certainly!
Be mindful of the Arcane Abilities.
Penetration, if you take offensive spells and need help to penetrate.
Finesse, for Imaginem and finesse based attacks, also effects casting speed for counter spells
Concentration, if you take Magic Addiction as a flaw and if a lot of your spells are D:Concentration put some points here. I know it's not Arcane.
Code of Hermes, knowing what the law is can be helpful, although people unfamiliar with the setting might get extra help here.
Lores
Both Magic and Faerie Lore are important to help identify the beasties you face. May not want to take both, but one is good and hope someone else takes the other side.
Order of Hermes Lore, everyone should have this.
Finally, echoing on the do not build generalists statement Timothy Ferguson made, be careful not to spread out too far from your initial concept. It's rather easy to build a generalist without intending to do so, because of the smorgasbord that is Ars Magica. I think it make sense to spread out after gauntlet, and when you begin advancing a few years at a time, but this advice can depends upon the pace of the saga.
I'm by no means an expert in this field, but from my observations I would say this: generalists are somewhat boring and are less effective at everything compared to a specialist, but you don't want to specialize to the point that you're useless in every other way. My first character is very good at putting fire spears through the chests of his enemies, but he's also great in the lab, a good orator, and an apt teacher. It's fun to be the only one in the group who can do this or that, as well, so make sure you talk to the other members of your group about what they want to do before you all go filling the same niche.
My advice is to focus on what your character can do, rather than what they could do. By that, I mean that players, especially new players, tend to get lost in a half-dozen unfulfilled dreams, Virtues & magical ideas that will only yield fruit after time. It is nice to have goals, but it is suggested that they character have plenty of things he can do right away in play.
So what do you think is the smart way to spend 120XP on Arts?
Having played generalists, I do not think such strong statement is necessarily true. having an area where you shine is always nice, but that might mean that you have a value in 6+3 (puissant), not that you need to invest heavily there in XP during character creation. Generalists will tend to suck at Penetration, but can be good in 3 or 4 areas while more one trick ponnies will have problems facing certain adventures.
Regarding this, try not to play your magus all the time. it gets boring really fast and a team of all magi tends to be too powerful. The game goes very fast into Marvel Magica territory. All magi also refguses to explore other aspects of the game that are really good, like grog and companion stories and their usefulness. But this is gameplay, not character creation. In character creation terms, the idea would be not to create a character that will be played all the time,. but one that leaves his house only in certain moments. Wanderlust magi should be rather rare or nonexistant in the troupe.
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A character at gauntlet as 240 experience points for Arts and Abilities, and they go surprisingly quick when you consider:
[tableborder][tr][th]Ability Score[/th][th]XP[/th][/tr]
[tr][td]Latin 4[/td][td]50[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]Magic Theory 3[/td][td]30[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]Artes Liberales 1[/td][td]5[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]Parma Magica 1[/td][td]5[/td][/tr]
[tr][th]Total[/th] [th]90[/th][/tr][/tableborder]
There have been a few times, that I've thought that the basic curriculum should just include the minimum requirements listed above and free up or add another 90 xp. Meaning apprenticeship provides 240 xp to be used as desired and 90 xp is provided to be used to acquire the following Abilities at the minimum level. Of course, there are some good character design reasons to skip certain abilities or at least make them lower...but those are pretty specific to the character concept...
That's 90 of the suggest 120 experience points for abilities. Leaves 30 experience points for other stuff, like the Lores I mentioned above and Arcane abilities to take advantage of spells or mitigate the negative effects of virtues.
Which is why Virtues like Educated and Skilled Parens are worth so much, and why so many experienced players add a few years of advancement onto their magi, if the saga allows.
My One Tip, focusing on what your character can do, can be extended to sonsider being a Generalist versus a Specialist. I advise aim for a little of both. Have a tight focus of Arts where you can accomplish two or three decent mid range spells (level 20-25), and then sprinkle around the various other arts and take some low level useful everyday spells (level 15 or less). You then have some good stuff when it is your moment to shine, and a bunch of little stuff that you can always be using. Cantrips add flavor 
To these ends, I also suggest dividing apprentice xp roughly even between Arts and Abilities. Some players have a tendency to drop a lot of resources on a single trick they can do right away, which then hardly ever comes into play &/or is way out of step with the rest of the saga.
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Good idea.
Well, character creation session done. It was pretty hectic with five characters to go through, four players new to the system, and perhaps a guideline bent here or there. In all though, people seemed to have fun. The tips came in useful (one player really liked the Skilled Parens Virtue that was mentioned here) but what I found was that the players brought definite ideas of what they wanted to do. They were all really excited by spontaneous magic, surprised that they could take some handy minor spells even if they didn't have the Arts, and all pretty much focusing on some narrow Technique and Form combinations each.
Doing the characters together was a lot of work, but it did mean that we could hear what was going on and avoid covering the same ground.
So, a successful session and my one tip:
Go through the process as methodically as you can. As tempted as you are to skip ahead to picking spells and so forth, stick with the process.
And as it's my thread, tip two:
When buying Abilities for the various stages, try to break down the choices. So Early Childhood, buy three Abilities at level 2for a total of 45. If apprenticeship starts at 10, you can buy two Abilities at level 3 and one at level 2 for 75xp. Then buy the basic magus package for 90 out of your 120 and then you have two more Abilities at level 2 to buy.
