Levon3

The same text is in the 2016 version of the guidelines: https://www.nsf.gov/pubs/2016/nsf16104/nsf16104.pdf

You should always have senior mentors, but I generally encourage my students to choose a junior faculty for a committee chair if they have the option. You can have *bad* mentors that are junior or senior, but when you're picking a committee chair or primary advisor, my experience biases towards the better experience with the junior.
Taking this point by point:
No junior faculty member at an R1 has no experience as a mentor. You don't get to that position if you don't.  Generally, getting tenure at most schools will involve successfully graduating students. For senior faculty, they don't really care if you finish or not- it's incredibly important that you finish successfully for a junior faculty member.  It's unlikely that a junior faculty member is going to move, but my statement qualified "new" assistant professors- the first likely move would be at tenure, by which you'll likely be either graduated or OK to stay on your own at the old institution.  New professors don't necessarily have smaller networks- and they have a lot more sway with the networks they do have, imo. Older faculty can, if they socialize well, keep extensive networks- but they can also fall into the rut of just associating with the same old group while new faculty are aggressively and broadly networking. No faculty member, old or new, is going to have a poor grasp of the broader field.  Similarly, you aren't going to get a faculty position at an R1 without a strong track record for (or potential for) publishing. Newer faculty are much more dependent on getting work out, which is why they're good to work with. Senior faculty can pick and choose what they want to work on, and can afford to take years perfecting a single work- new faculty can't.  Anyway, you seem to have an interesting view that in no way matches my experience with reality- you also seem quite arrogant in your assumptions of junior faculty, most of whom are exceptionally successful in their field or they wouldn't be there. There's a reason many senior faculty say they would not be competitive for the positions they're currently hiring among new faculty.
As said, overall fit with the mentor is the most important property, but taking out obvious red flags (interpersonal issues, major funding problems) and aligning research areas (both are fields you want to work with), I think the better bet is usually going to be the junior faculty member. It might be a bit of a higher risk/reward proposition, but down the road being one of the first graduates of a well-known faculty member will continue to serve you very well as you progress through your career, much more so than being one of many graduates they've had over the years. 
And the negatives of that position balance out by finding experienced senior faculty members to act as mentors- they can provide the insight and experience a young committee chair may lack.
Most of us give advice based on our personal experiences- we don't do multiple PhDs to be able to comment on parallel experiences with different areas. But in the programs I've been in, this has held true- as with the career trajectory of myself and my colleagues, so it's advice I continue to give to my students. 
Regardless, as mentioned, fit is the primary factor- choosing a senior person who's a worse fit for your research interests over a junior person who's a better fit (as is the case in the instances discussed in this thread) just because the person is senior isn't a great idea.

Sometimes I'm happy that my native language has a formal and informal way of speaking and it is considered impolite to speak to anyone you don't know well/higher in the hierarchy/older or same age in an informal way unless they tell you so. I even talk to my grandma in a formal way and still feel uncomfy addressing my profs by their first name even though they tell me too lol. 
 
I've noticed this in class so many times though... and it still bothers me. But I have a feminazi in my group so the few guys who used to do this generally got verbally attacked (that and her raging war on evolutionary psychology or any sorta thing that proposes gender differences)

Eh.... Wanting to work with senior faculty isn't always the smart move, especially when the junior faculties research much more closely aligns with your research. Most of the time the absolute best bet is to work with a recently hired assistant prof. They're going to be much more engaged in the work and their first students, and you'll graduate before they're up for tenure.
And to be honest, you should show strong interest in any faculty member reaching out to you, especially one in your area of interest. 

I was going to suggest the same thing. At the point when someone is comparing fudging a CV to rape and victim-blaming, yes. Agreed. 100%. 

The House is voting tomorrow -- please make one last push on this issue today with your representative.  Regardless of party... anything can happen in terms of votes on this, and if they end up eventually (somehow) negotiating for Dem votes on this, you still want your rep to know that this is a huge problem for us.  
www.govtrack.us is a great place to figure out who your rep is, especially if your state's Secretary of State's office has a website that is hard to navigate.  (And if you haven't, be sure you are registered to vote -- if this goes through, then flipping the house and senate next year might be our best way to reverse this).  If you need extra documentation to register in your state (like a birth certificate), that can take a while to get, so starting that process now would be good.  If you move, put changing your registration on the top of your list of items to do.
 

