Levon3

lol this is something I didn't know when I applied to grad school. I thought the anxious waiting was over when I was admitted ??

According to PNPI, 11% of low-income, first-generation college students will obtain a Bachelor's degree within six years of enrolling in school, compared to 55% of their more advantaged peers. We should be very proud of ourselves!

Most likely they are asking why you need the financial scholarship. How would the money benefit you? You could write the essay with that in mind and then build in your story of how your degree will help you to achieve what you want in the future. Hopefully this helps a bit. Best of luck!
 
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What do you mean? The NSF GRFP stipend is basically a salary. I don't think the GRFP comes with a research grant or anything like that. You get the stipend as your salary and the school gets up to $12000 to offset your tuition costs. So, you can spend it on whatever you want.
Each school will have different policies on how their own funds to support you will change if you hold the NSF GRFP. At my PhD program, the annual stipend for all students was $31,000 in my final year. However, if you hold a NSF GRFP, the NSF GRFP 34,000/year stipend replaces the 31,000 from the program. So you would get nothing from the program---it would all come from NSF. 
Each field is also different----in my field, a student is never expected to pay for research costs out of their own salary. So we would never use the NSF GRFP to pay for the things you've listed. Maybe if you have a really weird special case where you somehow kept your original department funding and got the $34,000 on top of that...

According to PNPI, 11% of low-income, first-generation college students will obtain a Bachelor's degree within six years of enrolling in school, compared to 55% of their more advantaged peers. We should be very proud of ourselves!

According to PNPI, 11% of low-income, first-generation college students will obtain a Bachelor's degree within six years of enrolling in school, compared to 55% of their more advantaged peers. We should be very proud of ourselves!

So, my mom has a Master's in Education and has taught at the local community college back home for my entire life; Dad is the only one of his siblings to graduate high school, but took it no further than that. I'm from southeast Kentucky, so up until recently most of the men on either side of the family were either coal miners, or worked in some coal-related side industry (e.g., one of my grandfathers was a miner, the other a coal truck driver). On Dad's side I was the first to get a Bachelor's; on both sides, I'll be the first to get a PhD.
I've said this elsewhere on the forum, but the biggest stress for me during my application process was my dad's difficulty in understanding that I'd be moving really far away. He's tried to be supportive, but he gets really hung up on the distance, to the point that it's usually clouded every exchange we've had. When I called home to tell my parents that my partner and I had decided on University of Denver, he immediately started crying. It was...rough.
Way back before I ever sent out my first application, we talked about how it would be very difficult for me to find the right school if I limited myself to an area near home. He said to me, "I've always been proud of you for succeeding, but now I'm worried you've succeeded yourself too far away from me." I'm thinking a lot more about that comment lately, and I think that might get at the heart of the struggles that many of us with a decidedly non-academic parent have felt in all those awkward silences and defensive conversations. I know that Dad is very proud of me, and I know that he always wanted me to do something very different from him and the other men in his family; at the same time, I don't think he expected that push to be different to send me clear across the country. Almost all of Dad's family still lives in my home county (even more narrowly, about half of them still live in the same holler) and I don't think he'd given much thought to the notion that I might well and truly leave.

omg pls I'm not trying to turn this into the communist manifesto.
I meant, assuming you do plan to cling to a visa, and seeing as you're into the humanities, like, what's your plan?

My masters' program involved alumni in these types of activities through an alumni mentoring program. We were matched based on interest, and alumni mentors often served on thesis committees, reviewed job hunt materials, and facilitated professional connections. You can formalize these roles without making them faculty appointments.
The same masters program had a lot of kids from well-off families. I had assumed everyone was going to be taking out loans and working multiple jobs to afford school. Turned out that a lot of students were paying for school and living expenses through educational trusts. (Until this point, I honestly thought trust funds were the kind of thing you only say in movies and celebrity magazines.) Students with those resources were able to take advantage of opportunities I couldn't. They could work unpaid internships or volunteer as a research assistant. They didn't have to compete for funding to collect thesis data. After school, they didn't have to consider student debt when job hunting and could take fellowships that didn't pay well or had limited benefits. I worked two paid research jobs plus a few shifts a week in a sandwich shop and still came out with six figures of debt.
Academia has enough problems with diversity. An unpaid faculty appointment is something that you can only accept if you're already well off making it one more barrier for people from diverse backgrounds.

