TakeruK

As @meep95 said, when a school tells you that they follow the April 15 resolution, it means that they won't require you to make a decision before April 15. In return, if you say yes to them before April 15, other schools who are part of the resolution will not allow you to accept their offers until you are "released" from this first school. However, to clarify, it is not a contract. There are no legal obligations on either party and there are no structures in place to enforce it. 
Of course, if you say yes to a school and then change your mind, you will likely burn bridges. So there are tons of reasons to *not* do this, but I just want to make it clear that it's not at the level of a contract. 
meep95's advice is the best one: Since you are more interested in your waitlisted school, wait and see what happens. Don't accept any offers until you are sure that your waitlisted school will not make you an offer before April 15. You might have to wait until April 14 or 15 to be able to accept the first offer. 
I'll also add a few more pieces of advice. You can probably imagine a deadlock scenario where you are waiting to hear from your waitlisted school, while someone who is accepted to that school is waiting to hear from one of the schools you've already been accepted to. Since everyone is waiting on the other to make a decision, nothing gets done. Therefore, I would also advise you to do the following while waiting:
- If you have more than one offer, review them all and decide which one of these offers is your top choice. Decline the other offers so that those waitlists can move (if those schools have waitlists). Similarly, if you have not heard from some of the other schools that are no longer as favourable to you as the ones you have offers, then withdraw your applications from those schools too. Basically, you don't have to wait until you hear back from every single application in order to start making some decisions.
- Get in touch with your top choice schools that have waitlisted you. You can tell them that you are very interested in their program. If they haven't told you anything yet, then this is a good time to ask about their expected decision timelines. If they already told you that you are waitlisted, then on April 10 or something, just contact them again and let them know that you remain interested in their program. Hopefully at this point, they will have some idea whether or not you'll get off the waitilist. If they say it's unlikely, then you might want to accept the offer you have on April 15. If they say that they might be able to make you an offer on say, April 18, then ask your first school for an extension to April 15, explaining the situation.

I might not understand what you mean by "leverage". From my interpretation, I would say I don't think it is a good idea to use other admits as "leverage" on other schools. Few schools are going to care that University XYZ already made their decisions, so they should make their own decision faster. Also, few schools will think "well, this person was accepted by Top University X, so we better accept them too, if Top University X wants them!"
 
I think it's a very terrible idea to just flaunt your acceptances at other schools and hope something good happens to you.
 
Here are instances where I think it would make sense to tell other schools about other offers:
 
1. It just comes up in a conversation between you and the other school. No need to hide your results.
 
2. The school that accepted you (let's call it A) has given you a short deadline and you want to know an estimate of decision timelines from the other schools. Then, you can politely let the other schools know that A has given you a deadline and you want to know approximately when a decision will be ready so that you can ask A for an extension. [i would not do this until about 2 weeks before the deadline though]
 
3. You are visiting School A and you know from the past (or from the website) that another school in the area is having a visit weekend at near the same time. You might want to ask the other school about their decision timeline so you know when to book flights etc.
 
4. You are ready to make a final decision and you like School A the most, however, another school, B, has offered you a better financial package. You can then ask A if they can match or at least increase their offer. However, in my opinion, you should only do this if you will absolutely say yes to A if A agrees to increase your offer. You should not try sending the best offer to all your schools and seeing which one will give you the highest value. The whole argument for an increase in stipend is that "you like A the most, but need more funding", and you can't say this truthfully to all schools.
 
In my opinion, you don't have to keep your offers a secret, but I don't think you should try to use your offers to force other schools into any actions other than ones that are necessary (e.g. to extend a deadline). Don't wave another offer around just so the other schools get back to you a week earlier so that you panic less etc. Calm down and relax! Also, don't just wave other offers around in an attempt to make yourself look better to other schools. I am pretty sure this will not work. Instead, think about what you want (matching offer? finding out about visit days? etc.) and ask for it directly, mentioning your previous offers if relevant.

Yes, tell Carnegie Mellon now that you would like an extension past April 15. See how long they give you! Ask for more time if necessary.
I think it would also be a good idea to reach out to Minnesota after April 15 to check up on your status (so that you know whether there is still a possibility or whether you should take Carnegie Mellon's offer).
And of course, if you have not already done so, you should withdraw your application from Oregon State University now. If Carnegie Mellon is your 2nd choice, then there is no way you will attend OSU so you should withdraw to keep the process moving along. If there was someone who was still on the Minnesota waitlist but was no longer interested, you would hope they would withdraw too, instead of delaying the process, right? 

I think that every generation/cohort thinks that the previous generation are doing something wrong, that things were better in the old days. And every generation thinks that the older generation is irrelevant and stuck in the old ways! This semester, a bunch of us who were TAing were mentioning how much undergrads these days want their TAs to just tell them the answer, and they get mad when we ask them questions in response to their questions. But if we're complaining about our undergrads now, I wonder what our TAs said about us ~4-5 years ago!

Easier said than done, but it seems ideal for the new generation to do as Sigaba says, and remember that the older generation gained a ton of experience getting to where they are now. At the same time, the new generation could be bringing in fresh ideas and it might not be a good idea to dismiss these thoughts simply because we don't have the experience. I am thinking more of the generation gap between current students and junior faculty members, but it could also apply to the gap between PhDs-about-to-graduate/postdocs and incoming grad students.

Now, to "defend"/"explain" "my" cohort despite what I said above

1. I don't agree that Internet BBs are ONLY meant to be repositories of knowledge where someone with a question should try to find every single thread on the topic and read everything. Sure, this is exactly what we do for a literature review for our work, but discussing graduate school, while related to work, isn't work. I think this was the original intention now, but with more and more people growing up in an Internet dominated world, Internet technologies are changing fast. Here's why it makes sense for a new user to post a new question instead of digging up old ones:
a ) Internet rule of not reviving dead posts. On most BBs, it's poor etiquette to post in a thread that has been inactive for some period of time
b ) The user wants to interact with current, active members, not just passively read something -- maybe they already read some of the stuff and now want interaction
c ) Related to ( a ) and ( b ), posting in an old (dead) thread is not effective at getting the attention of current active members. If there is an existing thread 5 pages long, most people will not read the previous 5 pages and write responses taking into account all of the past posts in mind. Most people will either see that it's 5 pages long and not bother, or just write a response based on the new post and not consider the previous posts. In the former case, the OP doesn't get the interaction. In the latter case, there was no advantage to continuing a year-old thread since few people make use of the past -- it's more organized to start a new thread.
d ) It's more satisfying to ask your own question, in your own thread, where you can define the parameters of your question instead of a thread where a mood/tone might have already been developed. This point is more "frivolous" but still plays a factor I think.

