I have absolutely no idea what’s going on in this thread, (just started reading here on page 12 lol).
I didn’t do an iota of research in undergrad. I didn’t have that luxury because I had to work full time and there was a disconnect with the labs on campus. I got into a masters program just fine, though admittedly it was a professional rather than academic program. Either way, I began to do research while a masters student and then used THAT to get into a PhD program- as did the majority of people I’ve met at a PhD level here at U of M. Very few came straight from undergrad.
As for publication? Ha. Even if you manage to get a paper accepted, they can often take a year or more to publish. So you’d have to start publishing before senior year. Using publications as any kind of metric is just dumb.
For my PhD program, they usually expect you to have 1-2 publications under your belt before graduation. Of course, this varies, but that is what is expected (NOT tied to graduation requirements). Getting scooped isn’t a thing and the placement rate in some sort of position is 100% in the last few years.