I think you are right on all of these points. My point was that if one was going to choose between doing nothing vs. appeal to their rep, I think it's better to appeal to the rep. If one can do all of the above then that's even better.
If I were still a student in the US, this wouldn't be a true statement. I actually would not be able to handle paying $14,000 per year in taxes out of a $33,000 stipend in a place where a single bedroom place costs $1600/month (just for reference, virtually no grad students at my school could afford a one bedroom place on their own). If this change became law, I would have left my degree program.
As such, I think the students who are going to be most affected aren't going to have time or energy to fight this change. It's up to those who can weather the damage to do what you're suggesting. So I think your scripts are spot on, because the people who are going to have the ability to fight the way you suggest are the ones who can handle it.
Again, my suggestions were not that people do it instead of your way. They can be complementary. And even if your rep is a Republican that despises academics, at least the time you're taking up is blocking those calling in to support the bill. Maybe I am just naive but I do think having large numbers of people calling in to say how they will be hurt will at least make the rep think about what they are doing. And if not the rep, then maybe the staffers that have to listen to it every day.

The point is to appeal to your own representative. A personal story to someone who doesn't represent you would not work. The point is to talk to your own rep as one of their constituents and have your friends and supporters who are constituents to call in and tell them how their friends, family, colleagues etc. are affected. Often, you don't even need to tell a compelling story because sometimes you just want to be counted in the tally of people who "called to say they are against X".
That said, I'm not trying to say that you should not also do what you said above. There are many ways to influence lawmakers. I think it's incorrect to believe that we can only influence lawmakers if we make detailed arguments the way you described. This level of time and effort may discourage people from voicing their opinion which will not do any good. Also, you might end up telling the whole detailed argument to a staffer that isn't really listening or isn't going to be able to repeat it to the actual representative.
For those with time, ability and energy to write up and present strong arguments against this bill, they should do so. We need people to do that otherwise it's not going to make a difference. But for those without as much time, ability and energy, something lower effort can also be effective. Calling in every single day with the same message helps add your tally mark to the list. A short script like, "Hello, my name is X and I am one of your constituents living in zip code 12345. I am calling to oppose the Tax Cut and Jobs Act because it removes much needed tax deduction for tuition waivers. With this change, my tax owing will go from X dollars to Y dollars. My stipend is Z dollars so I will no longer be able to afford to continue my research career working on ABC."
Definitely personalize as much as you want. You can also choose to highlight the unfairness of a change that affects students who made decisions on careers long before this act was announced. Or that the tuition sticker price doesn't actually reflect the value. You can pick 5 different things to highlight and say a different one each day of the work week!
Also, even if you are not an American citizen, foreign people living in the US are still constituents. Be sure to not say anything that implies that you are a voting citizen. As non-citizens, we cannot donate money or time/volunteer for specific campaigns for office, but we can still donate money/time to specific causes (e.g. "Students against the TCJA") and of course, we can influence how our friends and family in the US vote for their representatives. Therefore, if you feel like doing it, non citizens can also call up senators and representatives!

In addition to doing this, please please also call their offices. I have talked to many people who work in science policy and specifically staffers in these politician offices. Calling and showing up at their office is the most effective way to be counted. Your phone call can be short, just call them and say that you're a constituent and you want to oppose (whatever tax bill number this is). It would have made grad school impossible for you because your expenses are currently X and they would be Y if this change happens. 
Then do this again every single day. Each time you call, the office will mark down a tally of how many people called on what topic. Each day, there is a report made for the senator/congressperson that X people called about each thing. This is how they measure which topics are important to them. If your issue only gets a few calls a day, it's not going to gain much traction. A lot of my friends have been making calling in part of their daily routine (they do it during their walk into work for example). They encourage each other to make 5 calls per day etc. 
Here's one article about it: https://lifehacker.com/the-best-ways-to-contact-your-congress-people-from-a-f-1788990839
I'm not in the US anymore so I don't know all the little details (bill numbers etc.) When I was down there, I was not a citizen so I couldn't call anyways. But I hope you and my US colleagues are able to get the message out.

I signed up to Grad Cafe just so I can respond to this thread. I'm no longer a PhD student. I finished my studies 4 years ago, so it's not going to impact me directly. But since I was a PhD student living from a stipend not long ago, and I know I wouldn't have made it if I had to pay the extra tax, it feels very close to home for me.
First, let me be clear: this is not a speculation. The current draft for HR.1 specifically retracts section 117(b) of the IRS tax code. I've read the draft text myself. It's there in the draft. It is true that a draft can still change, but there are some reasons I'm really not optimistic about this:
1. They have been working on this draft for a long time before they posted it. It's not an early draft.
2. They plan to rush this bill through the house and senate so it would pass before the end of the year. The republicans really feel like they need a "win" right now, and for them passing the tax reform is just the kind of "win" they need.
3. In order to pass this as a reconciliation bill in the senate without getting filibustered, it must not increase the deficit by more than 1.5 trillion dollars. Right now, they need to remove more deductions to get to this target. Which makes it less likely they would change this.
4. And most importantly: PhD students are relatively small and insignificant group. They don't have a strong lobby protecting their interests, and compared to the group trying to push back against cancelling the deductions for state and local taxes, they're last in line. Case in point: check news stories about the tax reform. How many headlines have you seen about this story?
 