My solution? I'm a new member of this community but I've been on other BBs for many years and see the same stuff get asked all the time. It might be more useful to link to a specific post that we think is helpful or just copy and paste something we've written before for the OP, if we think we are repeating ourself.

I think nowadays, a BB is more of a place for a person to announce something (e.g. I have a problem!) and then whoever is around and interested can gather and have a discussion. Although it has the capability to function like a library of knowledge, and there are many who do use it that way, I would say that the majority are drawn to BBs because of the ability to talk to active members, not read through past posts. But it's a good thing that BBs can function in both ways and allows users to choose how to use the BB.

2. Regarding the "sense of entitlement" of "our" cohort. I think this is partially due to the fact that the people entering graduate studies today are VERY different than the people running graduate studies (i.e. profs). It's clear that nowadays, more and more people are going to University and getting degrees -- it's the norm to go to college and I think this is spreading into grad school too. So, the demographics are different. I'm not sure if it's true but it sure feels like many programs expect graduate students to devote themselves to academia. I'm not saying this is the case for any particular person, but I feel that someone from a family who has had people in grad school before (so they understand us) and/or aren't from a "working poor" class would have a much easier time adjusting to graduate student life and doing well than others. Someone who wants to start a family, or needs to send money home to their parents, or wants to do other things than just academia will face more challenges in grad school. One can argue that grad school isn't for those in the above categories and aren't able to / willing to face the challenges, though -- but I don't think this is the right way to do things.

I don't know for sure what the job prospects were for our profs though. Maybe it was just as bad for them but they just toughed it out. I don't think it's a bad idea for our cohort to come with certain expectations and fight/push for changes for things that we want. We should have the ability to voice our opinions and shape the way our graduate program is run. Maybe when all of the new people entering college in the past decade reach faculty positions, graduate programs will be drastically different. Or maybe it won't, if the system ends up doing a good job of self-selecting like-minded people. But fighting for better working conditions or improving student life shouldn't be considered a sense of "entitlement". That is, graduate school shouldn't be a place of "conform or perish" -- the norms of the department should be set by all of its members, including students. If the issues are important enough, the students' voice could be strong enough to cause change.

I guess when it comes down to it, I feel this way because I believe that educational programs (at all levels, i.e. BSc, MSc, PhD) exist to serve the students and it should meet our needs. The faculty members with experience would know what kind of skills are important for academic success so they would build the degree program on this. But it's easy for people to think that "I suffered through this to get to where I am so the students have to as well". And the needs of students back in the day may not be the same as the needs now. So it's important for department to seek feedback from students and incorporate what we would like to get out of our degrees into our degree programs. Maybe this is the "sense of entitlement" that Sigaba is referring to, but I don't think it's unreasonable to want to have some say in our degree programs if we are going to spend 5-6 years of our life and potentially opportunity costs during our PhDs.

I might not understand what you mean by "leverage". From my interpretation, I would say I don't think it is a good idea to use other admits as "leverage" on other schools. Few schools are going to care that University XYZ already made their decisions, so they should make their own decision faster. Also, few schools will think "well, this person was accepted by Top University X, so we better accept them too, if Top University X wants them!"
 
I think it's a very terrible idea to just flaunt your acceptances at other schools and hope something good happens to you.
 
Here are instances where I think it would make sense to tell other schools about other offers:
 
1. It just comes up in a conversation between you and the other school. No need to hide your results.
 
2. The school that accepted you (let's call it A) has given you a short deadline and you want to know an estimate of decision timelines from the other schools. Then, you can politely let the other schools know that A has given you a deadline and you want to know approximately when a decision will be ready so that you can ask A for an extension. [i would not do this until about 2 weeks before the deadline though]
 
3. You are visiting School A and you know from the past (or from the website) that another school in the area is having a visit weekend at near the same time. You might want to ask the other school about their decision timeline so you know when to book flights etc.
 
4. You are ready to make a final decision and you like School A the most, however, another school, B, has offered you a better financial package. You can then ask A if they can match or at least increase their offer. However, in my opinion, you should only do this if you will absolutely say yes to A if A agrees to increase your offer. You should not try sending the best offer to all your schools and seeing which one will give you the highest value. The whole argument for an increase in stipend is that "you like A the most, but need more funding", and you can't say this truthfully to all schools.
 
In my opinion, you don't have to keep your offers a secret, but I don't think you should try to use your offers to force other schools into any actions other than ones that are necessary (e.g. to extend a deadline). Don't wave another offer around just so the other schools get back to you a week earlier so that you panic less etc. Calm down and relax! Also, don't just wave other offers around in an attempt to make yourself look better to other schools. I am pretty sure this will not work. Instead, think about what you want (matching offer? finding out about visit days? etc.) and ask for it directly, mentioning your previous offers if relevant.

Most programs offer medical insurance. However, the amount of coverage and the cost of coverage varies a lot from school to school. There are some programs, for example, that do not have any prescription coverage in their school-offered program. Other schools will only pay for your insurance premiums in the semesters you work as a TA. And when schools pay for your insurance premiums, the amount of benefits ranges a lot (some only pay 50%, some pay the whole thing, others pay like 80%). Finally, even with coverage, there are still lots of out of pocket expenses for serious conditions. I know several people that need to pay several thousand dollars per year to manage their health, even with insurance. The stories in the linked website highlight the fact that many PhD stipends barely cover basic expenses so many students who have additional costs might go into debt.
If you are on a fellowship, you don't get a W-2 for that income. You get a letter every year from HR saying that this isn't earned compensation, ie. it says "you are awarded this money but you provided no services" or something like that. 
For Americans at my school, they get a 1099-MISC instead and there is no withholding.  But this doesn't mean that they don't pay taxes. Instead, now they must file quarterly taxes or potentially pay the penalty at the end of the year.
For international students, we get a 1042-S instead of a W-2 if we are paid on fellowship funds. There is withholding though. Mine is withheld at 14%. 
Finally, to clarify, sometimes you are told that your money is coming from a "fellowship" even though behind the scenes it is not. This might be true for internal fellowships. So in those cases you still get a W-2. So while most things called fellowships are considered fellowships for tax purposes, note that sometimes there is a difference in how things are treated in the tax code and the name of the money source.

I might not understand what you mean by "leverage". From my interpretation, I would say I don't think it is a good idea to use other admits as "leverage" on other schools. Few schools are going to care that University XYZ already made their decisions, so they should make their own decision faster. Also, few schools will think "well, this person was accepted by Top University X, so we better accept them too, if Top University X wants them!"
 
I think it's a very terrible idea to just flaunt your acceptances at other schools and hope something good happens to you.
 