It's simplistic, but quick.
This last bit follows (in a disguised way) the Grogs (and apprentices?) ability packages. I like it. It prevents you overextending your choices, that is something I tend to be extremely guilty of doing.
Perhaps, perhaps not.
I used t ocreate magi fairly spcialized at character creation, and then always later on feel the need to spead out. So in recent years I've come to avoid the overspecialized magus and prefer spreading out on several Forms.
Look at it this way: If you are very specialized you'll rock total awesomeness...in a few situations. And it may or may not drive you nuts to be useless the rest of the time. Granted, need may drive you to become very creative in the use of your speciality.
But seeing less specialized magi be of better use almost all of the time, by spreading out Arts and knowing a lot of low level, useful utility spells eventyally changed my mindset. Yes, the generalist has sucking bad Penetration, but not all spells need be cast at a resisting target. Mundanes, for one, don't need this. Nor to useful spells to boost yourself, the grogs or make minor changes to the envirnoment.
Just keep that in mind.
Indeed. Generalists are viable and can be lots of fun. Unless you require constant use of medium range sponts or penetration, you can play a generalist (that usually has more diversity in spells, so does not need such a constant use of sponts,and can spont a lot more diverse spells, even if with the use of fatigue most of the time) and be perfectly fine. if you do not go magic-blazing against supernatural creatures you do not need massive casting totals. And you can use combat options that do not require penetration or achieve it by simply having a very low casting total. ReHe5 will propel an arrow or spear towards a target after all.
The "specialists are better" statement is dodgy at best IMO. What they tend to be is more centered in a strong character concept, since it is easy to build a character concept and personality around a specialization. This is what I generally do, after all. Still, generalists are viable and can be a fun and strong character option.
You've seen my generalist. He's a schmuck in combat (against anything with a resistance score anyway), but outside of combat, he's extremely flexible.
Even I'm surprised at how flexible.
Make sure you know the house rules before you make the character.
My one tip would be: remember that a troupe is more than the sum of its parts.
Do not design characters in isolation, independently of other characters and/or of the saga you want to tell. Instead, try to have players converge on an idea of what the saga is going to be about, and then have each discuss how his character would fit in the big picture, and how that character is supposed to be tied to other characters. Only after this "network" is in place, go for the number crunching.
My take on this: A generalist isn't a generalist - they're a Rego Vim specialist who has 3-4 levels in other Arts and a decent MT score, who uses effects in their Talisman to automatically add Range, Duration, penetration (via antimagic) and casting totals (via TeFo bonuses) to their non-fatiguing spont spells. It's fairly easy to get a 25 in all casting totals that way, which allows you to pretty much do whatever low-level spont magic you want.
EDIT - or go with a MuVi specialist, and have a Greater Talisman that can affect spells cast through it.
However - that's a more experienced way of building - I wouldn't recommend that to a beginning player.
My take on the practical spending of points is similar to Jonathan.Link's - although my interpretation is to do a simplified version of "the longhand way" of character creation:
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Assume the character learns Latin through Immersion while being a lab assistant. So 6 seasons of what would normally be 12 points of Exposure become 48 points of Latin. So just charge 12 points, and give them the language instead.
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2 points of seasonal exposure is actually 3 points of exposure, if you use the Correspondence rules, representing the magi leaving written notes, having the apprentice write up summaries and lab work, practicing their penmanship, etc.
So that's extra points you can spend on MT, Philosophae, Artes Liberales, or TeFo.
I guess you're talking about the compulsory 90 xp out of 120 (or 240) to spend on abilities? I haven't actually started a saga with that HR, but if I do start one with just newly gauntled magi, I think I would. What happens is there tends to be a lot of people taking Educated and/or Skilled Parens. And I don't mind that, I guess I'd just like there to be a bit of differentiation in the apprenticeship beyond the Arts and spells.
And I'd probably include another 5 xp for Order of Hermes Lore, because every magus should have that ability. Every House has favored abilities and when the compulsory 90/95 comes from the recommended 120, you have few left to spend on any of those abilities, let alone abilities important to the character. Of course, you can take xp away from the Arts, I know, but it violates the recommendation. Perhaps this is why so many sagas have a few years of post-gauntlet development before play begins.
I'd add 15 XP in Covenant Lore too. You've been there for 15 years, man - you should have at least a basic familiarity with it, right?!
I tend create all my PC's on a per-season basis, simply because it allows me to discover/plot out who they are. And the Troupe I have has a number of house rules for seasonal activities, which tend to reward doing so. However, while I enjoy doing this, others in the Troupe don't care to, and when they look at my sheet they end up going "whoah, where'd the extra 600 XP come from?" (answer: Roots/Branches, Correspondence, language Immersion rules, and learning virtues.) As such, I tend to recommend that people simply take Latin 4 for "free" (or just spend 12 points on it, representing 6 seasons of immersion), and take an extra 40 points of Correspondence XP to spend on Magic Theory, Parma, Artes Liberales, and Philosophae.
Which is within the "longhand" way of doing the character, but allows folks who don't want to bother with doing all the seasonal work to take advantage of the easiest XP sources. Which somewhat addresses the issues you bring up - everyone seems to need to take Gifted Paren or Educated in order to have the character they want.