And the impact is huge. As someone here mentioned, tuition reduction is qualified if this is a qualified institution, and the graduate student performs teaching or research activities for the educational institution. But this is the situation for most PhD students who receive full funding from the university. I checked the numbers based on the stipend I got, and it looks like if it would pass, it would've reduced my post-tax monthly stipend from 1800$ a month to 1150$ a month.
But all is not lost. I'm not writing this to discourage you but to encourage you to take action. Just like someone in the white house twitted not long ago: DO SOMETHING. Call your senator. Post about it in your social network. Create memes. Get other grad students and grad candidate to act. Get more people to be aware of this issue. Don't just assume this would change because someone else is going to take care of this for you. Otherwise, this is going to impact not just your pockets, but also higher ed and research in general.
 

Yes, while nothing is certain yet, now is the right time to start calling your representatives to tell them to oppose this bill and tell them your personal story of how it will affect you personally. Unlike academic arguments which are often constructed as unbiased, dispassionate and impersonal ideas, the best way to engage with your politician is to tell personal anecdotes! At the same time, if you are already a graduate student put pressure on your school to oppose this bill because it's something that hurts them as much as it will hurt you.
Definitely not a reason to panic yet. But a good time to start doing something!

off topic but there are so many people with pokemon nicknames and/or pictures here. Love you all!

Sadly in my experience IRB offices seem to not care at all about decisions made at other institutions. You might do better to find someone at *your* institution who has faced a similar problem. Or just sit with an advisor from the IRB office in person to discuss this, simply explaining that it’s a virtual event. They should understand that asking people to print and mail consent forms is very difficult. Maybe they can come up with another solution. See if the have office hours when you can stop by to consult with them about your application.
Another option, less happy but possible: you don’t withdraw from the project as a whole but just from handling any data. You should still be able to help with the design and write up, as long as your coauthor does all the data collection and analysis. That way you can stay on the project and paper. Hopefully your coauthor will agree and be understanding, if it comes to that. 

Yes. They are deliberate about awarding to underrepresented groups.
 
Not sure about this. You can download last years' awards and sort by subfield--it might help you answer this question.

You should email the people at the GRFP ASAP. They should get back to you pretty quickly.

I take exception with your post. I ask: How does one define representation? How does one evaluate representation?
For decades, the great trinity of American historiography has been race, class, and gender. In the some of most "traditional" fields  diplomatic, naval, and military history, the study of race and gender certainly still have a ways to go but does this reflect under-representation or self selection or does it reflect the utilitarian nature of those fields that lead to different kinds of debates as those seen among academic-minded historians?
IRT the study of slavery and the African American experience as well as the impact of racial identity, politics, and racism in American history, it is, IMO, a bit misleading to suggest that the small number of blacks in the profession reflects the profession's interest in and commitment to those two areas of inquiry. Compare the recipients of the Bancroft Prize since 1966ish to those before that year. Compare the winners and finalists for the Pulitzer since 1978 to those before.
Look at the recently published works on the impact of notions of racial identity and their impact upon Colonial America. Examine reading lists for graduate classes in American history, shorter reviews in academic journals, the continued focus in graduate seminars on the intense debates over slavery in the 1970s, the deepening focus on the "long nineteenth century," the ever sharper criticism of Woodrow Wilson, as well as those presidents who continued what was America's longest war. 
Do all these efforts and their impact upon how academic history is practiced, learned, and taught reflect a lack of sustained, serious, and respectful attention within the profession? 

To echo the above, that's going to be an issue when you're on the academic job market too. Jobs aren't often available in your field in places with loads of diversity (this is regardless of one's field).* Take a serious look at the job openings in your area (the Academic Jobs Wiki is a great place to start) to get a sense of what the market has looked like the past few years. If you don't like any of the kinds of options you're seeing, it's probably a good idea to start investigating alt-ac options and prepare for those while in your PhD program. 
*This is even more true if you're not looking at R1 jobs but rather R2s or SLACs. Many of the nation's liberal arts colleges are in small towns an hour or two drive away from bigger cities, sometimes even further.