Here are instances where I think it would make sense to tell other schools about other offers:
 
1. It just comes up in a conversation between you and the other school. No need to hide your results.
 
2. The school that accepted you (let's call it A) has given you a short deadline and you want to know an estimate of decision timelines from the other schools. Then, you can politely let the other schools know that A has given you a deadline and you want to know approximately when a decision will be ready so that you can ask A for an extension. [i would not do this until about 2 weeks before the deadline though]
 
3. You are visiting School A and you know from the past (or from the website) that another school in the area is having a visit weekend at near the same time. You might want to ask the other school about their decision timeline so you know when to book flights etc.
 
4. You are ready to make a final decision and you like School A the most, however, another school, B, has offered you a better financial package. You can then ask A if they can match or at least increase their offer. However, in my opinion, you should only do this if you will absolutely say yes to A if A agrees to increase your offer. You should not try sending the best offer to all your schools and seeing which one will give you the highest value. The whole argument for an increase in stipend is that "you like A the most, but need more funding", and you can't say this truthfully to all schools.
 
In my opinion, you don't have to keep your offers a secret, but I don't think you should try to use your offers to force other schools into any actions other than ones that are necessary (e.g. to extend a deadline). Don't wave another offer around just so the other schools get back to you a week earlier so that you panic less etc. Calm down and relax! Also, don't just wave other offers around in an attempt to make yourself look better to other schools. I am pretty sure this will not work. Instead, think about what you want (matching offer? finding out about visit days? etc.) and ask for it directly, mentioning your previous offers if relevant.

I might not understand what you mean by "leverage". From my interpretation, I would say I don't think it is a good idea to use other admits as "leverage" on other schools. Few schools are going to care that University XYZ already made their decisions, so they should make their own decision faster. Also, few schools will think "well, this person was accepted by Top University X, so we better accept them too, if Top University X wants them!"
 
I think it's a very terrible idea to just flaunt your acceptances at other schools and hope something good happens to you.
 
Here are instances where I think it would make sense to tell other schools about other offers:
 
1. It just comes up in a conversation between you and the other school. No need to hide your results.
 
2. The school that accepted you (let's call it A) has given you a short deadline and you want to know an estimate of decision timelines from the other schools. Then, you can politely let the other schools know that A has given you a deadline and you want to know approximately when a decision will be ready so that you can ask A for an extension. [i would not do this until about 2 weeks before the deadline though]
 
3. You are visiting School A and you know from the past (or from the website) that another school in the area is having a visit weekend at near the same time. You might want to ask the other school about their decision timeline so you know when to book flights etc.
 
4. You are ready to make a final decision and you like School A the most, however, another school, B, has offered you a better financial package. You can then ask A if they can match or at least increase their offer. However, in my opinion, you should only do this if you will absolutely say yes to A if A agrees to increase your offer. You should not try sending the best offer to all your schools and seeing which one will give you the highest value. The whole argument for an increase in stipend is that "you like A the most, but need more funding", and you can't say this truthfully to all schools.
 
In my opinion, you don't have to keep your offers a secret, but I don't think you should try to use your offers to force other schools into any actions other than ones that are necessary (e.g. to extend a deadline). Don't wave another offer around just so the other schools get back to you a week earlier so that you panic less etc. Calm down and relax! Also, don't just wave other offers around in an attempt to make yourself look better to other schools. I am pretty sure this will not work. Instead, think about what you want (matching offer? finding out about visit days? etc.) and ask for it directly, mentioning your previous offers if relevant.

Wow, that blog link is really interesting and I think I can learn a lot from that! I can share how I read scientific papers but I don't think I have such a detailed system.
It does depend a lot on what I want to get out of the paper because that dictates how much time/energy I spend on the paper. Since you asked about reading papers "quickly", I'll talk about the three methods I use for the lowest level of reading.
Level 0, for "keeping up" reading: The goal of this reading is to ensure I know about the latest papers. Every day, the pre-print server I subscribe to sends me a list of paper titles and abstracts for my subfield. This is how I mostly "keep up". The other way I "keep up" is to follow social media for my subfield---there are several facebook groups for various areas of interest to me and papers are discussed there. I also stay connected with my colleagues and see what papers they find interesting.
When I do this type of reading, I will read the paper title and the abstract. If I remain interested, I might also skim the introduction since that's how people put their work in context with the field. Once you are familiar with the subject area, skimming for key words and citations will tell you what area of the field they are building on. The main goal of the Introduction reading is to figure out what important question they are addressing and why I should care. Then, I skip right to the conclusion and see what their results are. I do all of this reading/skimming without taking notes. Usually over my morning coffee. I try to spend about 5 minutes per paper.
At this point, I decide whether or not to spend more time on the article. If I find the motivation compelling and the results significant, I will put the paper in my Mendeley library for further reading (see below) at a later time (sometimes right away if I'm really excited about it). Otherwise, I move onto the next one.
Level 1, for "cataloguing" papers. The goal is now to take good summary notes on these papers so that I am able to find more details when I need them in the future. I may never need them in the future. I download the PDF and import it to my Mendeley library. I assign it a unique ID (usually AuthorLastNameYear plus additional letters for extra papers in the same year). I have some Mendeley tags that I use to organize papers by topics (like Gmail labels) that I also assign. I also have some special tags like "citeThisinPaperX" so that I don't forget to cite the paper when I get around to writing it. After adding this meta-data, I read the abstract, intro and conclusions again.
This time, I will highlight key words. The goal is that if I am looking for details about X in the future, I want to be able to quickly flip through this PDF on Mendeley and have these important words pop out to me. I will also read over the methods section to ensure I know what they are doing. Often, this allows me to classify the paper further (using tags if appropriate). I'll also skim the rest of the paper, particularly the discussion to see their interpretation and any caveats. I use the "Notes" field of Mendeley to write a very short summary of the paper. Here, I also mention anything interesting that comes up or if I have any concerns, e.g. a new method, an unorthodox method, interesting interpretation, problematic assumptions, etc. I think this type of reading takes me about 30 minutes to do per paper.
Level 2, for "understanding" a paper. This is a more careful reading. I actually read every word this time instead of just skimming. I use more highlighting. I also now use the sticky notes annotation tool in Mendeley. One big use of the sticky notes is to make sure I can understand the authors' flow of logic in each section. After each section, if I found the logic hard to follow, I try to figure it out and then write a sticky note that summarizes what I thought they were trying to say in that area. I also add sticky notes for Methods. Since these notes are searchable, I try to use standardized terms so that I can find related papers easily. For the discussion and results sections, I use sticky notes to summarize each and every one of their individual findings (whereas in the above sections, I focus more on the big picture results). I add my own commentary to their interpretations where appropriate. The goal is to annotate the paper enough that when I view the paper in Mendeley, I can click the notes tab and see just the list of my sticky notes. I should be able to reconstruct the main argument from the sticky notes without having to read the paper again.  If I have done the "Level 0" and "Level 1" readings before this, then this more in-depth reading usually takes 1-2 hours, depending on the paper length and whether I already know a lot about the field. Sometimes it can take up to a half-day if I'm trying to read way outside of my area. I sometimes also print out a paper to read at this depth because it's a little easier for me to read things in print and when I want to be able to read it while away from my desk. I try not to print too much because it wastes paper and I will have to spend time importing my annotations into Mendeley.
I usually do "Level 0" and "Level 1" every day (or at least try to). The "Level 2" reading happens maybe once per week (a little bit more recently because there's lots of cool stuff). This is the depth I read to when I want to be able to speak about a paper at a Journal Club or something informal. Deeper reading levels, for me, include reading related papers , comparing results across papers, and making even more notes. I don't usually seek out papers to read to this depth level. Instead, I only do it when I need to, for example, when starting a new area of research and needing to know the foundational papers, or when I really need a question answered.

