2017 Applicant

This whole post makes me sad. It's questionable to get a dog when you know your near future is up in the air and you might not be able to take care of it, but to have a dog and then wonder if it's going to make you miserable? I wish you put more thought into this before you adopted the puppy. I hope if you choose not to keep the dog, then you actively look for a good home for it. 
 
 

I think @AP offered some good advice, and it sounds like you are quick to dismiss it simply because he or she is not in your shoes.
This piece of advice is key:
Whether you didn't get into any grad schools, you got denied a grant, you got dumped by a long-term partner, or whatever, this piece of advice *always* applies. It is tempting to think "this isn't fair," "why do I have to go through this", etc.. And on one hand it's natural and healthy. But you can't keep that outlook forever or else you'll never move on. You need to remember that this one thing doesn't define you, that there are lots of other options left in life. 
I've made big mistakes before. There is a strong desire to wallow in them. I think that comes from a place of desperation, where we want very badly to change what has happened. The unfortunate truth is that you can't change what has happened. The other, amazing truth is that you have the rest of your life ahead of you to not repeat your mistakes and to accomplish things that will make you proud of yourself. That might mean reexamining your goals, wants, and needs. There's no shame in that. It's easy to miss the meaning in the cliche "don't take life so seriously," but what I've written here is what it means to me.

This is a kind of selfish perspective. Of course no one likes a braggart (though it's pretty early in the application season to conclude these people are "never" coming onto the site again and are just here to brag). But at the same time, no one has an obligation to tell you any personal information about themselves or give you proof that they've actually been accepted.
The posters you are talking about probably just want to share their excitement with a lot of people. If your reaction to that is "that's my spot," "I don't believe you," or "how does that information help me" then maybe those threads aren't a place you actually want to hang out.

I'm sorry. Tell him how you feel (if you haven't already). It's not selfish to let him know that his withdrawn position is making you upset, especially since you seem to be upset because you're concerned for him. Opening up to you would probably help him, too. Plus you could possibly help him deal with his stressors if he let you know about them.
Lack of communication is toxic for a relationship, so if this is one you care about I'd recommend assertively telling him how this affects you and why you would like him to open up.

Oh, my laptop is a 17" monstrosity I've had since 2011. If you've a reasonably sized laptop, you should be fine.

Congratulations!

This whole post makes me sad. It's questionable to get a dog when you know your near future is up in the air and you might not be able to take care of it, but to have a dog and then wonder if it's going to make you miserable? I wish you put more thought into this before you adopted the puppy. I hope if you choose not to keep the dog, then you actively look for a good home for it. 
 
 

To play devil's advocate, I don't really see how it could help to email them either. Chances are, if they've already made a decision about you they'd probably notify you about it as soon as they could. And even if they are able to pinpoint a date when you will hear back with a definitive decision, you are still going to have to wait until that day to get your answer. I don't think knowing when that day will come will change much. In my own opinion, I prefer the excitement of "maybe I'll hear back today!" over "exactly two weeks to go until I hear back."
The fact of the matter is, a question like "when can I expect to hear back?" carries no urgency (unless you are being pressured to make a decision somewhere else, which you say is not the case here). It's also risky, because they have already answered it for you (albeit in two vaguely different ways). Sending an email asking this risks you coming off as impatient, inattentive, unconfident, or pushy, with no reward at all. I would really only send emails that will meaningfully impact either your application or your final choice of where to attend. It's natural to be curious and anxious about hearing back, but it's just something we all have to wait through.

To play devil's advocate, I don't really see how it could help to email them either. Chances are, if they've already made a decision about you they'd probably notify you about it as soon as they could. And even if they are able to pinpoint a date when you will hear back with a definitive decision, you are still going to have to wait until that day to get your answer. I don't think knowing when that day will come will change much. In my own opinion, I prefer the excitement of "maybe I'll hear back today!" over "exactly two weeks to go until I hear back."
The fact of the matter is, a question like "when can I expect to hear back?" carries no urgency (unless you are being pressured to make a decision somewhere else, which you say is not the case here). It's also risky, because they have already answered it for you (albeit in two vaguely different ways). Sending an email asking this risks you coming off as impatient, inattentive, unconfident, or pushy, with no reward at all. I would really only send emails that will meaningfully impact either your application or your final choice of where to attend. It's natural to be curious and anxious about hearing back, but it's just something we all have to wait through.

This is almost enough to convince me to join student government.

