GreenEyedTrombonist

Yep, it sucks @MarineBluePsy and you would think, if you disclose the name change, it shouldn't be an issue.  On the plus side, I'm down to one school looking for my scores and I have confirmed they were received by the other 6.

@TakeruK Hopefully the software we'll get more sophisticated and stop such issues from happening.
In my case, I have 4 legal names, but used to have 5. My scores are listed under my 5 names rather than my current 4. Even though I listed my previous name on all of my apps, I suspect this is the reason that the computers had issues automatching. What made it worse, the first school repeatedly told me they had no way to find it if it didn't autoconnect to my app and they wanted me to resend my scores. But if the name doesn't change, how would sending my scores a second time result in any type of change on their end? x]

Good news though, the third school got back to me today and confirmed they have my scores, so at least that won't keep me from potential extra funds if I get into that school!

@jltomato thanks for the response! I'm from California (Silicon Valley) so winter is definitely something that worries me (everywhere I applied save 1 school actually has a real winter). That's awesome that you have fun parties like that.  
I turned in my apps early so it's largely just waiting for my last rec letter to turn her stuff in and working with Boston to figure out where my GRE scores went. I've been spending my time interviewing for jobs, moderating Twitch channels, and making games.  

My understanding of the issue is not just that the task is "distasteful" but that the student is trolling the TA / the class. It's one thing for a student to be writing an argument you may disagree with but is doing so in good faith but another thing to deal with problematic and vitriolic papers. If the TA does not feel comfortable approaching the student alone about their paper, it is perfectly within their rights and the correct thing to do to call for support. Ultimately, a grad student has very little leverage over an undergrad student and it's not fair for a student to have to deal with a "troll" just to earn their tuition waiver/stipend. Just like any worker has the right to refuse unsafe work and to be in a workplace free of harassment, going to the instructor is the right first step if the TA feels an encounter with the student could go badly.
Note that the original advice was not just to "hand off" the task. Instead, it was to go to the instructor and let them deal with it as they see fit. This may include them saying "yeah, I'll take it from here" or it might include them working with you to figure out the best solution. Going to the instructor for help is not a sign of weakness or shirking your TA duties. Instead, it's exactly what a TA should do if they encounter a problem they don't know how to deal with: talk to your superior.

Teachers can report hate speech in papers. I would deal with this by grading strictly based on the req's I've laid out in the paper, reporting if necessary, and keeping a thorough record of each correspondence with the student in question. Normally, hate speech isn't backed up through credible sources, making it very easy to grade down. Back up your notes and keep everything (honestly, even the students that don't cause issues in class might still raise a ruckus about grades later). As for trying to preemptively stop this problem, include something in the green sheet explicitly stating that hate speech will not be tolerated and students need to be respectful in their discussions inside your class. You don't need to agree with each other, but you should support your disagreements with fact and never devolve into attacking the other person. That gives the professor recourse to discipline the student if necessary (discipline here could mean reminding them of the rules and making them back off to kicking them out of the class for that period if necessary). Differences of opinion can be great for a class if the discussion of those differences is respectful, but it's part of a teacher's job (imo) to keep order in the class (and keep it relatively safe for those present).

Winter has been (surprisingly) mild here, for all three years I've been here. In my first year, our cohort walked out on the ice when the lakes froze over, but it wasn't cold enough last year. So far, it's been too mild this winter as well. Other than that, Madison has been good (busy, but who isn't?). We're a very word hard, play hard kind of department, so I have two papers due this week, but on Saturday the grad students are having a "summer in the winter" (tropical themed) party, so that'll be my mid-final break. 
Glad you've had some good convo with our faculty! Research-wise our professors are incredibly helpful/responsive, and it's nice to be able to work on projects with them through research groups rather than just classes.
Hope you've been able to take a post-12/1 break!

Teachers can report hate speech in papers. I would deal with this by grading strictly based on the req's I've laid out in the paper, reporting if necessary, and keeping a thorough record of each correspondence with the student in question. Normally, hate speech isn't backed up through credible sources, making it very easy to grade down. Back up your notes and keep everything (honestly, even the students that don't cause issues in class might still raise a ruckus about grades later). As for trying to preemptively stop this problem, include something in the green sheet explicitly stating that hate speech will not be tolerated and students need to be respectful in their discussions inside your class. You don't need to agree with each other, but you should support your disagreements with fact and never devolve into attacking the other person. That gives the professor recourse to discipline the student if necessary (discipline here could mean reminding them of the rules and making them back off to kicking them out of the class for that period if necessary). Differences of opinion can be great for a class if the discussion of those differences is respectful, but it's part of a teacher's job (imo) to keep order in the class (and keep it relatively safe for those present).

