TakeruK

As a grad student, I almost always showed up to my advisor meetings with a notebook open and a pen. Ahead of each meeting, I make notes (like 2 or 3 words) for each item I wanted to bring up. I quickly jot down their responses after each one. To help ensure I keep my notes short, I write each item on one line only, so I am fairly limited in what I am able to write, which allows me to spend most of my time in conversation instead of looking at my notebook.
Most of my items are seeking approval/clarification that can be easily written in one line, or I just jot down a few words for me to write out a fuller explanation for myself later. 
I leave the rest of the notebook page blank in case something more complicated comes up that requires more notes. Sometimes my advisor and I derive something together and that takes space. Or I just use this space later to summarize the meeting after I return to my desk.
Each advisor's style is different so you'll have to find what works best for you and them. For me, I took the lead in most of the one-on-one meetings, although my advisor would also ask for updates or questions on specific things if I forgot to include it in my list. 
In addition, I felt it was normal and expected to be taking notes during the meetings, especially when we were starting a new project and especially when I was a new student. These meetings are basically laying out the instructions for my work in the coming weeks so it makes sense to have a good grasp on them. So, in the beginning, when my advisor led the meetings more, they always paused and waited for me to finish writing notes. Later, when I led the meetings, I might ask to pause the conversation for 30 seconds to ensure I get a citation written down correctly for later review (or to check spelling etc.). Overall, it felt pretty natural to me, to have a discussion on a topic, take a pause to jot down some notes, and then when I look back up, we continue the conversation. (as I wrote above, pauses were short since I only jotted down key words). If we ended up working out something on the board, I can just snap a photo later.
So far, I apply the same strategy when advising undergrads working with me and it seems to work too. I think my advisor appreciated the fact that I had notes prepared ahead of the meeting and that I took notes on what we said to ensure I did it right and to avoid asking the same thing over and over. I know I definitely think it's a good thing when my students show up with notes / notebooks and I am glad when they take notes during our meetings. Again though, so much of this is dependent on your personalities and the type of advising relationship you have.

Why are you asking..? You are already accepted at a program?
How substantial is the scholarship? If it's in the 10-20k range, this is fairly common and used by many schools like Columbia to incentivize students to come and pay the remaining 3/4-5/6 tuition. They make more money by forgiving some small portion of your tuition and getting you to come than by losing a student (they're not really giving you money - they're discounting a service with a fungible cost function). Public schools don't have as much freedom either in setting their costings or controlling their budget, as they have to report to the taxpayer, but their tuition fees are also usually lower. For instance, Columbia charges 56k in tuition whereas various SUNY campuses charge ~15k, less if you're a NY resident.

This will depend on the school so it's a bit hard to say, but I can tell you that at least for the schools I've studied or taught at, it wouldn't have made any difference. Applications are reviewed on merit and independently of any funding issues. The only way I can see it helping is if you were borderline or on a waitlist (so independently judged as good enough), in which case I can imagine this pushing you over the line. But for any strong school, I think what will really matter is your application. 

Your instincts are right. Putting someone as a coauthor just to increase citation/paper count is academic dishonesty. It has never happened to me but I have heard of it happening. I can understand why people would want to do this and why it might be tempting. I would personally not accept this "offer". Whether you act further (reporting it to various offices etc.) is up to you. 
That said, there are certainly many instances in my field where there are many coauthors on a paper and there is a huge range/difference in effort from each co-author. However, there is always some actual real honest contribution from each coauthor, even if it is very small. 
As I said above, what you do beyond declining is up to you and you are the best judge of the situation since none of us here have context. It's perfectly fine to say it's not your problem as you are also a student and fairly junior in the academic world and walk away after saying no. You could discuss this further with this lab mate to address the problem with their approach. If you think the lab mate is ignorant of what is / isn't ethical then maybe this could be a good approach. You could discuss this with your PI or report it more anonymously to a research ethics office. One thing that some schools have is a tip line / whistleblower policy where you could ask for someone from this office to come and give a presentation during group meeting about academic best practices. If it's a big enough group, people don't have to know it's you and the person you're targeting won't know they are being targeted. Also, when this office comes, they often try to emphasize that they regularly visit groups across campus from time to time, not necessarily because of something that happened. Just some thoughts/examples.

