BobDole

Okay. That sounds similar to the workflow that I did. I can't imagine not having at least a few sentences that calls out why you think the program is a good fit (and which POIs specifically). But it is interesting how much the advice for this whole process is all over the place. Fortunately, two of my references are on selection committees for their respective universities, so I was able to get insider tips that I had a lot more confidence in.

Baller123, can you explain what you mean by "didn't give the application the time it deserved"? I applied to 11 programs, and -most- of the applications were basically the same. Some, like Stanford, did have substantial additional question prompts (I'd be hard-pressed to call them essays). I did not apply to Columbia, so I can't comment on that one specifically. However, I'm just curious about the time and energy you put into each individual application -ignoring the time to paste in your history and the duplicated part of your SoP.