TMhamster

I personally think that the practice of sending emails to POIs is important. Like many here have said, you save yourself some money by knowing which professors are not accepting a student. Most importantly, IMO, emailing them gives you the opportunity to build a little rapport with them. I have received a handful of extremely positive replies from professors, especially when you tell them about how well your research interests align with theirs and how well you might compliment their lab (a handful of POIs said they look forward to reading my application). I even went to the extent of visiting their website and reading their publications just to make sure that I express my interests properly. Now, just gotta wait it out and see if my efforts paid dividend .