Like others said, schools are often very slow. 
This is money that you are owed, so I would not give up on it. It makes sense to be smart about how much you want to push them, but you should continue to check in every few weeks or so until this is resolved. Graduation also has very little to do with anything. Most schools have fiscal years that match their government (i.e. US schools Oct 1 - Sept 30, Canadian schools Apr 1 - Mar 31) and even if the deadline is passed, most schools have processes to finish up slow claims as long as it was started / committed prior to the budget closed.
By the way, in grad school and other parts of academia, you will constantly have to maintain good positive relationships with others, especially those in power over you, while consistently holding firm to your own beliefs and what is rightfully yours. If you don't then you will be taken advantage of and trodden all over. So consider this a good first step.

I think this is incorrect and the way you brought it up did sound like you were trying to undermine history. Combined with what you write here later, although you may not intend it to be so, it does come across as you thinking the sciences are superior and that it's harder to have an intelligent conversation in science than it is in history. But this is really not true.
Maybe *you* think it's hard to discuss the most simple topics of Physics or Chemistry because of "expert blindness". Since you already know so much about these fields, it's hard to think about it from an non-expert's point of view.
I also think you are inconsistent in what you define as "simple" aspects of each field. Your history example is just rote memorization. You say you cannot think of an equivalent in chemistry or physics, but you're stating things learned in high school history class, and there are plenty of equivalents in high school science classes. I would say the equivalent to your description of your discussion of the civil war would be a discussion about the phases of matter. The people that know about the civil war at the level you describe would also know that the basic phases are solid, liquid and gas and that water comes in all three forms. I'm just saying that someone stating these three phases of matter is about the same in-depth of a discussion that you describe as one with the historian. That is to say, it's certainly possible to bring up simple physics and chemistry facts so I don't think it's fair to say that everyone knows the basics of history but no one knows the basics of chemistry. Sure, a non-major would not be able to discuss all of the details of a phase transition, or they might not know all the thermodynamical equations or how to read a phase diagram and you might not feel that this isn't a deep discussion or that your conversation partner doesn't have a true understanding of the material. But the historian in your example may feel the same way as you and your discussion on the civil war.
 

Good advice on finding the person that will best help you. Just a note for the OP that this depends on each department though. At my PhD department, the grad coordinator is the faculty contact for administrative things related to academics (e.g. signing a form for going on leave, adding/dropping classes etc.) However, for things like reimbursement, there is a small office of admin assistants in the department. Each assistant is responsible for a few faculty members so the current students are supposed to go to the admin assistant assigned to their advisor. One of the admin assistants takes charge of the recruitment visit process and prospective students should go to that person for reimbursement help if you aren't a current student. 
In the OP's case, it sounds like they already found the right person to talk to. But I thought this might be helpful to others in similar situations.

This is quite normal for undergrad students at my PhD school. We would almost always have undergrads in our grad classes, so I'd imagine many of them racked up a ton of grad level credits. For these students, they took these grad classes as part of their electives so it counts towards their BA/BS degrees. 
As long as you weren't enrolled in a MA program, no one will think that you pursued an MA and then quit. 

Like others said, schools are often very slow. 
This is money that you are owed, so I would not give up on it. It makes sense to be smart about how much you want to push them, but you should continue to check in every few weeks or so until this is resolved. Graduation also has very little to do with anything. Most schools have fiscal years that match their government (i.e. US schools Oct 1 - Sept 30, Canadian schools Apr 1 - Mar 31) and even if the deadline is passed, most schools have processes to finish up slow claims as long as it was started / committed prior to the budget closed.
By the way, in grad school and other parts of academia, you will constantly have to maintain good positive relationships with others, especially those in power over you, while consistently holding firm to your own beliefs and what is rightfully yours. If you don't then you will be taken advantage of and trodden all over. So consider this a good first step.

This is a person who already asked you something ethically dubious....is that the first person you want to put your trust in right now?
I can see scenarios where this would make sense—they hinge on him not knowing this norm and now being sorry—but also, you know, are there any other warm bodies in your general vicinity you could collaborate with?

To @TakeruK 's points.
1. A potential impact of being a fish caught in a wider net is that if a scandal were to engulf a department and school, the stain could seep into one's own professional reputation.
2. This point merits careful thought. Schools, like other institutions, will brush off complicated issues rather than figure out ways to address underlying problems. This unfortunate approach to risk management can also include shooting the messenger. The kind of "cover" that would insulate the OP may not be a sustainable option to her or his school.
4. Arguably, the biggest benefits to self reporting are for the OP's sense of self.
A general comment. IMO @seacloud 's posts in this thread and elsewhere thus far provide a learning opportunity for all of us. How careful should one be in managing one's on-line presence? Why should we do our own due diligence when it comes to learning the rules of the Ivory Tower IRT academic conduct? What should one do if one realizes that one has made mistakes after the fact?

