gastrognome

You realize most people never have a "thing", right? Believing in having a "thing" is something, in my experience, that seems to be peculiar to those of us with major educational aspirations...most people don't actually think about jobs in terms of life-defining career passions. Having an okay job and coming home and investing in your hobbies, family, and/or friends is a perfectly happy and healthy way to live, and that is in fact how most people—those who aren't in poverty—live! If you want that, you are not wrong or unusual for wanting that. And many happy people without a "thing" are married to other people who value hobbies and stability more than rapid career advancement, but some number of those people are also married to high-powered-career-type individuals. Most academics are not married/partnered to somebody from a "comparable" school. They spend their lives with all sorts of people! The "comparable" school thing a very small pool, and with the whole diverse world of human experience, why would you constrain your heart like that?
Anyway, I don't mean to discount your doubts: it's definitely possible that you will be unhappy dating your boyfriend while you are still looking for your "thing." I can't answer that for you. But that's only one possibility—I want to affirm for you that that's not universal, so you could also be perfectly happy deciding that your "thing" is having a nice life, a nice job that never follows you home, and all the other perks that follow from stability and free time. It might totally be an awkward year before you get in somewhere! But it could also be totally fine.
As somebody who spends a lot of time fighting the your-career-is-your-life thing in Type A circles, even as I somewhat participate in that myself, I have a prescription that I think would help. Find some media where some of the main characters find happiness outside of their career. My first suggestion would be Parks and Rec. I can't think of a lot of other suggestions right now, but basically, you're looking for the opposite of the West Wing. 
That's because "I feel like so many people have told me (including my bf) that individuals in couples need to be totally individual and have their complete separate lives outside of each other in order for the relationship to flourish" makes me feel like you are getting ONLY the "passion! career! job! work!" messages. If that's so, I think you'd have an easier time deciding what you want if you had media that affirmed that you can be happy without being "rah rah career" every month of your life, to balance out the input you're getting. It's not like "passion! career! whatever!" is bad, at all! But there's many ways to be, you know.

When I applied to PhD programs I found Grad Cafe forums extremely helpful. I suspect that many of us do come back because we feel like we want to give back as much as we can to continue passing on what we’ve learned. I know there are many others here, like myself, who used Grad Cafe in the past and are now settled into our PhD programs. So, I just wanted to give a few tips from my own experience in case it’s helpful for others. This isn’t new information, it’s just what I found most helpful, you’ll find much of it repeated elsewhere and some of it might not apply. So, with that caveat… I’ll keep it short and answer questions, and hope this also encourages others who are already in programs to join in and add their thoughts.


Finding a Topic/Theory/Approach/Region

You can’t pick a program or a supervisor, or write a statement until you’ve figured out what you want to do. Not exactly what you will study, but what it means to you TO STUDY. Does it mean doing library research? Does it mean 1 year of fieldwork, 2 years of fieldwork? Do you want 2 years of classes? How do you want to do your comprehensive or qualifying examinations? 1 test that your department produces and gives to you? 4 tests that you design yourself? These details matter. You also need to know what area of the world you want to study and what kind of anthropology you want to do.


Identifying a Program

The programs you apply for might be limited by where you need to live because of family or a spouse, or what country you want to be in, or what the department specializes in, or where you can use a special scholarship. So first pay attention to those limits and find all the programs that fit inside that group of limitations. Next, within those programs you must identify the ones that have at least 3 professors that you REALLY want to work with. You need to be able to draw on more than one person in the department. One of them will be your main contact, your POI or your potential supervisor. But the others are important. You want several people to be excited about your application so that when the department sits down to look at the applications, you have more than one person arguing for yours. I did this by emailing everyone in the department whose work I was interested in. A simple short email that said where I was studying, what my interest was, what I liked about their work that I had looked at, that I was interested in a PhD in their department and then asked if they were accepting new students for supervision.