Out of interest, what's your plan for maintaining this resolve, outside of being a genius or marrying a rich citizen?

For anyone already thinking about taxes as they relate to the NSF GRF, here are some key facts and resources that I have found helpful over the past two years (especially last year when I was on tenure for the entire calendar year).
The stipend fellows receive from the NSF GRF is considered "taxable income," but it is not considered "taxable compensation" by the IRS. Basically, what this means is that you have to pay income taxes on your stipend each year, but you cannot use your stipend to contribute to traditional or Roth IRAs.
Your university will also not include stipend payments on your W-2 (assuming they're following the rules), and your university may not be able to withhold taxes from your stipend payments. In this situation, you either have to pay several thousand dollars at once when taxes are due (including ~$70 of interest on "late" payments), or you can make "estimated tax payments" quarterly to split this up more evenly and avoid the interest fee.
If you do a Google search, it seems there used to be some ambiguity surrounding taxes and fellowships, but it appears the IRS has made their policies rather explicit within the past few years. This page (https://www.irs.gov/taxtopics/tc421) talks about which portions of fellowships are considered "taxable income" and how to report this income on your 1040, and this page (https://www.irs.gov/publications/p590a) talks about what kinds of income can be contributed to traditional and Roth IRAs . (The key sentence on the second page is, "Scholarship and fellowship payments are compensation for IRA purposes only if shown in box 1 of Form W-2.")
For what it's worth, Congress is aware of the problem of fellows not being allowed to contribute to retirement accounts. Last year, Senators Elizabeth Warren, Mike Lee, Ron Wyden,  and Tim Scott introduced a bipartisan bill to fix this problem (https://www.warren.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/sens-warren-lee-wyden-scott-introduce-bipartisan-bill-to-help-graduate-students-build-retirement-savings), but (as far as I'm aware), it was never voted upon, and this issue was not addressed in the tax reform bill passed recently. (Please correct me if I'm wrong.) This standalone bill was first introduced in 2016, and I suspect it will be reintroduced again later this year (if it hasn't been already).

Senior undergrad
E/E E/E E/VG - Selected for geosciences- marine biology! 100% did not expect to receive it, which to some extent speaks to the fact that it can be a crapshoot. I felt I had a very strong application (and was told so by many professors) but I know how qualified others are so I didn't get my hopes up. So to everyone who didn't get it- this doesn't define you as a scientist! I'm sure there are many qualified people out there who were deserving, but that's just how it goes sometimes. Congrats to everyone who got it!

I remember before applying to all of my graduate programs I specifically contacted the professors I wanted to work with to let them know I was applying and if they were taking graduate students. But I always addressed them as Dr. (last name), even when they said first name was okay. This also gave me a chance to see if they were the kind of academic that is too busy all the time or would actually reply to potential students. This process REALLY helped me filter out some programs I thought were great, but either had no space for me or the faculty never responded. I actually ended up making an email template where I would insert the professors name, and a section about how my undergraduate research specifically related to theirs; so it wasn't just a mass email. It also ended up giving me the opportunity to talk to them about NSF GRFP research ideas, and at two schools I was offered early summer research if accepted! I ended up taking one of them and am incredibly happy where I am.
 
Very sorry to hear that you experienced this though. As a male graduate student in STEM with a female advisor in a predominately male field, it is sad to see what she has to put up with sometimes. I'm very proud to say I work with one of the best chemical physicists in the nation, and everyone always starts with "What's his name?".

Let me just say, I literally made my account just now to reply to this and tell you how absolutely fucked it is that your advisor does that to you. Academics can spend so much time getting caught up in titles and prestige because thats how they see the world, but it is completely unfair to push that off onto a 1st or 2nd year graduate student. Focus on your research above all else and do good work, and good things will happen. 

