HCI Thread for 2021 Fall PhD Admission

[Bella Wang]

I open this thread for HCI field's 2021 Fall PhD Admission.

Let's share any updates such as interview offer, acceptances, rejections, or your specs (publications, GPA... etc).

Here's are my info:

- U of T CS

- CMU HCII

- UCLA ECE

- UC Berkeley EECS

- UW CSE

- MIT Media Lab

I didn't have any interviews and decisions from all of them. I saw my online portfolio visits from Berkeley and Cambridge (twice each of them).

 

My several questions:

- Are there cases to get acceptance without interview in HCI PhD admission?

- How common is it that applicants have publications? I heard that applicants should have at least 1~2 top-tier & first-author paper to get acceptance by top 1~20 schools.

Edited January 29, 2021 by Bella Wang

[Mercury0919]

Hi there! I'm also a PhD applicant in HCI field 2021 fall. Here are the programs I applied to:

 

MIT EECS (pure lottery, no hope now)

Cornell Information Science (also lottery, no interview, so byebye)

UC Berkeley Information Science (Got rejected already. Never had any hope anyway)

CMU HCII (Lottery with dream, still have some hope)

UW CSE & Information Science (Got interviews from both, maybe because I had a remote internship there)

GaTech HCC (Had very good chat with POI before submission, but just got to know that he is leaving GT. SAD)

UIUC CS & Information Science (Interviewed by IS, had pretty good chat and connection with POI)

UWisc-Madison CS & Information Science (Interviewed by both)

UMD Information Science (Had very good chat with POI, but no interview till now)

Imperial College Design Science (Scheduled an interview for 2 weeks later)

 

For your first question, I only know that CMU HCII usually don't give interviews, but UW CSE definitely do.

For the second question, I think most students would have some pub, but top-tier papers are not that common. I personally have 4 pub in meh journal/conference and 2 submissions to top conference(which sadly got rejected after I submitted phd application). I think most applicants have their own way to show their research competence, usually with pub but could also be portfolio, honors, SOP or even emails with POI. To get admitted, you should have at least some of these to impress the POI/committee. 

 

[Bella Wang]

8 hours ago, Mercury0919 said:

Hi there! I'm also a PhD applicant in HCI field 2021 fall. Here are the programs I applied to:

 

MIT EECS (pure lottery, no hope now)

Cornell Information Science (also lottery, no interview, so byebye)

UC Berkeley Information Science (Got rejected already. Never had any hope anyway)

CMU HCII (Lottery with dream, still have some hope)

UW CSE & Information Science (Got interviews from both, maybe because I had a remote internship there)

GaTech HCC (Had very good chat with POI before submission, but just got to know that he is leaving GT. SAD)

UIUC CS & Information Science (Interviewed by IS, had pretty good chat and connection with POI)

UWisc-Madison CS & Information Science (Interviewed by both)

UMD Information Science (Had very good chat with POI, but no interview till now)

Imperial College Design Science (Scheduled an interview for 2 weeks later)

 

For your first question, I only know that CMU HCII usually don't give interviews, but UW CSE definitely do.

For the second question, I think most students would have some pub, but top-tier papers are not that common. I personally have 4 pub in meh journal/conference and 2 submissions to top conference(which sadly got rejected after I submitted phd application). I think most applicants have their own way to show their research competence, usually with pub but could also be portfolio, honors, SOP or even emails with POI. To get admitted, you should have at least some of these to impress the POI/committee. 

 

Thank you so much for your kind and useful information!!

Also, I saw that you opened a new thread. I will update my information there.

Thanks!