What should a student from a lesser known college prioritize, such as CGPA, internships, or research, to win scholarships to universities in the USA or Canada?

You should lead with research output and strong internships rather than obsessing over your CGPA, because admissions committees cannot easily benchmark an unfamiliar college's grading rigor, but a published paper or a credible internship speaks for itself everywhere. Aim to publish or at least preprint your work on platforms like arXiv, and pursue internships or projects at recognizable organizations to validate your skills globally. Treat your CGPA as a baseline you need to clear, not the centerpiece of your application.

How To Rank Your Priorities

Concrete Actions To Take This Year

• Cold email professors at your target universities with your published or in progress work to explore research assistantship opportunities.
• Build a public GitHub profile with well documented, end to end projects, including architecture notes and live links where possible.
• Seek recommendation letters from recognized scientists or industry leaders outside your college, in addition to your own professors.
• If your college ranks strictly, get an official rank certificate showing you are in the top one to five percent of your class.

My Advice

Spend the next two to three months turning any ongoing project into a preprint or a conference submission, since a single credible publication will do more for your scholarship chances than another point of CGPA. Pair that with a clear, professor specific research proposal in your statement of purpose so the fit between your work and their lab is obvious.