I hate seeing Academia consume people like this. It isn't fair to you at all. Whether you get the NSF or HM or nothing, you're still a god damn PhD student/candidate, which make up less than 1% of the entire American population. You've worked hard for this, you will keep working hard, and titles and awards don't make or break you. 

Reviewer #2 will probably break you though, but they break everyone. 
Edit: Sorry if my use of language offends anybody, I just don't take kindly to academia being academia. I'm still waiting to hear back on my NSF and it's my second time applying! 

Edit: Edit: Also, my advisor just got back from an NSF panel/workshop today and it sounds like everything was super up in the air until the new budget was approved. So I'd imagine in the next week or two we will hear something. 

To be clear, I do believe you took the best path possible between some pretty bad options and you don't have to justify yourself to me, of course! The "lying" part that I was referring to was not about your family but that from Andy and Cecilia's perspective, you had agreed to complete the experiment after your defense, but now you have a job that will require A & C to get Ben's permission for you to work on their project, instead of having you all to themselves!
I think A & C are definitely wrong to ask you to do this work as a volunteer, especially after offering a real salary, but it does not sound like you ever said "no" even after they changed the terms. Instead, you just found ways to push off the start date until you got the contract with Ben. Again, I am not saying A & C are acting ethically either, but this is probably why they are upset (i.e. they see it as you agreeing to their terms, then asking for a delay for family which they granted and now you reveal that you didn't want their terms at all). And again, I am not sure if you really had any other options, especially if one of them was holding your degree hostage. I probably would have done the same thing in your situation, to be honest. Sometimes there is just no way out of a tough situation that doesn't involve some damage to yourself, sadly  (as you have also said).
I am so happy for you that you are free from this anxiety. I also hope that the planned path forward will help clear things between you and A/C for the future. Good luck

I may sound like a broken record, but I use OneNote. Here is why:
You can create notebooks with many many MANY tabs. I have three notebooks: Univ (general), bibliography, and dissertation.  Univ general: tabs on courses (one sub page per day), conferences (one sub page per conference and sub sub page per session), meetings with advisors, etc.  Bibliography: originally organized for my three exams, now it is shifting towards a more dissertation-friendly usage.  Dissertation: these are actually the archival notes, not the writing. I have one tab per country, one sub page per archive, and one sub sub page per document.  It is nice (lots of colors) It is easy to use, insert things, and move things around.  You can insert tables wherever and they don't move everything around.  you can insert images wherever and they don't move everything around. you can insert links, pdfs, etc.  you can insert equations ( I don't use this) It syncs constantly You can save it as doc or pdf You can use it in Mac or windows, and you can use it online. Easy, EASY search function (this is vital for me). Hope it helps!

Okay, so there are relevant facts, irrelevant facts, and speculation. You'll do well to distinguish those in any official conversation: 
Relevant facts: 
You were on track as per your last meeting.  You were asked by your advisors to divert your attention to writing a manuscript, which you did.  This led to a slow down in dissertation writing.  At some point there was a money problem that led to a delay in the manuscript writing. Everyone agreed that you should re-focus on the dissertation.  You have been doing that, with good progress again, and a planned submission date by the end of the year.  Irrelevant facts: 
Anything to do with happened to that other student in the committee meeting.  That A called B names or vice versa.  All the business with authorship on the paper.  Speculation: 
Anything to do with delaying your graduation time for any nefarious reason (e.g., to wait for another funding cycle).  Anything to do with how you interpret someone's comments or lack thereof.  Actually, at least part of your story about authorship is probably also speculation.  Ulterior motives behind the timing of submission, where to submit, etc., beyond what you witnesses firsthand.  Stick to the relevant facts, and that should be enough. This sounds like a pretty common occurrence. Don't offer speculation if anyone "thoroughly investigates". It's fair and smart to say "I don't know, I simply did what my advisors asked and trusted in their expertise." If asked, you can say you expressed concerns that the manuscript writing was slowing you down, and that after some meetings and deliberation, and partly because of the money trouble, you all eventually agreed that you should focus on the dissertation first. Again, facts, not speculation, and no accusations. People can draw their own conclusions. 

