Thanks so much for sharing this info!
One thing I was surprised by was that you didn't really mention undergraduate research experience as a major discriminating factor. Is this fair? More specifically for my case, should one/two semester(s) and one summer of research experience be sufficient for a competitive application? Would this be more or less true even for top programs?
If you wouldn't mind elaborating a bit further, I'd also be curious to hear how the "type of applicant" (domestic/international in US/etc) "sets the expectation for what [you] will be looking for in the application". Personally, I'm an international student that did undergrad in the US.