GreenEyedTrombonist

This feels dangerously close to feeding trolls, but in the interest of others reading: 
I bet you'd be the kind of math teacher who gives a student 0 on a problem that has a simple arithmetic error that's carried across multiple lines of calculation because LOOK there are mistakes ALL OVER. I would be inclined to mark the error and deduct some symbolic point but then grade the rest of the problem taking this error into account and if the result is correct *given this mistaken early calculation* then the student will get most of the points, maybe even all of them. 
We say MAYBE because we don't actually know what happened. You don't either, nor does the author of the blog post, but you seem determined to interpret everything only one way, whichever is the most nefarious and ill-intentioned one. But most of us can easily imagine making an error or two as an undergrad or even a grad student and ending up with something inaccurate or even plain wrong on our CVs. And since the way we update our CVs is by adding new stuff, not re-vetting old stuff, it's not at all shocking that something that was on a CV in the 90s would be carried over to later ones. It's also not a stretch to see how it'd end up on an NIH CV, which is presumably simply constructed based on the person's professional CV (that's how I'd do it..). So yeah, we're not saying that there were no errors made, but we are willing to calibrate our outrage-meter to the size of the error and its timing. Undergrads do all kinds of stupid things. If all someone with a vendetta can find is a couple of questionable decisions from two decades ago, I'd feel pretty encouraged that there's basically nothing to see here. 

article B; https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7535005 ---> if you go to pubmed and search for the jalife dude; this shows up under 235. Seems he was just taken of the author list - but was maybe promised. Maybe he was supposed to help with the manuscript but turned out to be too busy in grad school in the end. Who knows. Maybe he's bene using the same old resume over an dover and forgot to take it off (Unintentionally)

 
Am willing to give him the benefit of the doubt for A. Probably a grad student mistake. There is an actual document sorta there. 
 

Honestly, I find the article concerning. There are many emotional arguments being made (made especially clear by the author's contempt of the accused's allegedly privileged background) and those arguments are masqueraded as fact. Ultimately, there isn't enough evidence presented to condemn the professor (and I think TakeruK presents a nice alternative interpretation of how this "attempt to deceive" could have just been a far less egregious infraction of sloppy records-keeping). There could be, however, enough evidence in this "article" for a nice case of libel should the accused choose to go that route. Investigative reporters work to uncover hidden fact and, in the best case scenario, keep us safe from immoral and illegal practices. However, they can't just accuse people without evidence. The wording in this article is accusatory without enough evidence to back up its assertions, which could lead the author to be in much more trouble than they are trying to get the accused in.

A lot of this can come down to your own goals and priorities. However, I would stress that you should not give up your academic and career goals for a relationship that doesn't exist yet. If you eventually are in a relationship that you prioritize over your education or career, that's nobodies business but your own. Do what's best for you. Just don't give up what you want for what might be, if that makes sense.

Thanks for doing this serious investigative work, @TakeruK. It's more than a little alarming that someone can publish this kind of slander with very little fact-checking, ascribing all kinds of malicious intent to people without any proof. Yes, there are some things that I definitely agree that this professor could and should have done better. But we're talking about two relatively minor mistakes that were made when the person was an undergraduate student. I don't think that we should cast aspersions on a person's entire career because of something like this. In particular, I don't think that this has any relevance to the person's current research, or how they obtained their job, or how they obtained any government funding. I don't think this could be considered serious enough padding (if it's that at all) to influence decisions at that level. Suggesting otherwise is unfair at best. 