Teachers can report hate speech in papers. I would deal with this by grading strictly based on the req's I've laid out in the paper, reporting if necessary, and keeping a thorough record of each correspondence with the student in question. Normally, hate speech isn't backed up through credible sources, making it very easy to grade down. Back up your notes and keep everything (honestly, even the students that don't cause issues in class might still raise a ruckus about grades later). As for trying to preemptively stop this problem, include something in the green sheet explicitly stating that hate speech will not be tolerated and students need to be respectful in their discussions inside your class. You don't need to agree with each other, but you should support your disagreements with fact and never devolve into attacking the other person. That gives the professor recourse to discipline the student if necessary (discipline here could mean reminding them of the rules and making them back off to kicking them out of the class for that period if necessary). Differences of opinion can be great for a class if the discussion of those differences is respectful, but it's part of a teacher's job (imo) to keep order in the class (and keep it relatively safe for those present).

Moderator note, iteration #3: This discussion has absolutely no chance of being productive. Please, let's up it to rest. 

I agree with @fuzzylogician that this is something to discuss with the REB office. Given the nature of my project, I ended up identifying both organizations with which I worked. All participants for surveys, interviews, and some social media posts were given pseudonyms or their identities were obscured. However, there were some publically available data included where the person, usually a person in power at one of the organizations, was named. Given that this information was not given in confidence and was being pulled from public records (youtube videos, Twitch VoDs, etc), there ended up being no predicted additional harm to the person by including their name (and it helped provide context for some of the comments that could have otherwise been confusing). In short, there are some cases where this is ok and some where it isn't, so, as fuzzy said, it's important to talk it over with the proper authorities before doing something potentially harmful. 

Best suggestion: make an appointment with the REB office at your institution and talk it over with them. They will usually have office hours when you can walk in, or it might be better to schedule an appointment ahead of time. I think there's a question about the nature of the data you'll collect and whether it could potentially harm anyone (for comparison, in my field we actually have a habit of thanking language consultants who we've worked with by name; but depending on what you ask, you may need to take more precautions). If there is anything potentially harmful, then the question is whether a person can be identified by their institutional affiliation and the answers they provide. If so, then you might need to omit the institution name (and ask yourself if, in that case, they are no longer identifiable), or some other identifying information.

So this is not someone who you've ever met in person or talk to, she threw a fit before because you didn't boost her socials, and now she's out of the blue saying she has a problem with your success.
Don't respond. This could be a tactic to get a sympathy boost (I'm sorry you aren't happy. Here, let me help you become more successful) or it could be an attempt to start drama or simply an attempt to bring you down. In all of these scenarios, she is not your friend and is trying to use or manipulate you. 
There is the offchance that she honestly views the relationship as closer than you do. If you don't want a close relationship with them, I'd also not respond. It sounds mean, but ultimately you need to put your own mental health and business first. Being more successful than another person, unless you are outright stealing customers or something from them, is not harmful to that person. They need to put on their grown-up pants and learn how to deal or confide in someone who can help them get over it (aka a family member, friend, or professional, but not you or random professional people they follow on the internet).

So real talk, I was married for a while. Though not the only contributing factor, I knew the marriage was over the second I started talking about going to grad school and his response was that I wasn't allowed to unless it paid us. I'm so happy to be divorced because I'm no longer anchored by someone keeping me from living the life I want to live. AKA I have dreams and aspirations and I'm not willing to give up on those for a partner (and a partner shouldn't ask you to, though there may be some situations where you choose to value the partner over the dream). I'm not gonna lie and say it'll be easy to find the right partner, because it honestly won't, but you should not have to compromise your values in such an extreme way for the chance at romantic fulfillment. I hope you find a partner who will make you happy and who values your passions and goals as much as you do. <3 

To give a little more targeted advice based on anthropology, our departments tend to have very few people doing the exact same thing (as in, we don't usually have departments full of professors all doing African studies based around gender issues). Anthro can be tricky to match your interests because you often are matching regional interests, topic interests, theory, and methodology (this is one of the downsides of anthro being so broad). Instead, I like to make sure there are many (minimum 3) professors who have done work in my intended sub-subfield (the subfield I research within cultural anth, for instance "digital community") and professors who have similar methodological and theoretical frameworks (digital ethnography for methodology and professors who do think communities can form online for theory, though other theoretical frameworks are more succinctly titled, such as "Marxist" or "post-structuralist"). Given the typical size of an anthro department (fairly small) I think it's ok to have a smaller number of professors who exactly/closely match your interests, but it is good that you can show general interest, theory, or methodology similarities with several members in the program. Since our programs typically have an advisor and two or three committee members, I like to show very strong topic connections to at least one professor and strong methodology or theoretical connections to another two or three. 
There are some good posts in the anthro section that discuss US anthro SoPs and what is typically expected so that would be a good place to check regarding specific differences in how you write your SoP for these programs.
I would like to note that, although my BA and MA are in anthro, my interest in digital studies has moved me to comm programs for doctoral research. I did still research anthro programs for both MA and PhD level applications though, so this advice should still be useful. 

