Thecrabman

There are lots of merits to an older, well established profs. Younger profs are also more ambitiious though to make a name for themselves, tenure, etc. Tristan Lambert worked in David MacMillan's group when he was relativitly unknown as an assistant professor at Berkeley. It probably a mix of name value and school reputation, but also, I think its largely the grad student who shapes their own future.

But like YaBoyAR did, it would be a good idea to contact older profs to see if they are still accepting grad students. Though many group pages will say if they are accepting or not.

I never bothered to contact any of my POIs before my applications. I dug through the group pages and recently published work of those profs I was interested in. I made mention of my POIs and some of their projects I liked in my SOP. If you get accepted you will most likely visit and meet them in person.

Heard back from 3/5 of the universities I applied to, but its been a while since the last one.

I don't understand how someone gets 5 pubs in the undergrad. It's pretty impressive.

From the results page, it looks like MIT has started accepting applicants.

I recieved an email fron UC Irvine on Friday, they have started admitting grads.