My first reaction was: Yikes. I am sad to hear about cases like this.
My second reaction was: Is this website/article the only report of this case or has it been reported elsewhere and details corroborated by another source? After the initial reaction, I went to see if I could find instances of this reported elsewhere, but did not find anything. I would be concerned that the author of this article has some personal vendetta against this person and is digging up pretty obscure details of their past. (I'm not sure if you, @Ibn Al-Haytham, is also the author of this article, or if you're just linking to it).
Summary: I don't think this is a big deal at all and I think the author of this article is presenting minor mistakes as motivated wrongdoing without any substantial evidence. Please see below for a fact check of the article. Since this post is now super long, I'm presenting my main summarized thoughts up here.
In the linked article, the author brings up a concern of CV fabrication and coverup by universities. However, the case in question is hardly clear evidence of this happening. Based on my fact-check below, there is only one instance where there could have been a deliberate attempt to claim credit for something the professor did not do, although there are plenty of benign explanations that also fit. This seems much more like a case of sloppy CV record keeping and making mistakes one really shouldn't make. And although I agree with the linked article's author that integrity is extremely important and once someone does something academically unethical, their other actions do become suspect. However, one clearly cannot group all questionable acts together. Even if the prof in question did knowingly leave the one incorrect item in their CV in an attempt to boost it, this is a very minor offense that does not lead me to question everything else the professor did. In addition, I do not think such small differences gave the prof in question any real unfair advantage. Overall, I think the linked article contains a lot of speculation, especially about the prof in question's motives, which the author cannot know. It also presents minor issues as major ones with little argument to back that up and arbitrarily decides on the worst possible outcome when facts are unknown (without acknowledging other explanations). Altogether, it seems like an irresponsible article to have published.
---- Here's what I did to fact-check the article ----
It was a long article but the two main problems the author pointed out with the CV is 1) the person in question put some conference abstracts under conference proceedings in the CV and 2) the person in question claimed authorship of 2 articles they did not author.
For #1. I don't think there is any wrongdoing here at all. Looking at the archived CV, under "peer-reviewed conference proceedings", the professor makes it clear that there are two types of things being listed, "Talk presented at ..." and "In Proceedings....". To me, this clearly shows that the ones with only "Talk presented at..." are not published proceedings. It's legitimate to call them peer-reviewed because conferences use peer review to select which abstracts are going to be scheduled as talks. In the article, the author uses their own definition of Proceedings and cites Wikipedia, but these are certainly not the only (nor the only acceptable) definition. 
For #2. I decided to do my own digging since I could not find details corroborated by any other source. The article's author objects to two publications: 
A.      Davidenko, N., Beaumont, J., Davidenko, J.M., and Jalife, J. (1997). Spatio-temporal evolution of spiral wave activity. Biophys. J. 72:2 A370, June 1997.
B.      Beaumont, J., Davidenko, N., Davidenko, J.M., and Jalife, J. (1995). A model study of changes in excitability of ventricular muscle cells with repetitive stimulation. Inhibition, facilitation, and hysteresis. Am. J. Physiol. 268; 37:H1-H14, 1995.
I started with Publication A. Unlike the article's author, I was able to easily find this publication within 5 minutes of searching. Here's what I did. I went to the journal's website. I searched back issues to look for Volume 72, Issue 2. It turns out that there was a meeting and the abstracts of presentations were published in the Biophys J. As a special issue, probably (normal in my field too). With the page number being "A370", it was just a matter of searching through the long list of PDFs organized by session to determine which one A370 belonged to. I found it on Page 22 of this file: http://www.cell.com/biophysj/pdf/S0006-3495(97)78745-9.pdf
The main problem with this line in the CV was that the published issue of Biophys J. is February 1997 but the CV says June 1997. Benign typo, or perhaps misunderstanding of dates. I have a conference presentation from 2013 that was accepted for publication as proceedings but did not appear in print until 2014 (appeared online in 2013).
The secondary problem is that despite publication in a peer-reviewed journal, at least in my field, this is not a typical peer reviewed journal article. However, this is minor issue at the level of "CV padding", not a grave ethical breach that would cause me to doubt everything about this person. It is far less serious than the original claim that the person in question simply fabricated the manuscript.
In any case, nothing to ring alarm bells about at all.
Publication B is a little more tricky. I was not able to find the publication as cited by the person in question. It may not exist or I might just not be familiar enough with this field's journals (I notice that the American Journal of Physiology has many subdivisions). The author of the article claims that Publication B as cited is a misrepresentation of another article with a similar title but a different author list. I noticed that Publication B, as cited, quotes page numbers H1-H14. Volume 268 doesn't have page H1-H14 and it doesn't even have Issue 32, as far as I know. This makes me suspect a typo. Also, while it's possible to be the first 14 pages, sometimes drafts/proofs are numbered from page 1 (or A1 or H1 or whatever). Perhaps the person in question, in 1995, when they are at an early stage of their career (an undergrad) simply did not know that the page numbers on a draft manuscript did not actually represent the final published page numbers and they just continued to copy and paste the same CV line for decades. I also know from experience that sometimes as manuscripts and projects evolve, author lists change. Maybe the person in question was removed from the author list but didn't know it. Or maybe there is another article out there and this was just a typo. Note that these page numbers and the author list appear very similar to a 1998 publication also on the CV (see: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9649363). Maybe the 1995 project that the person in question contributed to was split into two works, one published in 1995 and the other part (where the author got moved to) was published in 1998. Sometimes this happens in my field because the project hit some snags or the lead author had to prioritize other things. So maybe at one point, the person in question was a co-author on the 1995 work but then failed to remove the listing from the CV after the project evolved.
Again, this is careless behaviour and disappointing to see in another academic. But at this time, the person in question was a undergraduate student and I know I made lots of dumb mistakes like that. This person should have corrected their CV once they knew better but I don't know all the details, so I can't really judge. That said, I can't rule out malicious intent like the article linked here suggested, but that's certainly not the only plausible explanation. I don't think it is a good idea for the article's author to only present the worst possible scenario and then conjure up some motivations that are not backed up in any way. It's fine to point out that the prof in question should have known better but it's a little far fetched to make the other claims. And I think it's downright irresponsible to present the worst possible case as the only scenario without even considering other explanations.