So this is not someone who you've ever met in person or talk to, she threw a fit before because you didn't boost her socials, and now she's out of the blue saying she has a problem with your success.
Don't respond. This could be a tactic to get a sympathy boost (I'm sorry you aren't happy. Here, let me help you become more successful) or it could be an attempt to start drama or simply an attempt to bring you down. In all of these scenarios, she is not your friend and is trying to use or manipulate you. 
There is the offchance that she honestly views the relationship as closer than you do. If you don't want a close relationship with them, I'd also not respond. It sounds mean, but ultimately you need to put your own mental health and business first. Being more successful than another person, unless you are outright stealing customers or something from them, is not harmful to that person. They need to put on their grown-up pants and learn how to deal or confide in someone who can help them get over it (aka a family member, friend, or professional, but not you or random professional people they follow on the internet).

So this is not someone who you've ever met in person or talk to, she threw a fit before because you didn't boost her socials, and now she's out of the blue saying she has a problem with your success.
Don't respond. This could be a tactic to get a sympathy boost (I'm sorry you aren't happy. Here, let me help you become more successful) or it could be an attempt to start drama or simply an attempt to bring you down. In all of these scenarios, she is not your friend and is trying to use or manipulate you. 
There is the offchance that she honestly views the relationship as closer than you do. If you don't want a close relationship with them, I'd also not respond. It sounds mean, but ultimately you need to put your own mental health and business first. Being more successful than another person, unless you are outright stealing customers or something from them, is not harmful to that person. They need to put on their grown-up pants and learn how to deal or confide in someone who can help them get over it (aka a family member, friend, or professional, but not you or random professional people they follow on the internet).

You as well @firefoxquantum ! I'm actually at my two-week mark for my first deadline so I'll be emailing my writer tomorrow.

So this is not someone who you've ever met in person or talk to, she threw a fit before because you didn't boost her socials, and now she's out of the blue saying she has a problem with your success.
Don't respond. This could be a tactic to get a sympathy boost (I'm sorry you aren't happy. Here, let me help you become more successful) or it could be an attempt to start drama or simply an attempt to bring you down. In all of these scenarios, she is not your friend and is trying to use or manipulate you. 
There is the offchance that she honestly views the relationship as closer than you do. If you don't want a close relationship with them, I'd also not respond. It sounds mean, but ultimately you need to put your own mental health and business first. Being more successful than another person, unless you are outright stealing customers or something from them, is not harmful to that person. They need to put on their grown-up pants and learn how to deal or confide in someone who can help them get over it (aka a family member, friend, or professional, but not you or random professional people they follow on the internet).

So this is not someone who you've ever met in person or talk to, she threw a fit before because you didn't boost her socials, and now she's out of the blue saying she has a problem with your success.
Don't respond. This could be a tactic to get a sympathy boost (I'm sorry you aren't happy. Here, let me help you become more successful) or it could be an attempt to start drama or simply an attempt to bring you down. In all of these scenarios, she is not your friend and is trying to use or manipulate you. 
There is the offchance that she honestly views the relationship as closer than you do. If you don't want a close relationship with them, I'd also not respond. It sounds mean, but ultimately you need to put your own mental health and business first. Being more successful than another person, unless you are outright stealing customers or something from them, is not harmful to that person. They need to put on their grown-up pants and learn how to deal or confide in someone who can help them get over it (aka a family member, friend, or professional, but not you or random professional people they follow on the internet).

So I've been following this thread for a while and I hope, OP, that you take the advice of these responders to heart. It's good to want to change a corrupt system, but we must make sure we are not doing more harm with our actions. Think through every possible outcome and realize that, in such situations, it is far more complicated an endeavor to solve than what a third-party, non-professional website can fix. It's ok to want to act and figure out how to solve these problems, but the problems must be considered in their entirety and, most of the time, one umbrella solution will not solve such a complex system. Do not take action without considering its effect on the victims of these crimes. It's ok to want to improve a corrupt system, but taking action that could potentially lead to further harm to the victims is not ok in my opinion. Furthermore, if this risk is undisclosed, it is also unethical and will lead to potentially negative consequences for you, on top of the additional harm/trauma to the victims (sidenote: I want to call them survivors). 