Like others said, schools are often very slow. 
This is money that you are owed, so I would not give up on it. It makes sense to be smart about how much you want to push them, but you should continue to check in every few weeks or so until this is resolved. Graduation also has very little to do with anything. Most schools have fiscal years that match their government (i.e. US schools Oct 1 - Sept 30, Canadian schools Apr 1 - Mar 31) and even if the deadline is passed, most schools have processes to finish up slow claims as long as it was started / committed prior to the budget closed.
By the way, in grad school and other parts of academia, you will constantly have to maintain good positive relationships with others, especially those in power over you, while consistently holding firm to your own beliefs and what is rightfully yours. If you don't then you will be taken advantage of and trodden all over. So consider this a good first step.

I am not the biggest fan about talking about my accomplishments either.  I don't necessary view it as bragging - I am just more interested in discussing other topics and hearing about what other people are up to.  However, I have realized that if you want to stay in academia, you have to figure out how to promote yourself (for a lack of a better term), make people aware of what you are up to, and ensure that people think of you when they think about scholars with your research interests. (I also realize while I don't like talking about my accomplishments, it is part of my job and I need to do it even though I think it is kinda boring and silly.)  
For social media, I have seen academics using Twitter to talk about their professional interests/accomplishments and using Facebook to talk more about their personal lives. This is how I tend to use these platforms too.  I rarely use LinkedIn - just to keep my CV up to date, but that is about it.
In terms of what other people think when you post items - I feel fairly confident to say that you won't be able to please everyone so you need to figure out what you are comfortable with. The way that I have seen accomplished academics do this well is they post about their big accomplishments and perhaps offer some insights into the accomplishment, but they also mix it up by posting about their colleagues' accomplishments, post articles to lead to thoughtful discussions, etc.  So I guess what I am saying is their social media presence is not just a highlight reel of themselves which may feel too much like they are a very pushy salesman for themselves (!), but they mix it up and talk about other cool work going on in the field which is nice and refreshing.

You could request such a thing but my experience is that most building managers/supers don't really want to spend their time doing this and many of them don't know how to do such a thing. But it will depend a lot on the market. If there are 5+ people viewing each unit, then why would they bother with the virtual tour thing when they can easily rent to someone who will do things the normal way.
You said that you were planning on getting an apartment with a roommate---will your roommate arrive in town before you? Maybe they can check it out in person instead. Or, maybe a friendly grad student in your new program would be willing to come see one or two places in person on your behalf. If none of that works and you don't want to take the risk on it not being a real place, you can hire a broker to do this on your behalf. I've not hired such a person before but typically they charge $300 or so per day and they would be willing to do research, call up places and view them all for you if you are going to pay them for all those hours. But some of them would be willing to just spend the day visiting places, taking pictures and sending them to you in a report at the end of the day. 
It's not cheap, but if having human eyes on a location is critical for you, $300-$500 is definitely a lot cheaper than flying out there yourself and better than losing your security deposit to a scam (or being stuck in a long lease).

What do you mean? The NSF GRFP stipend is basically a salary. I don't think the GRFP comes with a research grant or anything like that. You get the stipend as your salary and the school gets up to $12000 to offset your tuition costs. So, you can spend it on whatever you want.
Each school will have different policies on how their own funds to support you will change if you hold the NSF GRFP. At my PhD program, the annual stipend for all students was $31,000 in my final year. However, if you hold a NSF GRFP, the NSF GRFP 34,000/year stipend replaces the 31,000 from the program. So you would get nothing from the program---it would all come from NSF. 
Each field is also different----in my field, a student is never expected to pay for research costs out of their own salary. So we would never use the NSF GRFP to pay for the things you've listed. Maybe if you have a really weird special case where you somehow kept your original department funding and got the $34,000 on top of that...

We have a relatively small group. also, this guy has a history... he was basically forced out of his last group for reasons we don't know. I think that was a bad call by my adviser to take him in without knowing exactly why he was forced out in the first place. i have a friend from a different group who talks about this guy and some of the things he said. and based upon my interaction with him, it just seems like he's off somehow, like he wasn't socialized properly growing up or something. He's also got what carol dweck would call a "fixed mindset." All of this makes me think his value system is completely different, and furthermore, it's very hard to change it through intervention. So I'm leaving this one alone..

