---e.g. they might ask you to work 60 hours per week and you may decide that this is not what you want to do. 
D. After B and C, think about where you want to be in the future. Maybe you want to first try out doing everything the professor wants you to do in B and see how you feel about it. Eventually, you will have to decide if working with this advisor is the right fit for you. Finding this out sooner is better than later! This is why I think doing "B" is really important---the longer you just think your advisor is being unfair and ignoring what they say, the longer before you are really able to decide what you would want. If you want to work with another advisor in the department, once you decide that, start talking to other professors. If you want to quit and start again at another place, get those steps in place.
E. Finally, I want to just disagree with VentureIntoNothingness's comment about academia being a cut-throat place and not for the weak. Sometimes, people accompany this with "needing thick skin". I really hate it when advisors and academics present it this way because it suggests that it's okay to bully or harass others in academia because we're "so cutthroat" and "weak students need not apply". This does not create a good atmosphere for our work. I agree that it is important for students and academics to be mature and aware enough to properly self-evalaute, handle constructive criticism and determine their own weaknesses (e.g. Step B above). But this is a far cry from calling those who cannot do this "weak". Also, I think the attitude that "academia is cutthroat, not for the weak" is a fatalist point of view that reinforces negative behaviour (such as bullying and harassment) rather than work on both improving students' ability to self-evaluate and handle critique as well as creating an inclusive work environment where bullying and harassment has no place.
(Note: I know that maybe VentureIntoNothingness did not mean their comment to condone bullying and harassment but instead meant it in the positive ways I wrote above. I don't mean to pick on you, VentureIntoNothingness! It's just that I see many academics defend bullying or other nasty attitudes with the cutthroat/not for the weak/needing thick skin phrases and maybe you are using them without meaning them in the same way!)