grilledcheesegal

Hello! I am planning on applying to PhD programs in Information Science/Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) this upcoming fall, and am really apprehensive about how my undergraduate grades are going to reflect on me. I went to school at a decently ranked public university, and long story short, ended up with a pretty subpar GPA at the end of it. I switched majors a bunch of times and was not focused on my work at all until I got involved in HCI research my junior year, which was something that I realized I actually enjoyed. My undergrad GPA stands at a 3.01 (even after retaking several classes ?), but my major of study was economics which is not at all relevant to what I want to pursue today. After graduation, I managed to get admitted into an HCI M.S. program at another smaller institution. Right now at the end of my first year I'm sitting at a 3.86 GPA, and my GRE scores are 162 V 161 Q 4.5 AWA. I've been involved in research continuously from my junior year of undergrad to now at this new school, and have 1 publication in the conference proceedings of a pretty good HCI concerfence in which I'm first author. I've also received a stipended research fellowship at the University of Michigan's School of Information where I'll be working under a faculty mentor for the summer. I know this definitely does NOT paint the full picture, but I was hoping I could get an honest opinion on whether or not I could still be competitive for highly-ranked programs. The schools I'm planning on applying to are: UMichigan Ann Arbor (my #1 pick), UMaryland College-Park, Indiana University Bloomington, UWisconsin Madison, U Illinois Urbana-Champaign, UT Austin, Rice University, Northwestern (reeeaach), and Drexel. Thank you soo much for your help, and any other target school suggestions would also be *much* appreciated!