Finding a Supervisor/POI

Once you’ve emailed everyone of interest you’ll have a great sense of what your options are. Some will write back excited to hear from you telling you all about the program. Some will say: “Apply, I’ll see your application, and don’t email me again.” Some faculty really want to talk to you, some don’t want hear from you at all. Some will tell you to email the graduate student advisor in the department, some will send you to the web site. This will tell you a lot about their personality and about how the department works. You’ll quickly figure out whether you really want to work with this person for 5-8 years. If you develop a good correspondence with someone, keep them updated. Let them know you’re applying, ask if they’d be interested in seeing what you are writing for your statement. Sometimes they’ll offer to edit it, to give you sources to cite. Sometimes they’ll tell you what to say about particular things in order to improve your essay. All of these things happened to me.
 
Don't forget to ask for email addresses of current students they would reccomend you speak with about what it's like to study there. Especially ones they are supervising. Then go over to Academia.edu and look up students yourself and reach out to them so that you talk to other students,  not just the ones that they reccomended. I ruled out schools very quickly when I spoke to many students in a prestigious, highly ranked program and they were all miserable.


Writing a Statement

All of my statements were well received and resulted in offers to several fully funded programs as well as a few prestigious scholarships. I used a simple formula. Sure, you can try to re-invent things and stand out, but my opinion is that people on admissions committees are actually happy to find that you’ve followed a clear outline so they can more easily read through many essays. Here’s what I used. Same for all of them, but tailored to that specific program. I DID NOT simply change the last paragraph, the whole statement was written specifically for each school, based on the long email conversations I had with potential supervisors.

Paragraph 1:
First sentence saying briefly and straight to the point: This is what I plan to study, broadly.
Second sentence clarifying and giving more detail

Paragraph 2:
The following scholars have looked at X, (citation, citation, citation). The following scholars have looked at Y (citation, citation, citation). Studies around the issue of X and Y have tended to look at them like this… (citation, citation, citation).

Paragraph 3:
However, this literature has not yet looked at how XY affects A, B, and C (this is where you insert your topic, from the first sentence, but in the context of existing scholarship, the point is to show how you want to contribute to knowledge).

Paragraph 4:
By looking at XY in terms of A, B, and C, I want to open up new questions about XY such as: New Question 1; New Question 2; New Question 3; etc. By exploring these questions my project will use theory D, theory E, and theory F in new ways to address XY through ABC.

Paragraph 5:
The University of (Insert name here) anthropology program is the ideal place to do this work. The department focuses on X and Y, and these people work on ABC, and their use of theories DEF are interesting because… Professor H’s work on A and X is relevant to my work because… Professor I’s work on B and E and Y is relevant because of the way she… While studying at University of (insert name here) I will draw on expertise in…

Congrats to everyone!!! Especially for being accepted into multiple programs, job well done!
I spent about a year researching programs and got in contact with prospective advisers as soon as a program made it on my list. I have been ranking programs based off my interactions with POI, interests, funding package, department size and region. 
For me personally fit was more important than research interests (I feel comfortable saying this because I spent so much time selecting each program I could not go wrong with any of my POIs).  Based of my past research experience I have learned that I have a pretty big umbrella of interests (my interests even within my concentration are so niche having a big umbrella does not necessarily mean much). I hate the idea of being stuck with an adviser that I cannot get along with. It is something I had to deal with as an undergrad, academia is so difficult and stressful as it is I don't want to be in a situation where I am constantly second guessing every interaction. Under fit I would also include age. I spoke to a handful of grad students whose advisors were retirement age or close to and they felt like the advisor was a bit checked out and not as invested. I did not apply to work with anyone that was within a few years of retirement age.
Department size is probably the next thing I am most concerned about. I was able to interact with a decent amount of grad students leading up to applications. Some of these students were from big schools with big departments (I can tell you that these are schools a lot of people in the Anthropology forum have applied to) and most of them felt like they were on their own in the process. Advisers just do not have the time or head-space to prioritize students at any point in the year. The nice (kinda) thing about it is that students tend to band together and really help each other make it through but this also made the departments sound very clique-ish, a lot more room for politics. 
As I am typing this I realize politics is not something I have considered but may be important for others to think about. If you know anyone that may have insight they feel comfortable sharing you may be able to avoid an uncomfortable, drama riddle department.
I considered funding packages and region about equally. Because my interests are so specific I knew I would have less options than I already did if I spent a lot of time worrying about being in a "cool" city or town. I was more concerned about the funding package being enough to cover my expenses without having 3 roommates. I have struggled a lot  financially through out undergrad (and life in general), I wanted to make sure I did not need a part time job or to take on more of a teaching load than required to survive. I know I am a grad student and I will be broke anyways but I have a good idea of what level of broke I am okay with. 
If you have been accepted into multiple programs it means something. I know its a crapshoot but that it makes it more meaningful. Regardless of politics and funding constraints multiple programs chose you, do not be afraid to negotiate your funding package, you are worth it. 
@sawdust&diamonds aside from what I have mentioned lab resources are extremely important to me, departments that did not have access to the kind of resources I want and will need for my dissertation did not even make it on my list. I don't know exactly what you mean by strength of the department but I did look into what previous students of  POIs were doing. I did not look at the placement rates of the department as whole. Depending on your research interest a particular POI may have a lot of successful students because the POI has a lot of access to resources and a big network, this may not be reflected in the overall placement rate of the department. I did not consider faculty members that were not in my stream even if the department was great as a whole. I did not care if it was four field program, I actually prefer if it isn't (again because of the niche). I hope to have my mind made up two to three weeks before April 15th, I think that maybe just enough time for the department to offer my slot to someone else. Even if department does not have an official waitlist, I know some put aside applicants they won't reject until the last minute. I have been encouraged by both POIs of the institutions I have been accepted to and by one that has not made their decision but it is looking good to take as much time as I need. All three have encouraged me to visit other campuses, ask a lot of questions and take my time making my decision. Do not let anyone pressure you into making your decision earlier than you have to (https://cgsnet.org/april-15-resolution) from my conversations with POIs there are some programs that are notorious for pressuring students and it is highly frowned upon and seen as unethical. 

