One of my friends had an excellent GPA and GRE from the same institution he wanted to attend the phd program and he had some tough time since he didn't have any publications. (he eventually got into it). The best thing to do is to talk to the faculty directly to find out if you meet all the competencies. If unsure then join the masters program and then demonstrate that you're qualified for phd. And as thugged_out mentioned it's the ranking of the school/college within the university that matters and not the university itself. Check out http://www.usnews.com/usnews/edu/grad/rankings/phdhum/phdhumindex_brief.php to see if your college/school/department is listed.