Congratulations!!! This sounds like an excellent opportunity. To answer your question, YES! Actually, reference letters form NASA researchers may end up as your strongest reference letters, especially if this is the first time you are doing full-time research work. NASA researchers could also be well known in their field -- although a well known tenured professor is probably the ideal letter writer, they are not the only choice. You might already know this, but the only reference letters taken seriously are those written by your research supervisors (I don't necessarily agree, but I think it's the reality). I definitely agree that although career advisors and professors are very encouraging of students to apply outside of "traditional routes", the reality is that few schools are willing to take a chance on these students!

5 years ago, I was deciding between three schools, all with very similar rankings but vastly different research fits. I went with the school that had the most research fit and highest ranking, but it was also the lowest stipend offer after adjusting for cost of living. The other two schools paid well enough that grad students can buy houses! The school with the highest offer was the lowest ranked in my subfield (but not by much) but the worst research fit (it looked a lot better on paper than it did when I actually visited---part of the reason why I always encourage people to visit their top choices). I think after adjusting for cost of living, that highest offer would have paid me about 60% more than the offer I actually took. Cost of living can be misleading though---if you are interested in saving money for the future (beyond grad school), having an extra $1000 in the bank in a low cost of living city is worth the same as $1000 in the bank in a high cost of living city!
However, after ensuring that the offer from my best-fit school was enough to live on, I made the same decision as fuzzylogician and rising_star and decided that attending the best fit school was worth the difference in pay. Grad school is only for 5 years and at least in my field, postdoc pay is way higher than student pay so it makes more sense to take the action that will result in better career prospects and earnings in the long term. I don't regret my decision at all, especially after finishing my job search for postdocs this year (wow, the market is way more competitive than I thought and I thought I was prepared for it). I ended up getting just one job offer, but it's to my top choice postdoc and I know that the specific experiences that I developed at my top choice grad school was a critical factor in getting this position. 
Looking back, I have no regrets but there were certainly tough times along the way where I wondered if I made the right choice. Seeing all of my friends from high school and college with "real jobs" that allowed them to buy homes or go on nice vacations etc. was hard sometimes, even if I knew that I was on my own path that will eventually get me the things I want. And, there were many moments where nothing research-wise was working and I was wondering if all the work was really worth it. 
That said, I would have certainly gone for a higher stipend offer if my top choice school didn't offer enough to actually live on. It would not have been enough if my spouse was not able to work in the US or if I had to support additional family members. I guess it was the right choice for at least three of us here who have gone through grad school (or almost finished it!) but it's something that will certainly vary from person to person.

To answer each question individually:
 
1. Yes, the stipend amount was an important factor in my decision in places to apply. However, I consider it a "cut-off" factor. Most schools in my field do publish stipend amounts and with use of GradCafe + PhysicsGRE.com results databases, I was able to know the funding amount for most places I applied. There was one school where I didn't apply to in part because of the stipend vs. cost of living (tons of people report going into debt even with $30,000/year in Hawaii).
 
Our requirement was stipend was that it supported a comfortable lifestyle. When considering whether or not to go for a PhD, we (my spouse and I) decided that we didn't want to live as a "starving student" for 5+ years without a guarantee of a good job in the end. (Similarly, we had geographical restrictions on where we were willing to live as well). So, my minimum stipend level was something that would pay for half of**: rent for a 1 bedroom place, have internet/netflix/cell phones, own a (used) car, eat out about once/week (takeout, not fancy places), take one or two trips per year (road trips or combined with conferences to save money) and save about $3000/year. 
 
(** I say "half of" because my spouse would be working and earning at least the same, if not more, than me. It took about a year to fully sort through the work authorization, for her to get a permanent job, and to recoup losses due to non-employment at first, so it was not until a year later that we got luxuries like netflix, cars, eating out, taking trips, and saving money).
 
In my opinion, one would likely be disappointed if one sought graduate school to live a very nice lifestyle and I think there are a lot of things one has to give up to attend grad school. A lot of these things are long-term things that I think could be hurting us in the long run, for example: saving up for a home down payment, saving/investing for retirement, paying down past debts, etc. Overall, I think grad school does require a modest lifestyle (e.g. I don't expect to be able to afford to shop at Whole Foods, or take vacations at exotic places, or eat at fancy places often, or buy fancy toys etc.) but I think it's reasonable for a graduate student to expect to be able to live comfortably, instead of being able to just barely afford basic necessities.
 
2. Yes, I would definitely be in favour of a movement to support an increase in pay at my University. In fact, I am actually part of such a movement right now, being part of my school's graduate student government. Currently, the policies require the minimum stipend be $28,000/year and the maximum stipend is $38,000/year. There are two main "peaks" in the stipend distribution--one around the minimum and one around $30,000/year. For reference though, the maximum stipend to qualify for Section 8 (i.e. government assisted housing cost) for a single student in my University's city is $29,500. Given the rent market in our city, a graduate student needs to earn around $32,000 per year in order to make housing "affordable" (i.e. 1/3 of income on rent+utilities). Our efforts are currently focussed on increasing the minimum stipend though, rather than increasing the average/median.
 
Note: The U Houston student earning $33k/year in Houston would be, according to a COL calculator, earning the equivalent of $42k/year where I live now. We live in a very high cost of living area. My current stipend is $30,000/year and our annual household expenses total around $55,000/year for the lifestyle I wrote about above.
 