Pointing out inconsistencies in a post isn't "victim blaming," it is pointing out inconsistencies in a post. 
IMO, you are trying to have it both ways. You want readers to think that you're squared away and you want readers to think you're a victim of an undergraduate "bullying" you. You (again) point to your experience in government, your intimate knowledge of the dynamics in your department, and yet express continued surprise that the "individual responsible for the undergraduate program" sided with an undergraduate over a graduate student.
My reading of your posts is that you attempted to throw your weight around in the department and tell professors how things should be done, things went differently than you anticipated, you took umbrage, and now you're here.
My reading is that you've been told to drink a cup of STFU and to stay in your lane. My reading is that undergraduate tuition and fees are important to members of your department and they're willing to put up with behavior that you don't like. The way you have been told appears unprofessional, maybe actionable IRT your school's policy because of the violation of your request for confidence. Then again, I wonder about what information you're choosing not to disclose.
However, going from there to allegations that your careers are being threatened does not make sense to me. A professor has the discretion to write or not as he or she sees fit. One is not entitled to glowing letters of recommendation.
IRT your intent of asking "qualified individuals," you got good guidance--don't ask the acting chair for a letter of recommendation, you don't need it-. And then you argued with the posters who provided it.
Since you asked in your OP, here are some suggestions.
If you're going to present a biased account and selective of your experiences to strangers, don't take offense when strangers ask questions or point out inconsistencies. If you're going to use a phrase like "step up" multiple times, then maybe think twice before painting yourself as a "victim." Avoid the temptation of telling your bosses how to do their jobs unless you're absolutely certain your guidance is going to be well-received. You said it yourself, the department is aware of this UG's behavior. By you pointing it out in an email to your professors, you called them out for at least the second time this term. (I am still not sure why you sent an email to multiple professors before talking personally to at least one of them, especially given your work "in government.") Keep in mind always that money talks, even in the Ivory Tower. Don't allow yourself to be trolled by undergraduates' email or posts on social media.

Former manager here, so I'm going to put on my Manager hat.
 

 
The vast majority of the issues I'm seeing on this thread - mental illness, physical disability, etc - are all covered by the ADA.  Your university is required to give you reasonable accommodations based on the ADA, and, depending on how long you've been in your program, you may be eligible for FMLA too.  So, contact your university's disability services and talk to them.  Also, talk to your doctors.  Here are some reasonable accommodations I've seen before due to medical issues:
- Days off every so often for mental health episodes
- Additional time to complete assignments
- Help completing an assignment (for example, dictating an assignment)
 
So, if you're suffering from a longterm illness, whether it be a mental illness, physical illness, or are differently abled, know your rights.  Work with your school and your doctor to make sure that you use the resources available to get the help you need.  

I know that you said the funding packages are the same - but what is the median time to degree for both programs?  If it is over 5 years - how do students fund themselves?
Sociology PhDs can get positions in ed schools, but usually those people have full-time experience in education, which you are not going to have. I see this being a bigger problem at smaller schools especially if they have their professors teach across different programs e.g. in teacher education and education policy, but this won't be doable for you since you never worked in K-12 education. Another option if you chose the Sociology PhD - there are some public policy schools that hire sociologists assuming that their research interests align well.
I would also take a look at current job postings for assistant professors in each field to see what they are looking for and whether each program will help you gain those experiences.  I would also look at non-academic job postings just so you can get a sense of what is out there in case academia doesn't work out.  Education is ripe with non-academic jobs.  I am not familiar with what sociology PhDs do for non-academic jobs.
I also think you should think about what types of courses that you would want to teach and what type of theories/theoretical frameworks that you would want to use in your research. Also - which core curriculum is more interesting/exciting to you?

WOW. I am so, so sorry this happened to you. I have no clue how to answer your question but I just wanted to express what a horrendous case of discrimination this is. 

