EE: Research or GPA ?

[SP123]

I am an international applicant from an unknown undergrad program, planning to apply for PhD programs in Signal Processing for the Fall 2013 session. The popular view on PhD admissions is that its the research experience that matters in the admission process. But, after a lot of personal research on the admissions process, and a few interviews, I have discovered that people who make into top 20-25 PhD programs in US are those who were either among the top 2% in their undergrad (usually without any publications) or had a Masters degree with thesis and a few publications. Because I am an undergrad, I am concerned about the roughly top 2% policy of top PhD programs regarding undergrads.

I am among the top 15 - 20 % of my undergrad batch (3.67 gpa). Do you people think I can compensate for my apparent academic non-awesomeness by publishing at reasonable-to-impressive conferences/journals ? I am currently a Research Assistant at my undergrad institution, with 2 publications in the pipeline, but I am not sure now if even publishing will make me eligible for top 25 EE PhD programs in US. Another problem is that I may be lacking the math coursework for a highly mathematical area like Signal Processing, so I am not sure if publications will fill that gap (I have math coursework in Calculus, Differential Equations, Linear Algebra, Probability and Stochastic Processes).

[ghanada]

I fall into the second category you mentioned. I had a low undergrad gpa, high Masters gpa, with a thesis and a few publications.

Assuming your GRE scores are top 90% or so, with your GPA and publications, I would think you should have a good shot at top 25 schools. Top 10 is another story, and will be a toss up every time. But I would definitely think you can grab at least a handful of acceptances in the top 15-25 range. Your math background is pretty standard for undergrads so I don't think you will be deficient or anything. However, you will be competing against Masters level people that have several courses in grad level DSP courses. Also, keep in mind that LORs are pretty important and having strong letters from people that are well known can also help.

The best advice is to just apply to lots of places and in a large range. Apply to plenty of schools in the top 25 but you should also apply to some others ranked lower. Just make sure they are programs you would truly want to goto and don't think of them as safety schools.