Moderator note: It seems that this conversation has run its course. It is perhaps best to put this thread to rest at this point. 

Friend, you seem to be very confused about who we are and what this board is about.
First off, no one here is required to comply with any demands in order to engage in a conversation with any other poster ("first find this article, then provide that link, then we'll talk", which you seem to continuously use as a canned reply). Second, this is not a trial. We are not defense attorneys. We don't even know the person you've chosen to pick on. What we are is people with some experience, and we are sharing alternative ways of interpreting facts (and perceived facts) that you have presented. Just like you are entitled to your opinion that everyone has the worst intentions at heart without providing any proof, we are entitled to present alternative possible ways things could have happened.  This here is key: you just admitted that you have absolutely no standing, and you don't intend to follow up on any of your libelous claims. You've instead assumed the role of Defender of Academia. No one appointed you, and it seems to me that the people you claim to be fighting for aren't happy with what you're doing. Think about that.  To conclude, you appear to be nothing more than a keyboard warrior, and one who is trying to get others to do their work for them, at that. We've continuously replied to your made-up scenarios, and you've continuously replied with the same unaware response. It seems to me like we're just all wasting our time. 

@bananabear for my MA, the program did not assign advisors at the very start. They assumed interests would change so it was more a process of taking the first courses and spending time in them to identify what you truly want to do. For them, the letter of intent is more about articulating that you are thinking of a project, how it fits in the field, and how it could be done. Secondly, they wanted a balance between the subfields for admitted students (broadly: cultural, physical, and archaeology) so, although I greatly changed my focus, I was still operating within my designated subfield (cultural) and didn't effect the balance of the cohort. 
The first semester was also used as a time to identify potential advisors and committee members. I was lucky in that I knew after getting accepted but before starting that I intended to refocus on digital anthropology (I'd just started getting traction in online communities and my writing was taking off so it made sense to continue in this field). I was also lucky that my MA was at the same school I did my BA, so I had a good relationship with a prof who does work in emerging technology and was open to a digitally focused project. 

@firefoxquantum many programs will not penalize a student for a late LoR. I don't think it's something they advertise, but it seems to be a fairly common practice to still accept LoRs after the official deadline if the rest of the application is complete. 
That being said, it's always best to not assume this is the practice and to ask the programs if you end up in such a situation (and also do your best to not end up in this situation if you can help it). I, personally, requested LoRs well in advance and have a schedule for reminding my writers 2 weeks before the deadline if they have yet to submit. From previous applications, I know one of my writers likes to submit on the deadline so I don't stress too much about this stuff. Confirming she has what she needs 2 weeks out helps with my anxiety and gives us the opportunity to address any issues before it's too late. 

I have not heard of any program that will use an applicant's SOP against them if they change interests later on. Of course, any one of us has only their own experiences.
But what you write in your SOP does matter a little bit. At some places it will matter more than others. Some schools don't really care what you write in your SOP in terms of research interest content because their goal is to just admit students and then figure out who will do what later. At these places, they would evaluate the research-interest part of your SOP as your ability to write about a research topic you want to study. How well do you frame the question and motivations? What do you know about the resources available?
At other places, you might be admitted directly into a lab or research group so your SOP is extremely important. For one school I applied to, students are admitted with a funding commitment from a prof so my offer letter said that I was admitted with funding to specifically to work with Prof X or Y (I had to choose). In that case, since your funding is tied to your advisor/supervisor, then while you are not held to the letter of your SOP, you'll still have to work on something in the same general area since your advisor/supervisor controls your funding.
There are also in-betweens where you are not admitted to a specific group but you do have to find a group (and funding) within some time frame (maybe 1-2 years, after some rotations etc.) So in this sense, you might be able to stray from your SOP even more. However, if the department admitted students in some proprotionality to faculty research interests, if you try to drastically change interests, you might find that all the spots in those groups were already taken by other students originally intending to work in those areas. But some of those students may also switch so it might work out.
Summary: It is very unlikely that you will required to work on the specific/exact research topic you write about in your SOP (usually it may not even be possible to work on exactly what you propose). Depending on how funding and advisor distribution happens, which is specific to each program, you may have leeway to work on a topic related to what you wrote about or maybe even something completely different. The more your funding is tied to a professor's grant or other research money, the less leeway you have, generally. (Even if all of your income is not connected to a professor, you will still cost them their time so you still won't have complete freedom).