Ever since my 2nd year, I've been a very active member of my school's grad student government (i.e. 4 out of 5 years total). I find the work very rewarding personally, and while I do include it as a line on my CV, as fuzzylogician says, I am pretty sure it is never the deciding factor for anything outside of my school. At my school, our grad student organization is a registered 501(c)(3) non-profit that is independent of the school, so it allows us to do a few things that might not be as easy at other places. I've been part of our organization as a department representative but also spent a year in a much more active role, leading our Advocacy Committee and being part of the executive of the organization.
Here are some things I really enjoyed about serving on my student government:
1. A way to give back to the community. In my first year, I benefited a lot from programs designed to help students in need. Along the way, I learned a lot about how things work and how students can be helped. So I find that advocating for students through our student association and also helping make students aware of resources to be a good way to pay it forward.
2. You get to meet, make friends and work with people from all over campus. Otherwise, my social circle would mostly just be my department or research group.
3. The grad student association plans a lot of social and fun events too (in addition to great advocacy work) so you get to know about these first and also give input on future events.
4. During my year on the executive, I had a lot of regular contact with the Dean, VP Student Affairs, and the President of our University. We met with the President once or twice a year and the Dean and VP for Students every month. My school is a small school with a relatively flat hierarchical structure so it's easy to meet with people who can make a difference. Another nice thing about being at a small school is that I can email the Dean and set up a meeting within 2 weeks to talk about an important issue.
5. I've got to participate in a lot of job interviews as the interviewer. When hiring student services staff, they generally ask for volunteer student interviewers from the student government. I also was part of a hiring committee for the Associate Graduate Dean position at my school. I would say that if you are looking for career related benefits, this experience was the most helpful. Even though it was not for an academic research position, there are a lot of parallels in that process and postdoc/faculty processes (so I'm told).
6. I really do enjoy running events and workshops that inform people and make people happy. This Friday, I am arranging for the local humane society to take adoptable dogs on a field on campus for students to interact with as a de-stress type event but also to provide information on students who want to adopt a pet or volunteer. Next month, we're doing a workshop on navigating the US healthcare system. It's our third time running this and people are always very grateful for the knowledge. I find this very rewarding! Also, a lot of the things I learn from the research on these workshops are helpful to me, and sometimes, to people on these forums
7. Finally, in research, we often spend many long hours making small progress that we can't really see or things that take months or years to come to fruition. I find it helpful to have smaller projects (like planning an event/workshop) that doesn't take as much time and you can see it from start to finish in a couple of weeks. There is a definite end to these projects! I find that these small accomplishments help me get through research struggles and frustrations as they are a reminder that I am a capable person that can get things done!
There are certainly lots more and some are more specific to my school and you can PM me if you want more information. You also asked about the downsides:
- Not all of your projects/goals will succeed. There are some stuff I've been working on since my 2nd year on the government that is still slowly plodding along. It's frustrating when you run into administrators that either just don't get it, or are outright hostile to your goals. For the most part, 90% of the administrators here are very supportive of students but there are some that are much more challenging to work with. So it could add extra stress to your life.
- Not really a downside but info on how much time this will take: For our organization, the minimum commitment is a few hours per month. When I was on the executive, I spend probably 20 hours per month carrying out my responsibilities. This is about half of a work day per week. On average, I do take on more projects than the typical member of the association so I would say I work 5-10 hours on student government stuff per month.
- If your advisor doesn't support this kind of stuff, you might feel like you have to hide this from them, which makes it extra stressful for you. Fortunately for me, my advisor is very supportive. 
- In my past graduate program, I have also been very involved with the union and I put this on my CV as well. I could imagine that some non-unionized places and places fighting against unions could see this and not like it. I think grad student unionization is important so I choose to leave it on my CV. Not sure how much of a positive/negative effect this is.
- Some grad associations/governments work better together than others. You might end up in conflicts with other students and this could add extra stress to your life. Our organization is run fairly well and we keep all disputes/debates professional. Most of the time, our votes are unanimous but even when they are contentious, everyone is still friendly. We all know that we are all working towards a common goal and debate is healthy as it leads us to the best decision we can make for our students. 

For future references, I just received an acceptance from the program that sent the recruitment fellowship emails so it is indeed now confirmed to be a good sign.

This whole post makes me sad. It's questionable to get a dog when you know your near future is up in the air and you might not be able to take care of it, but to have a dog and then wonder if it's going to make you miserable? I wish you put more thought into this before you adopted the puppy. I hope if you choose not to keep the dog, then you actively look for a good home for it. 
 
