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I applied to clinical psych PhD programs and this was my structure:
How I got interested in psychology (tried to make it brief but substantive and non-fluffy) Research experience (in chronological order, about 3 paragraphs, main emphasis on my thesis) Clinical experience (not really applicable to you) Special skills (e.g. SPSS) Grad school goals + what I want to do after grad school Fit with professor(s) Fit with school Depending on the word limit for a particular school, I would cut certain sections; first the special skills section, then trim the research/clinical sections, and if it wasn't short enough by then, sometimes I cut the whole intro paragraph to a single sentence. Those 500-word-maximum statements were so hard, barely had enough room to discuss fit with professors.

One of my schools said they would notify all applicants by March 15... well it's the Ides of March now but I want to be hopeful!

My friend gave me a chocolate bar (like one of those fancy dark chocolate bars) because she knows how stressed I've been waiting and to reassure me that I'll get into a good school. I really want to eat the chocolate bar, but I kind of want to save until I get at least one acceptance, a single acceptance letter. But then I'm worried that I'll never get to eat the chocolate bar...

Could whoever got waitlisted at Fordham for the clinical program DM me your POI? Thank you!

Not going to lie, I’m sitting here thinking how much I wish this admissions process was as structured (or structured like) the APPIC match process for internship ?

Nothing yet, still waiting! 

OP, you're an adult. You get to live your own life and make your own decisions. Your parents don't get to make your decisions for you and they won't live your life for you. It seems to me that you came into your BA wanting a certain career, and having pursued some education and practical training in it, you've discovered it's not what you want. You've also discovered a new passion. Tell your parents that. A PhD would be funded, as you say, so you won't go into debt. And you'll have career options in and outside of academia. You don't have to justify yourself to them, but it's good to have answers to some question they may ask (what kind of jobs, how much do they pay, how long is the training, what schools are you considering). You may also want to think about what you want to tell them as far as personal questions go (when you might start a family, where you might live, etc). Understand their concerns for you and that they want what's best for you, but stand your ground that it's your life and your decision to make. Also keep in mind that while this decision has been brewing for a while inside your head, it's going to come as a surprise to them. Give them the space to digest what you're telling them. 

I've received 3...THREE...rejection emails from the same school in a 2 1/2 week period. Like, I get it. I'm rejected. Please no more emails. 

Hoping to spread a little hope for those still on waitlists...  I was just accepted from the waitlist into my top program!  It can happen!  Keep the faith alive!! 

If her goal is to become a practicing clinician instead of a researcher, and she doesn't want to live in the US long-term, then it depends on your country. Some countries are strict about where their clinicians receive their education. You would have to look at your country's rules about licensure and certification and see how many hours of coursework, assessment, treatment, etc. is necessary to receive her desired level of licensure or certification. In which country where these hours are done might also be important.
Also, psychology (especially clinical and counseling psychology) is very culture-specific. Just because I train at the best school in the US (hypothetically), doesn't mean I would be the best clinician in your country. I wouldn't know your country's customs and social norms. I also likely wouldn't know the language, which would be an enormous barrier. It's usually best to study in the country where you want to practice. In your partner's case, it would be your home country. 

I'm not sure if you guys tend to think as far ahead as me or would be interested in this information, but as we do know, pre-doctoral internships are very competitive. In the last few years the gap has been closing between the number of internship applicants and the number of internship positions available. This year, finally, there were more internship positions available than applicants! I for one hope this trend continues as it's pretty relevant to those of us applying to clinical programs. 
 
Hope everyone is hanging in there as we wind down interview season and are waiting for good news!

Has anyone heard from temple?

Congratulations to the person who got admitted to Temple! Could you tell me who your POI is? Thanks!

aaaaaaand with that in mind - congratulations to the Temple poster! Would appreciate PI initials if possible, thank you!

Definitely just going into the forest and becoming a full-time hobbit

My best friend and I have a plan: If I don't get into any graduate programs we're both going to go in on opening a cat café. We've already started a rough business model. It makes exactly no money but we'd get to spend our time hanging out with cats.