Your instincts are right. Putting someone as a coauthor just to increase citation/paper count is academic dishonesty. It has never happened to me but I have heard of it happening. I can understand why people would want to do this and why it might be tempting. I would personally not accept this "offer". Whether you act further (reporting it to various offices etc.) is up to you. 
That said, there are certainly many instances in my field where there are many coauthors on a paper and there is a huge range/difference in effort from each co-author. However, there is always some actual real honest contribution from each coauthor, even if it is very small. 
As I said above, what you do beyond declining is up to you and you are the best judge of the situation since none of us here have context. It's perfectly fine to say it's not your problem as you are also a student and fairly junior in the academic world and walk away after saying no. You could discuss this further with this lab mate to address the problem with their approach. If you think the lab mate is ignorant of what is / isn't ethical then maybe this could be a good approach. You could discuss this with your PI or report it more anonymously to a research ethics office. One thing that some schools have is a tip line / whistleblower policy where you could ask for someone from this office to come and give a presentation during group meeting about academic best practices. If it's a big enough group, people don't have to know it's you and the person you're targeting won't know they are being targeted. Also, when this office comes, they often try to emphasize that they regularly visit groups across campus from time to time, not necessarily because of something that happened. Just some thoughts/examples.

Thank you for all the help and advice! 
I have decided to move in around a week or 2 earlier before my program starts, however I plan to sign the lease either a month or 2 beforehand (if they hold it for that long). I have currently narrowed my list down to 15 apartments, 10 of which I do plan to tour within a month (which will be 60 days before I move in). Availability for most of these places will be early June, late July, so when I visit, if I can get my #1 choice right then and there, I plan to sign same day (or following day). I already have my list of top 10, the tour is just designed for me to be able to concretely organize the list. I don't think housing is super competitive here, but it is still a bit competitive from everything I've seen so far, so I do plan to look at the paperwork ahead of time and go prepared. 
In terms of furniture, it really depends on the place I get. I have decided on an apartment, but the size is important (i.e. small studio vs. big 1 bedroom). If it's a small studio, I plan to buy all my furniture there (and that means everything, chairs, tables, beds, tvs, etc.). I will probably just ship my sheets, pots and pans and whatnot via greyhound or something. I actually like sleeping on the ground, so that's not an issue for me. If it's a big 1 bedroom, I am thinking of getting a pods and having everything (furniture and all) shipped out there. Pods delivers same day you arrive, so I should have no issue with furniture there. Plus since I'm moving in a week earlier, I should have plenty of time for any required adjustments. 
I have also not really been asked/told about any references from these places. I assume they will tell me these things when I actually plan to sign, so I will have that prepared ahead of time. Thank you again for all the help and advice!

You're likely to have all kinds of problems, since both first and last name are often required fields in many (many!) online applications and forms. You shouldn't have trouble entering the US since all of your documents will be in order, but you can expect some trouble with some bureaucracies. You may need human assistance in places where others could just use an online form. It should all be resolvable, but it may be a pain. This thread may be helpful: 
 

This is common, both inside and outside of academia. Most entities that seek applications rarely notify the people they don't select. There is a difference between grad school applications and a job application, namely, you don't pay to apply to a job, but the department doesn't get the application money although they are the one that set the timeline for decisions. i.e. I am not sure what you mean by "they just want [your] application money".
Later on, if you apply to academic jobs, you will not hear anything at all if you don't get the job. Many places wait until the hired person starts before they close the hiring file and the system generates an auto rejection message. For some of my friends, this is years after the job application. Sometimes school does this too and you get a notification when the school year begins in the fall, or over the summer when the school finally closes the previous year's system and starts up the next year. Unless you got very far in the process, you should not expect any notification at all, much less a personalized letter.
As for the content, what else is there to say other than you were not accepted. You weren't offering your application up for an evaluation and feedback. The materials submitted are solely for the school to decide if you would be a good fit, so there should be no expectation of anything other than a decision. 
Yes, it sucks to get a rejection in this way, but it is neither unprofessional nor ridiculous. I got some nicely written rejection letters as well. I don't think I felt any different about those than the ones that just updated an online portal. 