Bonus Q: This is a topic I'm passionate about, so there's another aspect to this topic, which the article does hint at too. Arguments for paying a "fair wage" to graduate students aside (there's plenty of threads here discussing what is fair, what "market value" do we have etc.), there's another good argument for paying graduate students more. And that is to increase socioeconomic diversity in academia. At my school and in my field, this is something we're working on. If we pay graduate students minimal income, we are 1) discouraging potential students that can't afford to live like this (e.g. have high health costs, or need to support children, or need to support parents) and 2) placing students who have higher costs at a disadvantage (more stress, might have to work side jobs, less able to focus on studies). My school currently has some programs that supplement your income based on need (e.g. graduate students with dependents effectively get a $1200/year per dependent supplement for dependent health insurance costs), but we are working on increasing this.
 
I guess this is related to question #2 above. We are approaching the "increase stipends" issue in two ways. We use arguments for paying a "fair wage" for our "market value" to raise the overall/mean/median stipend on campus. This is a hard argument to make, because the University generally counters with "your degree has market value to you", which is true--the students and the administration just do not agree on where the balance is. We use arguments for diversity and equity to argue for raising the stipend of those who need it the most: the students earning the minimum stipend on campus and the students with extra costs (whether it's health or dependents or something else). This is generally an easier argument to make. The University will counter with arguments like "it's the student's choice to do X" and sometimes they are right, but a lot of the times, these are sexist or otherwise discriminatory so we have a way to attack these counterarguments. In addition, the thing they care about most is attracting the most talented people, so here, we can make the argument that without certain income supplement programs, excellent applicants who have higher expenses because of X are choosing other schools instead of our school (and we have testimonial data to back this up!). This seems to be the line of reasoning that gets the most attention.

I think location "should" matter as much as you want it to matter. Don't let other people tell you how to prioritize your life. Many academics, especially those who are already in nice established positions, tend to recommend to students to put their studies/career first instead of worrying about location. But I don't think this would be very good advice for me. Personally, I have to live in a big enough city to support a diverse population, especially for the availability of ethnic grocery stores and not feeling like an outsider. I also dislike living in college towns. I learned a lot of what I liked from my experience living in a place I did not like for 2 years during my Masters. 
 
In making my PhD decision, I weighed all non-academic reasons (e.g. location) and academic reasons (e.g. research fit) equally. But that's just how my priorities go. I think too many students unnecessarily feel "guilty" for considering any reason other than academic ones and I think this should not happen!

I do what GeoDUDE! does and use Mendeley for reading my papers. I mostly do this to use Mendeley's excellent methods for keeping track of citations (I export BibTeX files).
 
I understand what you mean about highlighting with a mouse though. My solution is actually I rarely mark up PDFs anymore. Instead, I just read them and don't make any annotations. This is obviously not a good way to retain information but I already have over 100 papers in my collection for my current project and I don't expect myself to know every detail of every single paper. Instead, I read the paper and I find that I do pretty good at remembering the main points. In the future, I just skim the abstract again and I remember what the paper was generally about. Mendeley has a box for you to type in whatever you want for each paper and I use this to make notes to myself, e.g. "Cite this for Method X!!" etc.
 
The above is for the lowest level of paper. For papers that are more critical to my work, I keep notes for them in a separate notebook. I read the paper on the screen and then I write summary notes for each one. Maybe summarize the paper in one page of notes or something (i.e. longer than I would want to store in the Mendeley text box). Because I can write on a physical piece of paper, this makes noting down important figures or equations much easier. Sometimes, I would sparingly use the Mendeley built-in highlighter tool so that when I skim through the PDF again in the future, I know where the *really* important stuff is. With the "Find" function, I never have to highlight or otherwise annotate lesser details though.
 
Finally, for the absolute critical papers to my work (i.e. <10 or so), I print out physical copies and keep them in my filing cabinet. These are the papers that I really want to know backwards and forwards and I write on them, draw things, take them with me while commuting etc. Since it's just a small number, having physical copies is very manageable.
 
So, actually, I think the clunkiness of an electronic highlighter tool is a blessing. It makes me want to use it less, which means I only highlight things I really really want to remember. Many of my articles do not even have highlighter marks at all. In the past, with paper copies, I might want to highlight smaller references to keywords but now I can just use Mendeley's "find" function to search for keywords in all of my papers at once! 

