Preparing for Grad School

I'm currently getting all my stuff together to apply to grad school, and I figured I'd see what this community had to say on the matter. For those of you who went to grad school, what preparations did you make for applying, aside from the required acquisition of transcripts and recommendation letters? Like I've heard that you should try connecting with the faculty that you want to be on your advisory committee. Did you do anything above and beyond to make your application more competitive?