 

Call girl

Just tell the POI these things (not that their email was distressing, but everything following that). This is the truth, and it's completely understandable.
In my opinion, the email your POI sent sounds pretty inappropriate. I've mentioned that I'll be visiting other places to one of my POIs, and they were completely supportive and encouraged checking out all of my options. And that POI is at my top choice -  I just want to use all of the resources at my disposal to make completely sure I'm making the right decision. I'm shocked that this person would guess at your intentions in an email they sent to you. 

Another update: the lab I joined with plans of leaving May 2017 has now changed to my staying in the phd program. Yay!

That doesn't sound like jealousy to me, but it sounds like they're trying to put you down on your choices. Is there some background we're missing? Like, are you looking at programs on the other side of the country and maybe your loved ones are subconsciously/subtly trying to make you reconsider your choice to go because they want you to stay around?
My advice is to be firm about your choices and proud of your accomplishments. Let them know 
Yes, like so much in life the process is subjective, and a whole bunch of people on an admissions committee had the same subjective opinion that you are a great fit for their program The program is great for you, hence why you applied (I'm assuming this is true for you haha) Money is really secondary to your happiness, but if they hark on the financial aspect and you are being funded at a PhD program remind them that the stipend plus tuition and fees amounts to a lot; plus, you are getting PAID to learn, position yourself, and get a degree - that's pretty damn good You may not like grad school, but you may not like a lot of other things you could be doing instead. There's no way to find out until you try.  

That doesn't sound like jealousy to me, but it sounds like they're trying to put you down on your choices. Is there some background we're missing? Like, are you looking at programs on the other side of the country and maybe your loved ones are subconsciously/subtly trying to make you reconsider your choice to go because they want you to stay around?
My advice is to be firm about your choices and proud of your accomplishments. Let them know 
Yes, like so much in life the process is subjective, and a whole bunch of people on an admissions committee had the same subjective opinion that you are a great fit for their program The program is great for you, hence why you applied (I'm assuming this is true for you haha) Money is really secondary to your happiness, but if they hark on the financial aspect and you are being funded at a PhD program remind them that the stipend plus tuition and fees amounts to a lot; plus, you are getting PAID to learn, position yourself, and get a degree - that's pretty damn good You may not like grad school, but you may not like a lot of other things you could be doing instead. There's no way to find out until you try.  

I understand you are feeling anxious in your situation but at least take some consideration that some of us have gotten ZERO acceptances and are still waiting for the axe to fall on us or a miracle.

I don't imagine they do this out of ill will.
Put yourself in their shoes. Think back to when you were selecting which programs you were going to apply to. There are hundreds across the country. Some you know right off the bat you don't want to apply to. Some resonate with you immediately, so you put them down on your list. But others require more careful consideration (do you have enough schools on your list? do you really want to spend the money for that extra tenth application?).
Now just pretend each of these programs was anxiously waiting to hear from you about whether or not you were going to apply. Some of them you can give answers right away, but the others take more time. There's a lot of stuff to sift through.

There's no point in worrying. In the very unlikely event they are changing their minds without keeping you informed of their concerns, there is nothing you can do about it. It's best to just be patient and wait for the official acceptance.

Just tell the POI these things (not that their email was distressing, but everything following that). This is the truth, and it's completely understandable.
In my opinion, the email your POI sent sounds pretty inappropriate. I've mentioned that I'll be visiting other places to one of my POIs, and they were completely supportive and encouraged checking out all of my options. And that POI is at my top choice -  I just want to use all of the resources at my disposal to make completely sure I'm making the right decision. I'm shocked that this person would guess at your intentions in an email they sent to you. 

This response is so on point, turns out that "soon" really did mean two weeks and a day!  They came back with a funding package and some additional nominations for scholarships which, keeping with this entire process, I will receive the results for "soon".

This whole post makes me sad. It's questionable to get a dog when you know your near future is up in the air and you might not be able to take care of it, but to have a dog and then wonder if it's going to make you miserable? I wish you put more thought into this before you adopted the puppy. I hope if you choose not to keep the dog, then you actively look for a good home for it. 
 
 

I don't imagine they do this out of ill will.
Put yourself in their shoes. Think back to when you were selecting which programs you were going to apply to. There are hundreds across the country. Some you know right off the bat you don't want to apply to. Some resonate with you immediately, so you put them down on your list. But others require more careful consideration (do you have enough schools on your list? do you really want to spend the money for that extra tenth application?).
Now just pretend each of these programs was anxiously waiting to hear from you about whether or not you were going to apply. Some of them you can give answers right away, but the others take more time. There's a lot of stuff to sift through.