So, I just finished my master's in Computer Science, and I plan to apply to some PhD programs later this year.
The review process works in 2 phases: during 1st phase the paper goes to a group of reviewers, and if all reviews are sufficiently negative, the paper is rejected. Otherwise, it advances into the 2nd phase, where it is reviewed by another group. According to the conference, approx 55 % of papers pass through 1st phase, and 25 % pass through 2nd phase. This is a strong conference, and there were initially approx. 7k submitted papers.
I'd like to know if merely getting my paper to advance in this type of review process would help in some way if mentioned in a PhD application, even if the paper gets rejected after 2nd phase. For context, my field of research is Artificial Intelligence.
Edit: I'm going to apply to PhD programs in the US, and perhaps Canada, if that matters.