The Trump cuts were largely rejected by the House. There were some cuts, but it looks like they hopefully will not affect the GRFP, as long as the House-proposed budget stands.
http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/06/trump-cuts-nsf-mostly-rejected-house-panel-it-nixes-new-ships
http://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/49771/title/House-Proposes-NSF-and-NOAA-Cuts--NASA-Gains/

Getting hung up on wording isn't all that important, and there's also some variation in how these words are defined and used across schools and fields. 
Scholarships and fellowships are often (but definitely not always!) institution-internal funding sources for supporting students. They usually don't come with any strings attached in the form of service -- that is, you're not required to complete a certain project in exchange for the money. You have flexibility in the research you want to do. They  can be merit-based or need-based. Graduate fellowships are not usually need-based, that's something that's a lot more common for undergraduates. Grants are also funds that are used to support student research, but they are often (a) institution-external (e.g. come from the NSF or NIH), and (b) are there to support a particular project with an already determined outline of predicted deliverables. Fellowships can sometimes (in some fields, very often) simply support the student regardless of the particular project they choose to work on. A stipend is what we call that part of the funding that actually goes to the student, as opposed to parts of the money that might go toward tuition/insurance/overhead... 
Assistantships are money you get for work, either an RAship or a TAship. When you TA, you are responsible for some combination of sitting in the lecture, giving office hours, grading, and leading one or more lab or discussion section. Responsibilities vary. RAships would usually entail doing work on a project for a professor, where they have money that's been earmarked for paying students to do work related to their (already approved) project. Their money might come from external grant or an institution-internal pot. It shouldn't really matter for you, with two exceptions: (a) some grant money is designated as for use only for US citizens or permanent residents, so if you're international you might not be able to get it; and (b) again if you're international, you aren't allowed to work more than 20 hours a week, so the official designation of the source of the money might matter so you don't exceed this requirement. 
Now, to make life even more confusing, sometimes the official designation of where the money comes from could be different from the actual work you're required to do. For example, in my PhD department, money from all funding sources was pooled into a large pot, and everyone was payed the same amount every semester. There was some amount of money whose source was fellowships and some whose source was earmarked for TAships, but where your money actually came from was independent of whether you happened to TA a certain semester or not. (Everyone had to TA some number of semesters, and you could choose which ones to do it in.) This had tax implications for some (international) students, but otherwise was basically invisible to the students. But as an international student I always made sure I would be on fellowship money*, because that would allow me to work for extra pay (as opposed to TAship money, which automatically assumes I'm working 20 hours a week and can't work any more), and for tax reasons that matters because of a treaty my country has with the US, where fellowship money got a larger exemption than TA money. 
* And so this is yet another reason why being good friends with your grad secretary is a good idea.. 

There are always conferences with deadlines coming up Get together with a few similarly-minded peers and put together a Google Sheet with conferences of interest and deadlines, locations, etc.

Also, make sure you are admitted to a new program before withdrawing from the first.  If necessary, you could probably negotiate a leave of absence that will keep your options open.

I have met Harvard College graduates who do. But ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ #elitism

At the big annual conferences in my field, undergraduate and graduate students have the option of choosing to enter the poster competition, in which judges will evaluate your poster on a specific day using a specific rubric. Postdocs & faculty evaluate graduate student posters and graduate students, postdocs and faculty evaluate undergrad posters. I've evaluated undergrad posters for two years now. Here are some tips that would also apply to graduate student poster presentations (the rubric is generally the same, just a different standard):
- If you can find the rubric ahead of time, take a look at it. Our society's evaluation guidelines are clearly specified. There is a list of 6 standard questions all the judges must either ask or receive answers naturally through the course of your presentation.
- Make sure your presentation is complete. Include the background, methods, data analysis, results, implications and future work. 
- Be prepared to answer questions that put your work in the big picture context, such as, "If you could have the capability of determining any currently unknown data/property, which would be the most helpful and why?" and/or "How does your result inform other studies in your field?"
- Practice your spiel. Make a special spiel just for the judges and assume that they are a researcher in your field but know nothing about your subfield. Don't be afraid to repeat some stuff that a specialist would know---it will show that you know it too.
- Don't do your entire spiel from start to finish. Plan to have lots of natural breakpoints to allow the judge to ask questions. Remember that the judge is also spending the entire day at the conference and trying to fit in their judging assignments in the limited time they have and also see the posters they want to see. They will be tired, potentially distracted and you don't want to lose them after the first minute and continue talking and have them miss your points.
- Don't forget that your speech is not the only part of your evaluation. You might be evaluated on your attitude/demeanor so don't slouch away in the corner---stay near your poster and engage people as they walk by. And of course, a big part might be on poster design as well. It's the only part you can spend time on prior to the conference, so take some time to ensure a nice readable poster design.
That said, this award is not going to make or break your career. It's nice to win but as fuzzylogician said, no big deal if you don't. I would spend time preparing to win because it will have a lot of good side effects, such as improving your presentation to every other person (non-judges) as well. I think making a good impression by thorough presentation will actually do more for your future than winning this prize, so it's a win-win situation

Your methods should be driven by your questions...unless you specifically want to study methods, and that's an entirely different thing.
Most entering grad students know very little about the method they will eventually use and what is best for their questions (not to mention, their questions evolve rapidly over the first few years). If the faculty member's work interests you and you can see yourself asking related questions/conducing related research, go for it.

What do you mean here by "regular" loans? Are you talking about loans other than student loans?