:raises hand meekly:
I had to literally reteach myself everything.
Everything.

I work in research. I get paid to calculate Cohen's d, eta squared, and Bayesian probabilities by hand. I use R and SPSS to do everything else from CFAs and binary logistic regressions to ANOVAs.
I haven't had a math class with exception to stat since... 2008.
I don't know wtf the square root of -54 divided by 72 to the 5th exponet plus Z cubed is.
Sorry everybody.

For things like this, my advice is generally to follow the instructions that are the most closely related to the people reading your essays. So, to me, this means the second set of prompts makes more sense, as it is written by your department. That said, the first set of prompts is also consistent with what people expect when reading personal statements. If you compare the first set of prompts to other PS-like prompts around the country, you'll find a lot of similarities, I think. Therefore, I think you can also write about some of that stuff in your PS. Note that the second set says "some questions to consider are...", and does not expect you to answer all of them or limit yourself to only these questions.
By design, this section is supposed to be very free form. You're not going to repeat the prompt at the top of your essay or anything like that. You should just write. Ensure that you meet some of the ideas from the second set of prompts but feel free to also include your experience from the first set of prompts as well. This and many other grad school essays will be free-form, you're meant to interpret the prompt as the set of themes you should write about and then produce something that satisfies that need, rather than to answer a specific list of questions.
For what it's worth, when I applied to Berkeley (in a different department), my department's prompt had stuff from both of your "first set" and "second set" of prompts. Actually, upon further reading, the second set of prompt begins with a paragraph that discusses the same ideas presented in the first set of prompts. So, I would really advise you to consider all the questions you see as things you should touch on while writing this essya.
To your other questions, yes, I think you should write about your disaster experience, but be sure to relate that to your graduate career in some way. That is, what did you learn from this experience that would make you a good colleague in the department? And as I wrote above, don't write the entire essay for Berkeley only on this experience, include your original ideas for the first set of prompts too.
You can expect the committee to review both your SOP and PS but you should not expect them to have read them in depth, to have read them in any particular order, or even to have read them in the same sitting. You can't predict how your admissions committee is going to read your application. Some people might just skim the 100s of essays they receive and look for interesting things (whatever that means to them) and others might only go back to review an essay in depth once your application makes it past some first cut, or maybe another committee member mentions something about your package and they go back to look at that part.
Therefore, I would advise you to ensure each essay is a standalone document. Don't refer to something you wrote in another essay. At the same time, don't repeat things too much. So, when you want to tell your story in each of the two essays, only tell the details that directly lead to whatever point you want to make. Don't tell a story just for the sake of telling a story.

Each program will have bios of faculty on their sites. Depending on the university, some of the bios will have publications of the faculty listed, as well.  One of my mentors in undergrad told me to look at the current grad students. If my level of accomplishments look similar to existing grad students and the program has professors in my area of focus, then it's probably a good fit and I stand a good chance of being admitted. That is exactly what I did last year.

I keep seeing this topic and my mind is just a bit baffled..
 
What is it about Berkeley that's so compelling?
 
My primary letter-of-rec writer got his PhD from Berkeley. I mean, he's brilliant and really was a great professor.. but people seem to be very enamoured with the school. What's up with that?
 
(Edit: There appears to be more e's in Burh-kel-lee than I had originally assumed.)

I'm starting to think no one actually knows why everyone wants to get into Berkeley other than "it's the thing to do."
 
Just a thought.. if you cant easily articulate why you want to attend.. you dont stand much of a chance writing it out in your PS/SOP/etc.

You assume those who have done it before are willing to discuss the matter. Sometimes the elite clubs want to stay that way. Everest is ripe with teams who have tried to sabotage each other. Not to mention the locals have gotten plenty of press lately for endangering and threatening the lives of climbers who weren't willing to pay their blackmail/ransom.