I have a good GRE (Quant 170/170, Verbal 163/170) score and an average GPA (3.44/4.0) . Being an international student, i’m worried about the expenses as well. I would wait for a year to apply if the international publication if it’ll increase my chances of getting admitted in a better college. Hence, My question as to whether i should wait or not, when getting an international publication in itself a difficult task?
You don’t need publications to get into graduate school. It’s like the cherry on top - it’s nice, but it’s not necessary. Will it increase your chances of getting into a better graduate program? Yes, it will - anything good does. But that doesn’t mean that you can’t get into a great graduate school without one. It’s up to you whether you want to wait a year to try to get that, although I would only wait a year IF you already have a publication in progress - probably already submitted to a journal. Journal articles take a long time to go from finished to published and having an article submitted won’t give you a significant bump over not having any at all.