Contacting a POI

I have had questions about reaching out to POIs throughout the admission process and I have received very different suggestions ranging from "Yes, definitely reach out to them and let them know who you are" to "No, reaching out will not have an impact to admission"

I think both of these suggestions are reasonable since each school does things very differently, thus it will really be dependent on where you are applying.

So far I know that specifically Purdue doesn't assign a advisor until you have started attending classes, thus asking around beforehand might not help a lot.

But I have also read about how some people reached out to a POI and eventually received admission specifically related to working with them.

I am wondering if people who have received admission could share their experience as to which school you got accepted into and how has contacting/not contacting a POI impacted your admission. This would be a great resource for people applying to specific school and what they should prepare.
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