I just wanted to say I really appreciate what a great forum this is, and how much having a support network like this has made things so much better. 
This past academic year and a half has been exceptionally difficult for me. I entered my program full of beans and and have since felt like I've let my department and my supervisor down repeatedly. Life got in the way (changing doctors from moving, chronic medical condition deteriorating, spending weeks recuperating part of which was in the hospital, difficult supervisor, sexual harassment, death of a mentor, supporting mentally ill family member; you name it!) and it just spiralled out of control from there. I was / am the grad student department chairs cringe when they see because yet another something has happened. There are days I am convinced my department made a mistake and I just slipped in by mistake. (This is not a post asking everyone to reassure me I'm doing well and all that!)
I could not have done it without all of you, taking time to respond, support, encourage, and give perspective to strangers on the Internet. Many of you support each other without judging. 
A special shout out to the ?admin? and / or just really smart people like @TakeruKand @fuzzylogician and @telkanuru and @rising_star and  @Sigaba for replying to virtually every panic stricken, lost, and scared graduate student on this board. I am sure I've missed some people, but know I do appreciate you. My memory sucks from all my drugs, so I shamelessly blame that.
If you ever feel like graduate school is just too much and feel like quitting (that's me very often lately), come here. You are not alone. This community will support you...or knock some sense into your head.

Um, why did you apply to these schools if they are "doing nothing" in your research area?
OK, so I think the I know the answer to this question based on your other posts. Let me start off by answering your initial question - $50,000 for Columbia is worth it for YOU and and YOUR SITUATION.
So here's my guess (and if I am significantly off, disregard the above advice). Since you are an international student who is not particularly interested in pursuing a career in research in the US (why else would you apply to schools "doing nothing" in your research area and salivate over Columbia which is pretty mediocre for Mech E), your primary goal is to get a prestigious sounding degree . Now, there is nothing wrong with this. A lot of foreign countries (well, companies in foreign countries) are overly fixated on "IVY!" and it makes sense to play to your eventual employers. Plus, there is the added social capital the accrues to someone with an Ivy League degree in Asian countries.
Thankfully, a lot of the lesser Ivies (not Harvard, Yale, Princeton) have noticed the opportunity to lend their prestige for a price of $50,000-$100,000. This is usually a good deal for the schools because it doesn't truly water down their reputations. Most of the people getting these degrees do not usually end up pursuing a career in pure research and ruining the school's reputation among academics and researchers. A good chunk of the students entering these programs already have their sights on management, finance, or the field-of-they day (data science/machine learning). Furthermore, the schools bank tens of millions each year in exchange for handing out glorified participation trophies (Columbia makes $50-100M/yr from its Masters students). The way you know a school fits this category is that they graduate 10 times as many masters students as they do PhD students. Columbia is something like 10:1 (1366:142, link). If you're a masters student looking to get an RA or a TA to defray your costs, you are competing with a ridiculous number of students who are in the same boat.
If the transaction Columbia is offering makes sense given your goals (prestige for foreign employers or employers outside your major field), go for it. Just don't plan on getting too much money out of them. I mean, look how they are treating you - you get two weeks to make a huge decision and have to pay a $1,000 deposit. No student on a research track is treated like this. They usually get funding, pay no deposit, and usually have months to consider their decision (April 15 deadline).

p.s: With a little digging, Penn (9:1 MS:PhD ratio) appears to also be offering similar M.S degrees and to a lesser extent Cornell (6:1). Harvard (0.5:1) and Princeton (0.3:1) are definitely not yet open for business.  Hope this helps.

If you makes you feel any better (misery loves company, right?), you're not the only one who did that today. My students definitely saw me with the "no makeup look" since what was there had definitely been washed off during the waterworks. Sending good thoughts your way. Grad school sucks sometimes. 

Not to disrupt a more general discussion, just pointing out that the thread was started over 5 months ago, and the OP hasn't visited it for the last 4.5 months or so. It's not clear that they are still in need of advice on this issue.