1. I freelance as a writer and word counts are extremely important in this area. In addition, I've worked as a TA and it's very easy to tell when someone has written more or less than the set amount. Yes, my courses have all graded down for something like this. Although no one will probably spend the time counting your words if they print out the document, it's easy enough to search for a word count in a digital document. In addition, even if they don't count the words, it's easy to tell when someone goes more than 50 words over the limit. 5 words is probably something they'd let slide, but if they put a word limit, I'd follow the word limit (save the wiggle room writing for after you get in and can work with a prof to determine if you actually should write more or less). 
2. Be wary of judging someone's tone on the internet. Tone misinterpretation is one of the biggest reasons for arguments (that I've seen) in forums and chat rooms (and I moderate quite a few forums and chat rooms so I've seen a lot). Although if someone is actually attacking you, you should stand up for yourself, context matters. Fuzzy has been around a long time and has a lot of positive cred on this forum (easily seen with the 4.5k+ upvotes and the senior moderator status). They've spent time to give you advice that is probably the safest for an applicant. Please don't discredit the advice because you didn't like the perceived tone or it wasn't what you wanted to hear. 

1. I freelance as a writer and word counts are extremely important in this area. In addition, I've worked as a TA and it's very easy to tell when someone has written more or less than the set amount. Yes, my courses have all graded down for something like this. Although no one will probably spend the time counting your words if they print out the document, it's easy enough to search for a word count in a digital document. In addition, even if they don't count the words, it's easy to tell when someone goes more than 50 words over the limit. 5 words is probably something they'd let slide, but if they put a word limit, I'd follow the word limit (save the wiggle room writing for after you get in and can work with a prof to determine if you actually should write more or less). 
2. Be wary of judging someone's tone on the internet. Tone misinterpretation is one of the biggest reasons for arguments (that I've seen) in forums and chat rooms (and I moderate quite a few forums and chat rooms so I've seen a lot). Although if someone is actually attacking you, you should stand up for yourself, context matters. Fuzzy has been around a long time and has a lot of positive cred on this forum (easily seen with the 4.5k+ upvotes and the senior moderator status). They've spent time to give you advice that is probably the safest for an applicant. Please don't discredit the advice because you didn't like the perceived tone or it wasn't what you wanted to hear. 

