EE Undergrad,Delhi Technological University, entering 4th(senior) year
Field of interest:Power Electronics, Power systems

Finalist, overall 5th in International future energy challenge 2015
organized by IEEE USA and many other societies held in University of sheffield,UK
http://www.energychallenge.org/
Departmental rank 1, 79.8%
Head of reaserch, IEEE DTU student chapter
Formulated some small scale projects for Technical festivals in my junior years like “Analog sinusoidal pulse width modulated wave generator" , “Coil Gun using Thyristor" and many others
Creative head, DTU TIMES- official newspaper of DTU
Graphic designer since my junior year.

Have strong recommendations from the professor of my university.

Universities being considered:

North Carolina State University
University of Connecticut
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
UT Austin
CMU
Michigan State University
TAMU

I dont have any worthy research internships or paper as I was too involved in the competition. I do want to go for a reaserch career in the future
and was thinking to apply for masters. But only last week, i got to know that i can directly apply for Phd after
my graduation, and i am pretty interested in it.

Looking at my profile which is devoid of any internships and papers but a prestigious international competition, should i
apply for phd right after my graduation for FALL 2016, in which case i will be giving GRE in the coming months and focus on universities rather
than my reaserch work.

or

Should i continue my reaserch work, look for a internship under some good professor then apply for phd 1 year after my graduation
i.e., for fall 2017.

Will you be applying for advertised programs or directly contacting professors? Do you need funding? In the US, often professors give studentships to people they know, so considering an internship would be useful.