This is common, both inside and outside of academia. Most entities that seek applications rarely notify the people they don't select. There is a difference between grad school applications and a job application, namely, you don't pay to apply to a job, but the department doesn't get the application money although they are the one that set the timeline for decisions. i.e. I am not sure what you mean by "they just want [your] application money".
Later on, if you apply to academic jobs, you will not hear anything at all if you don't get the job. Many places wait until the hired person starts before they close the hiring file and the system generates an auto rejection message. For some of my friends, this is years after the job application. Sometimes school does this too and you get a notification when the school year begins in the fall, or over the summer when the school finally closes the previous year's system and starts up the next year. Unless you got very far in the process, you should not expect any notification at all, much less a personalized letter.
As for the content, what else is there to say other than you were not accepted. You weren't offering your application up for an evaluation and feedback. The materials submitted are solely for the school to decide if you would be a good fit, so there should be no expectation of anything other than a decision. 
Yes, it sucks to get a rejection in this way, but it is neither unprofessional nor ridiculous. I got some nicely written rejection letters as well. I don't think I felt any different about those than the ones that just updated an online portal. 

This is common, both inside and outside of academia. Most entities that seek applications rarely notify the people they don't select. There is a difference between grad school applications and a job application, namely, you don't pay to apply to a job, but the department doesn't get the application money although they are the one that set the timeline for decisions. i.e. I am not sure what you mean by "they just want [your] application money".
Later on, if you apply to academic jobs, you will not hear anything at all if you don't get the job. Many places wait until the hired person starts before they close the hiring file and the system generates an auto rejection message. For some of my friends, this is years after the job application. Sometimes school does this too and you get a notification when the school year begins in the fall, or over the summer when the school finally closes the previous year's system and starts up the next year. Unless you got very far in the process, you should not expect any notification at all, much less a personalized letter.
As for the content, what else is there to say other than you were not accepted. You weren't offering your application up for an evaluation and feedback. The materials submitted are solely for the school to decide if you would be a good fit, so there should be no expectation of anything other than a decision. 
Yes, it sucks to get a rejection in this way, but it is neither unprofessional nor ridiculous. I got some nicely written rejection letters as well. I don't think I felt any different about those than the ones that just updated an online portal. 

This is common, both inside and outside of academia. Most entities that seek applications rarely notify the people they don't select. There is a difference between grad school applications and a job application, namely, you don't pay to apply to a job, but the department doesn't get the application money although they are the one that set the timeline for decisions. i.e. I am not sure what you mean by "they just want [your] application money".
Later on, if you apply to academic jobs, you will not hear anything at all if you don't get the job. Many places wait until the hired person starts before they close the hiring file and the system generates an auto rejection message. For some of my friends, this is years after the job application. Sometimes school does this too and you get a notification when the school year begins in the fall, or over the summer when the school finally closes the previous year's system and starts up the next year. Unless you got very far in the process, you should not expect any notification at all, much less a personalized letter.
As for the content, what else is there to say other than you were not accepted. You weren't offering your application up for an evaluation and feedback. The materials submitted are solely for the school to decide if you would be a good fit, so there should be no expectation of anything other than a decision. 
Yes, it sucks to get a rejection in this way, but it is neither unprofessional nor ridiculous. I got some nicely written rejection letters as well. I don't think I felt any different about those than the ones that just updated an online portal. 

Your employer (i.e. the school/department) should provide you with all necessary supplies (e.g. textbooks for the course, etc.).
But I find it's fun (for me, as a TA) to have some non-necessary things to make the job easier. For example, I get a nice pen that I like using so grading feels less tedious. I also get stickers for my students' homework.

I'd second the advice to take the time to recharge before grad school.
But if you really want to do something over the summer, I think it's better to use this time for getting ahead on research instead of classes. When the semester begins, you'll find that classes expand to take up as much time as you will let it. The only way I was able to carve out time for research during my coursework years was to set a time limit on how much time to devote to classes and learn to submit imperfect homework. So, depending on how your program matches you up with thesis advisors, maybe talk to professors that you would be interested in working with instead. You might even be able to arrange for a summer RAship so you can start funded/paid work in the weeks/months before the term. I find that the first few weeks/months in a new project benefits the most from having a full 40 hour work week to devote to reading and new research. It's really hard (for me) to kick off a new project with only 10 hours a week because there are classes going on too.
This advice doesn't apply if your program doesn't have students begin research until the first summer or 2nd year. In addition, another exception may be if you come from a non-physics background or have some missing courses (or did poorly in some important areas as an undergrad) so you want to ensure you have the right foundations for the qualifying exam.