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 

@rheya19lol and understanding on the parental front. My parents haven't done comments quite like yours, but they did speculate that I'm asexual because I wasn't dating in high school and have told me that, until I told them I was engaged to a man, they assumed I'd one day come home on a harley with my girlfriend on the back. 
Actually, come to think of it, I have never told them which gender(s) I'm attracted to, so they're probably still taking bets on "how I'll turn out."

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 

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 

This can depend on program and field. If your school has rolling deadlines, you might hear sooner. If, however, it's one deadline for the program and they state they do not look at apps early, expect to wait. Typically, what I've seen in the past is December deadlines will normally begin yielding results in Jan and Feb or early March (though sometimes as early as late December and sometimes as late as late March and April). Basically, try and find something to do to get your mind off of things. It'll probably be a while before you hear back.
If any people in History have better insight as towards the field's typical response time, they may be a better source of info for your particular case.

Fine tuning SOPs at the moment - aiming to have everything sent off and done by this weekend. Eeek!

Not in SLP, but I did attend SJSU so take that for what it's worth.
I received a grant and only took out 5k in loans my first year (and got a job as a student researcher which helped me start paying that off). The next year, I became a TA (in a different department than my own) which covered all of my school tuition/fees. However, I'm also from San Jose and had a free place to stay while doing my MA, so my other expenses were extremely minor. It is important to note that San Jose is the worst housing market for renters in the entire country. There are places outside of the city that are relatively cheaper, but this does increase your commute by a lot. If you plan to drive, be aware parking can be a nightmare on campus. Do not buy a permit for a parking garage, get one for the park and ride lot (cheaper and easier to get parking there). Or, do what I did and memorize where all the free parking is near campus (there's also free parking around park and ride). There are definitely ways to make San Jose affordable, but you will have an easier time affording things in Fresno. As much as there is an undergrad rivalry between SJSU and Fresno, I do think Fresno has some pretty cool things (apparently the town has a ton of cool graffiti art and street murals, if that's your thing). 

Congratulations on the job @samman1994 ! Yeah,  places sometimes do that (offer less than they originally said) and it's really annoying, but I guess it makes the decision easier. Also, a 3.5 hour drive sounds horrible.
I'm still doing the job search grind. :/ 

Moderator note:
Just a friendly reminder that users are certainly welcome to disagree with each other. Respectful discussion is one way to provide valuable insight and knowledge.
However, I will remind everyone to refrain from discussing other users. If you disagree with someone, respond to their thoughts/ideas/arguments. Counter their opinions with your own opinions of these ideas, but not your opinion of other users.
To be absolutely clear, for this specific example: If you believe one user is not providing an accurate description of a program you know about, then write about your own experiences with the program. But it is not appropriate to make comments to the effect of "Don't believe user X". Instead, say, "I disagree with X because ABC" for example.

This is something that is different based on the personalities of the committee members and your own needs. For my MA, my committee was my advisor, who I workshopped everything with, another in my department who wasn't as involved, and a third outside my department who spent quite a bit of time giving feedback on my report. 