I am not in your field, but I am a Canadian student with a Canadian partner that moved to the US for a PhD program in 2012.
The transition is certainly a process but manageable. I'll be happy to discuss any specific questions you may have, either here, or in a PM if there are personal details. Most of my issues involve ensuring my spouse had the right to work in the US, which is only possible for me as a foreign student on J-1 status, whereas the typical foreign student status in the US is F-1. 
I'll address the two issues you present here first though:
1. The higher tuition rates does not directly affect us, assuming that your field fully funds graduate students (I think so, right?). Fully funded means that the department covers our tuition, higher rate and all, as well as pay us a stipend (whether the stipend is good or not depends though!). It does indirectly affects your chances to get in if you are applying to schools that charge higher tuition to international students (e.g. mostly public schools). At my school (a private one), tuition is over $40,000 per year for every student, but I don't see this charged anywhere (it gets charged directly to our advisors). Therefore, while being an international student decreases our admission chances at some schools, if you are admitted with a funding package, you don't have to worry about the higher tuition rate. In fact, at least in my field, in almost all cases, graduate students are paid better in the US than in Canada.
2. Health care: This is definitely a concern! When we first arrived, not all the provisions of the ACA (Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare) had been in place yet, and my spouse was denied coverage due to a pre-existing condition. My spouse had to then get coverage as a dependent on my school program (school plan covers everyone regardless of conditions) but that costs $7200 per year (!!!). The school awarded us extra money to pay for this cost, fortunately. However, this no longer became a problem when ACA kicked in and my spouse was able to be covered through an open plan. Then, my spouse eventually found a good job that has very good coverage. (Note: a few years later, the other ACA provisions kicked in and did not allow insurance providers to charge a higher rate, $7200, for dependents compared to the primary insured ($2700 per year)).
For your specific case, I would still apply to US schools but look out for schools that actually provide you with health benefits. For example, the student coverage of my school's plan is great (the dependent coverage is great too but as I wrote above, potentially very expensive). Our plan costs $2700 per year, but the school pays $2200 per year and we pay only $500 per year. Overall, I actually spend less money and get more coverage in the United States than I did in Canada (in Ontario, OHIP is like $900 plus I paid $300 more for supplemental coverage). However, I don't have something like Type I diabetes.
Your actual cost due to maintaining your health could be quite high and I recommend that if you are considering offers from US schools, you should talk to other students with Type I diabetes when you visit! But, for now, I have some info on what is covered by my school's plans (again I think my school has one of the better plans available to students, so don't assume all schools do this level of coverage, make sure you check!):
The deductible per year is $150 (this means that you pay $150 first before some of the coverage starts).
The co-pay (what you pay) for most services is 20% (that is, if you see a specialist and the visit costs $300, you pay $60 and the insurance pays $240). However, the deductible is charged first.
The co-pay for most prescriptions is also 20%. Example: I have a nasal spray that costs $20. I pay $4 for each refill and the insurance covers $16. There's a caveat though: insurance providers are allowed to exclude certain medicines from coverage. Each year, they publish a new list of medicines and rank them as "Tier 1", "Tier 2", "Tier 3" and "Excluded". The higher the tier, the more restrictions there are on getting that drug covered. Most restrictions are things like you can only get X amount each time, or you must have the doctor get prior approval etc. The brand-name drugs are the ones that go on these Tier lists typically, as you are supposed to only get generic drugs unless there is no substitute or there is a special reason that you need the brand-name one. Note: for my plan, the deductible does not apply towards drug benefits.
The co-pay for a regular doctor's visit is special because the deductible doesn't apply. My plan's co-pay is $15, which means I pay $15 every time I visit the doctor and insurance covers the rest of the cost (usually a visit is about $60 to $100). If I get a test though (lab exam, x-ray, whatever), that counts as a separate thing and there's the deductible and 20% copay. 
There are two other important numbers to look for when comparing US health insurance plan. There is the annual out-of-pocket maximum. If your covered costs (i.e. copays and deductible) reach this number in one insurance year, your copay becomes $0 for the rest of the year and the insurance will pay for everything. My plan's out of pocket maximum is $1500. This means that no student on my plan should have to pay more than $2000 per year for health care ($500 for the premium, $1500 for the out of pocket max). In reality, some people still have to pay more because they need services that are not covered.
The last important number is something called Lifetime Maximum Benefit. This number is the most that the insurance company will ever pay for you in your life. Once you reach this number, you have to pay for everything yourself. This sounds terrible because it is terrible. Fortunately, it's so terrible that the ACA made it illegal for insurance companies to have this limit. So, right now, this must be "unlimited" by law. But I mention this because if the ACA is repealed, this law is also repealed so I don't know what the future will hold. Therefore, always check for this value when choosing plans.
To summarize, the values I quoted above, $150 deductible, $1500 max, $15 doctor visit, roughly 20% copay for everything else is usually known as a "Gold" or "Platinum" plan. Other plans "Silver", "Bronze" etc. cost twice and three times as much. (e.g. Silver is $30 doctor visit, 40% copay, deductible is $2000! and Bronze is $45 doctor visit, 60% copay, $4000 deductible etc.). Just to give you an estimate on the range of plans available. I remember that some schools have absolutely terrible plans and some don't even have prescription coverage.
All of the above is very generic and general and you'll have to determine the specifics for you when you have offers from US schools. I just wanted to give you a general idea. Basically, a lot of the horror stories we Canadians hear about the US system are true. ACA did fix some of them, but we have no idea what will happen next with that. In general, if you are well off and have a good job, you will mostly be fine within the US system. Sadly, a grad student with a livable stipend and a good student health plan is "well off" compared to the general US population---the ones really in trouble without ACA are people without the guarantee of insurance and/or a job. That said, because there are no longer any guarantees of future good healthcare laws due to Trump, I have no idea if this will be true in a year or two. No one knows.

I found professional movers to be very expensive and even with my partner (non-academic) and our 1-2 bedroom apartment full of stuff, we didn't end up moving with professional movers for all 3 cross-country (and cross-border) moves. Instead, we just used pod-like moving services (i.e. pack your stuff into one cube and ship it). This costs about $2000 each time (the first move, we had very little and just moved by driving it ourselves). Movers were quoting us $3500-$6000.
Even for my postdoc move where my employer gave us $5000 towards moving expenses, we still opted for the cube method. We used the remaining moving allowance to drive ourselves to the new place, to pay for the costs of a apartment-hunting trip, and to pay for professional movers to pack our cube for us at our origin. This extra expense was a lifesaver though (in past moves, we recruited friends and packed it ourselves). But this time we were moving from a 3rd floor walkup, had a bunch of stuff, and my partner was pregnant, so the $450 for 2 guys to move all of our stuff into their truck, drive it to the cube's depot, and pack the cube, all within 3 hours, was well worth it (other moves had us and 2-3 friends work 4-5 hours each to get it all done because we aren't professionals!)

I think that every generation/cohort thinks that the previous generation are doing something wrong, that things were better in the old days. And every generation thinks that the older generation is irrelevant and stuck in the old ways! This semester, a bunch of us who were TAing were mentioning how much undergrads these days want their TAs to just tell them the answer, and they get mad when we ask them questions in response to their questions. But if we're complaining about our undergrads now, I wonder what our TAs said about us ~4-5 years ago!

Easier said than done, but it seems ideal for the new generation to do as Sigaba says, and remember that the older generation gained a ton of experience getting to where they are now. At the same time, the new generation could be bringing in fresh ideas and it might not be a good idea to dismiss these thoughts simply because we don't have the experience. I am thinking more of the generation gap between current students and junior faculty members, but it could also apply to the gap between PhDs-about-to-graduate/postdocs and incoming grad students.

Now, to "defend"/"explain" "my" cohort despite what I said above

1. I don't agree that Internet BBs are ONLY meant to be repositories of knowledge where someone with a question should try to find every single thread on the topic and read everything. Sure, this is exactly what we do for a literature review for our work, but discussing graduate school, while related to work, isn't work. I think this was the original intention now, but with more and more people growing up in an Internet dominated world, Internet technologies are changing fast. Here's why it makes sense for a new user to post a new question instead of digging up old ones:
a ) Internet rule of not reviving dead posts. On most BBs, it's poor etiquette to post in a thread that has been inactive for some period of time
b ) The user wants to interact with current, active members, not just passively read something -- maybe they already read some of the stuff and now want interaction
c ) Related to ( a ) and ( b ), posting in an old (dead) thread is not effective at getting the attention of current active members. If there is an existing thread 5 pages long, most people will not read the previous 5 pages and write responses taking into account all of the past posts in mind. Most people will either see that it's 5 pages long and not bother, or just write a response based on the new post and not consider the previous posts. In the former case, the OP doesn't get the interaction. In the latter case, there was no advantage to continuing a year-old thread since few people make use of the past -- it's more organized to start a new thread.
d ) It's more satisfying to ask your own question, in your own thread, where you can define the parameters of your question instead of a thread where a mood/tone might have already been developed. This point is more "frivolous" but still plays a factor I think.

My solution? I'm a new member of this community but I've been on other BBs for many years and see the same stuff get asked all the time. It might be more useful to link to a specific post that we think is helpful or just copy and paste something we've written before for the OP, if we think we are repeating ourself.