TL:DR - Look at the fit w/ the PI, then the stipend (and location of school/cost of living), and what you want in a program. Also, it is very acceptable to give your decision on 15 April - they hold your place in the program until then unless otherwise stated.
For me, the biggest factour was the fit with the PI. Since you’re going to be in the program for at least 4 years, this is a huge commitment to study with someone so if you fit better with one over another PI then put it at the top of your list (or at least I did). Overall, you will be forever connected to the person (unless you switch subdiscipline or projector schools) so you should think how their tutelage is going to help you post-PhD. For example, if you got into a program for anthropological archaeology in Africa and your PI did work there once or works in Middle East area whereas another program your PI actively does research in Kenya and has other students doing research throughout East Africa, then that might influence your decision. For me, I’m an Andeanist so ultimately I decided on a PI that does work in the Andes in a program with a specific research focus in the Andes as opposed to a program where I was told doing Andean is fine but I would have to figure everything out on my own and they would be there to “loosely guide” me which did not sound appealing. 
The next thing I would consider would be the stipend, how much they are going to ask in fees (some school tariff international students more than domestic so be sure to get an idea of what you are expected to pay), and where the school is. Some schools have higher stipends and are located in the city whereas schools located in rural areas have somewhat lower stipends. I don’t see this as ‘better’ schools having more money for students, but that the cost of living is higher in NYC than say Binghamton, NY. I’m not sure of the specific stipends for different programs but they seem to vary starting around 17K to 36k at some of the Ivys. Additionally, some schools do not let you work outside of the PhD program so you are only getting the stipend with no additional income. I marked this second on my list last year because I was between moving to Chicago, rural Connecticut, staying in Atlanta, or moving back to Western Massachusetts. Each school offered different stipends but I had to factour the cost of living. I think it would be worth asking the current graduate students about this becuase they are actually living with this reality as opposed to the professors who are actually salaried.
Every school is going to have pro’s and con’s and the strength in my opinion is debatable becuase everyone values something different. I study Biologial Anthropology and so the programs that have 1 Bioanth or none - to me - are not strong becuase I would not apply or get accepted. That doesn’t mean that they are strong in sociocultural theory or linguistics, just that the department is not really applicable to me. So for this, I would think about what is important in the program, the school, and they types of support you can receive from them. Plus, theoretically, every anthropology program in the United States (with a few exceptions) are 4-field but if they are absent on one of the 4, it’s not necessarily a disadvantage - just a different organization of the program/school/department. I would also look at nearby universities with Anthro departments or similar depts. to your research. Usually they will have an agreement for you to be able to take courses and maybe use lab facilities once you’ve developed a rapport with other Anthros. 
Hope this helps.