ConGrUenCy

Wrong again... A reputable employer will likely be funding the university's research, so they know exactly what's going on. Intel funds a lot of research in the digital VLSI/Comp architecture, so they know which university is doing good work in that particular field.

Umm, doesn't that depend on the field of EE you're applying? JHU is awful for VLSI but great for medical electronics, so this poll is worthless due to your lack of specificity.

I recently took the GRE and got 168 in quant(97%), 163 in verbal(91%) and 4.5 in the AWA(73%).

Did you email the POI before or after you applied?

You had research experience and publications from your master's?

Even if you try now but can't get research experience before submitting your application, should you mention that you tried but couldn't get it or just not mention it at all? Will lack of it make it impossible to get into a phd program?

Your scores are good enough for any CS program. Improving your scores any further won't make a difference, so spend your time focusing on other parts of your application. Oh, and congrats on your great GRE score!

It took 9 days for my score to come out.

You tried contacting them?

Oops, sorry, didn't see this was in linguistics.

Check out Magoosh. Really good prep material and it costs $99. Their prep closely resembles what you'll see on the real GRE.

Hmm, you might like embedded systems and robotics- those are popular course among electrical engineers who enjoy programming.

Take a look at http://magoosh.com/gre/2012/gre-vocabulary-ebook/

I bought a premium account and it was great. I gave my GRE two days back and got 331. I got 168 in quant and 163 in verbal. The Magoosh videos are very helpful and the questions are very similar to what you'll see on the GRE.