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Hi! Just want to start a thread for HCI PhD applications this year! Maybe we can discuss about programs/interviews/results and anxieties here? Who also applied for PhD in HCI this year? What is your area of interest? I noticed some people already got interviews for CS PhDs... Maybe the only thing we can do for now is to stop checking mailbox and relax and focus more on our work at hand??

Hi, I've been seeing some posts on the survey page of people getting interviews for the Fall 2018 PhD program. I couldn't establish a pattern looking at last year's posts so I thought I'd post here. Are interviews a definitive step or do people get accepted without interviews? Do people get rejected out of interviews? The program's info on the site does not mention interviews at all but a lot of people seem to go through one. Hope someone can bring some insight. Thanks!

Hello, GradCafe, I have 5 (holy moly) offers from various HCI (Human-Centered Computing, Information Science) programs around the country. I would love some feedback on making the decision. I love the cohort and students at each, so culture is not a huge factor for me. Although I am leaning towards two schools, in particular, I will post my top 3 and the situation at each: UC Irvine (Informatics): When I applied initially, this was my top choice. However, I was not paired to be advised by the faculty I had applied to work with, and was assigned to a new junior faculty member who has not published much in the HCI space (ACM conferences and such). He seems very excited to work with me, but I am a bit nervous about establishing connections in the field and gaining internship and career help because this faculty member is very new and not well known. I have reached out a bit to other people I wished to work with and they are currently at capacity or on sabbatical. I also love the weather and the housing situation is great there, though the city of Irvine is stale. UC Boulder (Information Science): I am paired with faculty who have very close research interests in mind and we seem to click really well. The program itself is junior, only 2 years old, but the two faculty are founding members and are well-known in the field. There are also some HCI heavy weights who are in the program already. I loved CU Boulder when I visited, because of the climate, proximity to both nature and Denver, and walkablility to restaurants. I am mostly nervous that there have been no PhD graduates yet, thus no internship or job data. Boulder's housing situation seems to be the most problematic of all the schools. University of Michigan (Information): One of my faculty pairs in particular is a great research match and has ideas for my project I would love to do. There is another faculty member I am not paired with but really like as well. The funding package is also amazing here. Faculty also great really great research and job connections as it is an old program with a great track record. I like the walkability of Ann Arbor, as well. The only major downside is the weather and location. It is pretty far from the bigger cities and real nature (plus, it's flat). The snow in the winter is the worst part, though. And my partner has expressed really not wanting to move north. I would love some insight from everyone here on these decisions. Thanks so much!

I got into the University of Michigan's Master's of Science in Information program, and I'm thinking about studying the computational social sciences track. If I do this, I would still like apply to PhD programs in clinical or counseling psych during my last year at UM. Do y'all think admissions would look favorably upon the degree? If you have any advice on how to stay a competitive applicant, I would greatly appreciate it.

So I'm waiting it out and getting a little anxious so I scraped data from the grad cafe website and found: Average wait time between interviews and earliest reported decision (18.8 Days) Average date of earliest decision notification (Feb 17th) Average day of week of earliest notification (Wednesday) You can check it out here: https://goo.gl/JgjACc Also, Cornell reports on their admission statistics and you can see that data here: https://goo.gl/RF4kFt Happy waiting!

My problem is the following, I want to apply to Trinity's masters in Msc Information System, M.Phil in Digital Humanities and Culture or Msc. Interactive Digital Media (the three seem equally attractive to me) . I have a 3,3 GPA of a 5 year program (Political Science), from a demanding and prestigious university in South America (Pontificia Universidad Catolica - UC) To further explain my concern. Usually, in the university nobody gets a GPA higher than a 3,6 (we work with a scale 1-7, where you approve with a 4(60%) and normally a GPA is 4,8 and the maximum I known someone has gotten is a 6,1 EVER; ). I have a 3,3 (which translates into 5,3 or a 75%-78%), with good grades in research and methods, been teaching assistant in four courses, involved in various extracurricular activities and politics (student politics, volunteer nationally and internationally, participated in MUN and other conferences) and founded an NGO in my country. I did my internship in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and wrote my thesis about the Challenges of Open Source for Politics. My main concern relays upon the fact that I failed some courses during my program. During my second year I was sexually assaulted and I was diagnosed with depression and anxiety. Due to this, I failed about 4/10 course (not miserably) during that year. By the end of my program, I was getting spectacular grades. I am worried that, when they see my academic transcripts, they will focus in the failed courses. Hence, upon the information presented above, what do you think are the chances of getting accepted in the program? Is a 3,3 GPA (compared with the national scene) with good extracurricular activity enough for Trinity?

Hi folks, I have applied to PhD programs in iSchools for fall 2012 and have heard good news from them. I am now facing problems as which one to choose. Any one here facing the similar issue? Any one studying in these schools? What factors would you put in priority when you want to do your PhD and are looking for a research career in a top research university or a company like IBM, Microsoft, etc.? How important ranking is? Ranking of the program or ranking of the school in general? I would really appreciate your inputs!