Just to add on, if you go with a game night, don't try one tabletop game for 40 people. The logistics are just a nightmare. Game nights can be really fun if you have a variety of games (both in the sense of several tabletop and a mix of tabletop/video/activity-based). Given the size of your event, you probably want a few quicker to play games (Don't try and get everyone playing Betrayal at House on the Hill because that can last a few hours). Quicker games let people have short bouts of fun and leave easily when they're ready to move on. Card games (CAH, Exploding Kittens, Superfight) are great for this kind of play. I also enjoy games like Forbidden Island, Tsuro, and Tokaido for slightly longer games (without being great epics). You could also do themed parties and, if you're ambitious, put together a murder mystery or tabletop LARP event. You can either make your own or find a pre-made one. Here are the free-to-play tabletop LARPs from last year's Golden Cobra Challenge. Full disclosure, one of those games is mine, haha. Having a variety of games also allows people to gravitate towards things they like, rather than be bored watching others play a game they aren't really interested in. 
 
Hope this helps!

That depends on the field. I never contact any professors before submitting applications, and I did name several in every app.* 
@WildeThing read up on the instructions for your schools. Unless they advise otherwise (some do!), you could try writing potential advisors to ask if they're taking new students and if they think you'd be a potentially good match. There's always the chance that someone is retiring soon or considering taking another offer, but even if you reach out to them they may not be ready to share that information with new applicants. All you can do is try, and work with the information that you have. There's some chance that you'll get things wrong, but if your people of interest are retiring or not taking new students, you probably don't want to go to that school anyway. One way to address this concern more generally is to only apply to schools that have several potential advisors for you, and name several of them in your application. This isn't just about the application -- this is about your actual time at your prospective school; things do change over the course of 5+ years and it's very important to have as many options available to you as possible.  
* And I mostly got things right; there was one case of someone who was on the faculty when I applied but left that year; I have no idea if she would have told me if I'd emailed. Another prof who would have been an obvious advisor at another school left the following year, so there's nothing I could have done about that. One of my main committee members spent years 3-5 of my time in my program abroad and we mostly talked on Skype, including for my defense. Life happens.

In this case, what it might come down to is theoretical and methodological frameworks (which programs align best with the way you want to do your research and have a breadth of literature related to your research). This will vary by department, so a Comm program may be the best choice at one school and Criminology at another. Also, consider the resources of the programs you're looking into. It's no secret that some departments have more resources than others (both within discipline and within university) and, if finances are a factor, it might be important to know where you might get more financial support. 
Some universities will let you apply to more than one program so, if you can't choose between two programs at one school, sometimes that isn't a problem.

Realized I should have mentioned, as @DBear did, that all profs who responded to me said my anthro background wasn't a problem and shouldn't hurt my application.

A LOT of programs are interdisciplinary by nature so coming from a non-Comm background isn't a big deal for a lot of places. I applied last year with degrees in policy and English and am in my first semester now. Of my cohort, I think one out of the half dozen or so of us has a degree directly related to our subfield. 
I contacted professors I was interesting in working with and did what @GreenEyedTrombonist said. Told them about my interests and background and asked if I'd be a good fit. Not one person said my non-Comm degree was an issue. 
Good luck!

Oh look, a topic for me!
I come from Anthropology (BA and MA) so I'm in the middle of this right now. Something I did was contact the DGS of each school I was interested in (sometimes they have an automated system that I used instead). I would mention my background, intended research project, and ask if my background in anthro would be a hindrance to my application/if they had any advice on ways I could help supplement my knowledge. I've had some good conversations as a result.

You can press submit on your app without the LoRs all in though. Writers can still upload their letters after you submit your portion of the app.
I  would also request letters before mid-November. If they are profs, you're dealing with holidays, final projects from their classes, and final exams. Then, right after the semester is over, it's the winter holiday season and you don't know if they already have plans for that time that means they are unable to write a letter then. One of my writers said she needed to have them all in before December 15th because she isn't available after that date. I asked her in September. 
Since my SoP wasn't done, I created a doc for my writers that listed each school, the degree name, the deadline, a bit about the program, the professors I want to work with, and my current level of communication with the program. Where I had it ready, I included sections from my SoP rough draft (and labeled them as such). I also included a fairly quick breakdown of my intended research project in the body of the email.