I think nowadays, a BB is more of a place for a person to announce something (e.g. I have a problem!) and then whoever is around and interested can gather and have a discussion. Although it has the capability to function like a library of knowledge, and there are many who do use it that way, I would say that the majority are drawn to BBs because of the ability to talk to active members, not read through past posts. But it's a good thing that BBs can function in both ways and allows users to choose how to use the BB.

2. Regarding the "sense of entitlement" of "our" cohort. I think this is partially due to the fact that the people entering graduate studies today are VERY different than the people running graduate studies (i.e. profs). It's clear that nowadays, more and more people are going to University and getting degrees -- it's the norm to go to college and I think this is spreading into grad school too. So, the demographics are different. I'm not sure if it's true but it sure feels like many programs expect graduate students to devote themselves to academia. I'm not saying this is the case for any particular person, but I feel that someone from a family who has had people in grad school before (so they understand us) and/or aren't from a "working poor" class would have a much easier time adjusting to graduate student life and doing well than others. Someone who wants to start a family, or needs to send money home to their parents, or wants to do other things than just academia will face more challenges in grad school. One can argue that grad school isn't for those in the above categories and aren't able to / willing to face the challenges, though -- but I don't think this is the right way to do things.

I don't know for sure what the job prospects were for our profs though. Maybe it was just as bad for them but they just toughed it out. I don't think it's a bad idea for our cohort to come with certain expectations and fight/push for changes for things that we want. We should have the ability to voice our opinions and shape the way our graduate program is run. Maybe when all of the new people entering college in the past decade reach faculty positions, graduate programs will be drastically different. Or maybe it won't, if the system ends up doing a good job of self-selecting like-minded people. But fighting for better working conditions or improving student life shouldn't be considered a sense of "entitlement". That is, graduate school shouldn't be a place of "conform or perish" -- the norms of the department should be set by all of its members, including students. If the issues are important enough, the students' voice could be strong enough to cause change.

I guess when it comes down to it, I feel this way because I believe that educational programs (at all levels, i.e. BSc, MSc, PhD) exist to serve the students and it should meet our needs. The faculty members with experience would know what kind of skills are important for academic success so they would build the degree program on this. But it's easy for people to think that "I suffered through this to get to where I am so the students have to as well". And the needs of students back in the day may not be the same as the needs now. So it's important for department to seek feedback from students and incorporate what we would like to get out of our degrees into our degree programs. Maybe this is the "sense of entitlement" that Sigaba is referring to, but I don't think it's unreasonable to want to have some say in our degree programs if we are going to spend 5-6 years of our life and potentially opportunity costs during our PhDs.

I am a Canadian on J-1 status. Most students are on F-1 status. There are a few differences, but ultimately, it really boils down to this:
 
If you have a spouse who will move with you to the US and your spouse wants to be able to work, get the J-1 status. Otherwise, get F-1.
 
That is really the only reason to get J-1. 
 
There is no difference in the number of entries you get with J-1 vs. F-1. As a Canadian, we do not need a F-1/J-1 visa (i.e. a page in our passport) to enter the US, we can enter as often as we want. However, we do need to maintain F-1/J-1 status (Form I-20 or DS-2019) in order to remain in the US for studying. 
 
Other than the spouse working issue, the second biggest difference is the 2-year home residency requirement. If you get an NSERC (home government funding) then you will be subject to this requirement. I have a NSERC PGS-D right now and my DS-2019 has the "home government funding" box ticked off. The requirement means that you must live in Canada for 2 years before you can immigrate to the US. You don't have to go back to Canada right away, just before you immigrate to the US. You also don't have to leave the US. J-1 students can undergo 2-3 years of "Academic Training" (AT) right after their PhD if they get work in their field of study (e.g. a postdoc). This is an extension of your J-1 status. Note: F-1 students have the same benefit, it's just called OPT.
 
Finally, the last difference that I can think of is that J-1 students must maintain a minimum level of health insurance in the US for themselves and their dependents. You must explicitly get insurance that will repatriate your remains to Canada if anything happens to you. Gruesome, but legally required!
 
Overall, as you might notice, there are far more disadvantages/requirements for J-1 than F-1. However, the one advantage for J-1, that your spouse can work, is a huge one and for most people, more than makes up for the disadvantages. This is why I say that the only reason to choose J-1 is if you have a spouse that wants to work in the US (and your spouse cannot get their own work authorization).

I'm in a MSc program, but in Canada, everyone starts grad school as a MSc student, graduates, and then applies for PhD programs (which can be at the same or a different institution). I'm finishing up my second and final year now.

First -- your question about time: It really depends on your program / department / research group / supervisor as well as your own goals in academia. For me, almost all of my research work can be done remotely (although I prefer to work in the office) so I really only need to go to school to attend class, TA, talk to my friends, attend seminars, and meet my supervisor. None of these things happen outside of 9-5 so I tend to stick to a 9-5 ish schedule and do extra work from home if necessary. I usually try to not do any "work" outside of 9-5 and not take my "work" home. However, I don't count course-work as "work" and I try to do that at home so it doesn't cut into research time too much. But if you work in, say, a chemistry lab, you might have stricter requirements as to when you need to be in the lab.

Many of my friends in school have dogs. Some of them take a break in the middle of the day to go home and walk their dogs or see them, if they live close. I try to treat grad school as a "job" -- unless there are deadlines approaching, I don't feel bad leaving at ~5pm even if there is stuff left to be done since it will still be there tomorrow! I know this means I'm not working to my fullest potential, and I'm okay with that. I'm not aiming to be the best in my field, and I choose to have other priorities.

Which comes to the second thing I want to say -- grad school is as much work as you want it to be. To use a cliche -- you will get out of it what you put in. So it's important to think about what you want to get out of your PhD program and then schedule your life accordingly! I think it's really important to budget your time and energy so that you don't neglect your priorities (whether it's courses, research, teaching, family, dogs, whatever). I think graduate school is hard enough even when you have a positive/healthy mindset, so maintaining whatever makes you happy is important.

I got some advice from my mentors (previous supervisors) that I thought was really valuable. They said to pick your supervisor and project in a way that will help you get a post-doc job (if that is the goal after PhD). If so, your PhD project will be the strongest argument you have for yourself when you apply for jobs. Pick something that will be interesting to people ~5 years from now, don't work on a super specific field that only you or your supervisor cares about (instead, do these as side projects). You don't have to love your thesis topic, just don't hate it! Next, make sure your project contributes to the field in a meaningful way, so that ideally people will start to connect the concepts you are working on with your name.

