How relevant are non-top conference papers to a PhD CS admit panel? (USA)
Let's assume a paper in a B conference. In the CORE system, from which the division into A*/A/B/C stems, B conferences are literally called &quot;good to very good&quot;. A publication in a B conference is a nice CV entry and definitely valuable. How valuable might depend on the particular conference, as not everybody shares the same opinion about all conferences. Ranking decisions of the CORE committee certainly have been disputed in the past. In my area, there are fairly good conferences which have not even been ranked by CORE, despite being organized by top researchers and being around for more than 15 years.
But it will also depend on the subfield of CS. There are particular &quot;hot&quot; subfields that have crazy expectations about a PhD applicant's research profile. There is an interesting blog entry from someone who published at an A* conference in AI as an independent researcher to get a PhD position (and ultimately does not recommend anyone to follow that path). Another BSc graduate with a B conference paper might have a hard time competing against that.