As for picking supervisors, my mentors told me that I should find someone who is a good mentor, not just a good researcher. We will need to trained in other skills such as how to write papers really well, how to apply for grants, how to give compelling presentations, how to get ourselves known. Many good researchers have these abilities but not everyone is good at teaching these abilities too. Also, if possible, find someone who will care about their students' success and will give us opportunities like attending conferences and so on. If you have an external scholarship and thus your supervisor may not pay you at all (or very little), it's common in the physical sciences to actually negotiate non-salary things like having a budget for travel or equipment, and so on. (Last piece of advice -- apply for external fellowships whenever possible, even if you are already funded by internal means. You probably won't get any more money, but you will get a lot more freedom and independence).

Those were some of the important (in my opinion) things I've learned in the last 2 years as a graduate student and from many conversations with my mentors while applying for PhD programs for this fall! Hope that gives you some things to consider

I had to learn to make this transition too. I think small steps are important. For me, I started by setting pretty generous time limits on how much time I can spend on each problem or homework set. I budget my time so that I first aim to finish everything and then go back to perfect little things if there's time. I find that it became easier to not hand in 100% effort work when you first hand in 95% effort and realise that nothing bad happened! Then go on from there until you get to a level that is a good balance for you.
 
Other things that helped me was working on problem sets with your friends/classmates. I feel a lot better making a simplification and/or only solving the problem to order of magnitude if I knew everyone else does too. This became a lot easier in my second year--when I have to use a number such as the density of a specific type of rock in my computation, I just said well, it's probably 3g/cm^3, within 10% because most rock is like that. I think some of the newer students were spending the extra time to look up this specific compound of rock and found that it was 2.8 instead of 3.0. However, our grades are the same and the amount of learning we got out of the homework was the same. There's nothing to be gained from digging through a textbook for 20 minutes to find a specific number that does not change the main result of the question.
 
So, another thing that helps me is for me to look at homework and courses as not a form of evaluation but instead, as a means to an end (increased knowledge on course material). I think if you think back to your undergrad courses, you might find that the courses where you learned the most doesn't really necessarily correlate with your highest grades (at least it's true for me). Getting an A+ in a course does not always mean you got what you wanted out of the course! So, like my example above, I consider my time to be a valuable resource and I would consider being more careful with how I use it, so I learn what I actually want to learn instead of just spending time doing busy-work.
 
Having older students and other profs mentor me in how to use my time wisely helped me get over my perfectionism in my homework. For us, our grad courses have graduate student TAs so that really helps. In general, we understand the courses in our department are really a means to an end, so we don't get super nitpicky with our grading. Now that I am a TA, I completely understand when my students choose to not hand in a problem set or just completely skip some questions or parts of a question. Obviously, I still do not award points for incomplete work, but I don't give them a hard time for blowing off my assignments since I know they made the conscious choice to spend their time elsewhere. When they ask, I try to let them know which parts of the questions are most useful for learning (and I weight these parts more) so busy students know where to focus their time!
 
Related to all of the above, I think the most important thing in making the transition from undergrad to grad student is to transition your priority from courses to research (at least for research oriented programs) and basically making the transition from "going to school" to "going to work". If it helps, very few people will ever look at your graduate transcripts. Almost no academic jobs will require you to submit your grad school grades! In the beginning of grad school, you might apply to a few academic based scholarships/fellowships that need grades (but most of your grades will be from undergrad anyways), but then as you progress further, your applications will mostly be judged on your research, not your grades!

Are you a citizen/resident taxpayer/otherwise able to claim the standard deduction? If so, then here's a quick estimate of how much you should be paying in taxes:
Income: 26,000
Minus Personal Exemption of $4050
Minus Standard Deduction of $6350
What you pay taxes on: 15,600
The first tax bracket is 10% on the first $9350. So you owe $935 in that bracket.
$15,600 minus $9350 is $6250, so that is taxed at the second tax bracket, which is 15%. 15% of $6250 is $937.50.
Therefore, you should owe a total of $937.50 plus $935 = about $1870 on your federal taxes.
However, the above does not include FICA taxes (social security and medicaid). For self-employment, this is taxed at 15.30%, I believe. So 15.3% of $7000 is another $1071 owed. NOTE: Students are exempt from FICA taxes I believe, but this is only on their grad school stipend, not their own side employment.
So federal + FICA is about $2950. I am not sure what your state tax rates are. But $550 for state taxes on $26000 of income sounds reasonable (would be about 2%). 
Did your school withhold any taxes at all? If they did, make sure you included these amounts to ensure that you don't have to pay taxes you already paid.

I held one for the last two years of grad school. There are no published successful examples that I know of. Mostly because this is a real proposal with our actual research plans, so it's not really a good idea to put that out publicly. However, I highly recommend speaking to students in your program that have one in the past and asking if they would be willing to share their proposal. I always share my proposal with other students at my program because I knew them and trusted them to keep it safe. I also had a former student share theirs with me and it was helpful.
I'd be happy to discuss tips/strategies and share what info I knew from my application years etc. but unfortunately, I am not quite comfortable sharing my materials on an internet forum! Hope you understand!
Which program are you applying to?

Can you send me some more details in a private message? I want to help out as much as I can since it really disadvantages you to not have these connections. We have whole workshops and such to help us prepare at my PhD school and several people win each year in Planetary Science. So if you are interested, let's talk more offline?
(But if you are happy with the feedback you already have and don't want/need further feedback, then please don't feel like you need to talk to me about it! Just offering in case you want it)

From my experience at the school you're going to, you'll fit right in! A person passing by you on campus will just think "Another day at [school]!" I also feel that individuality is strongly celebrated there and you will probably get a lot of positive feedback. (I'm avoiding mentioning the school name even though it's in both of our signatures in case you decide to not include this information later on and don't want the school name to stay in this thread).

Yes, I have heard of such a thing. One of my top choice schools told me the same thing during my visit. The requirements (e.g. funding minimums) from the US Department of State / US Immigration are just the minimum requirements you must meet in order to be eligible for sponsorship of J-1 status. However, ultimately, the school has to choose to sponsor you for J-1 status and some schools choose not to, for whatever reasons.
As an international student, your only choices are F-1 or J-1, so no, there are no other ways for a spouse of a student to get a work permit ("Employment Authorization Document", or EAD) as your dependent. However, depending on the country your spouse is from and what their training/work is, they might be able to apply for their own visa and get permission to work or an EAD through that method.
For me, that was not an option, so the school that decided to not sponsor me for J-1 was immediately taken off our list once they refused to budge on that position. I did inform them that their decision to not sponsor J-1 students was the primary reason I did not choose their program and that many students need to be on J-1 status in order to choose a program in the USA. Although this sounds like I think very highly of myself and that it's "their loss" that I didn't attend, it wasn't my intention and I tried to make that clear. Instead, I think it's important for schools/programs/officials to have testimony and stats that people are turning down their program because of this decision, otherwise the decision will never change for future applicants. It could even be that many people there want to change the decision but they need stats to show that this is a serious problem.