2021 Fall HCI & Information Science PhD Admission Thread

[Mercury0919]

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

 

MIT EECS (pure lottery, no hope now)

Cornell Information Science (also lottery, no interview till now, 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 interview 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)

 

My background: Bachelor and master degree in non-CSE major at Top2 Univ in China. Meh GPA, rich research experience and 4 pub in meh journals and conferences, 2 submissions to top conferences(but both got later rejected after phd application deadline), no portfolio. No GRE, but decent TOFEL(112=30+30+25+27). Two remote internships at UW Allen School and MSRA. At least 2 strong recommendation letter.

I will update any incoming results to this thread. Please fell free to make any comment or post your status here!

[Beezy]

6 hours ago, Mercury0919 said:

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

 

MIT EECS (pure lottery, no hope now)

Cornell Information Science (also lottery, no interview till now, 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 interview 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)

 

My background: Bachelor and master degree in non-CSE major at Top2 Univ in China. Meh GPA, rich research experience and 4 pub in meh journals and conferences, 2 submissions to top conferences(but both got later rejected after phd application deadline), no portfolio. No GRE, but decent TOFEL(112=30+30+25+27). Two remote internships at UW Allen School and MSRA. At least 2 strong recommendation letter.

I will update any incoming results to this thread. Please fell free to make any comment or post your status here!

Hey I've also applied for PhDs in information and HCI so far I've spoken to professors at : 

- CMU HCII 

- Syracuse I school 

- university of Toronto 

- IUPUI 

which went relatively well and they seemed excited but no interview.  

I also applied to Cornell and Michigan and had email exchanges with professors there however no interviews at both schools. Pretty miserable with the wait so far. 

 

 

[Mercury0919]

2 minutes ago, Beezy said:

Hey I've also applied for PhDs in information and HCI so far I've spoken to professors at : 

- CMU HCII 

- Syracuse I school 

- university of Toronto 

- IUPUI 

which went relatively well and they seemed excited but no interview.  

I also applied to Cornell and Michigan and had email exchanges with professors there however no interviews at both schools. Pretty miserable with the wait so far. 

 

 

Hi bro! Seems that we have very similar interests!

CMU HCII don't give any interviews, so all we could do is just waiting. I havn't got any interview from Cornell either, guess our chance are very light at this moment.

[Beezy]

43 minutes ago, Mercury0919 said:

Hi bro! Seems that we have very similar interests!

CMU HCII don't give any interviews, so all we could do is just waiting. I havn't got any interview from Cornell either, guess our chance are very light at this moment.

I'm convinced I have no chance with Cornell so I'm not too sure. But the CMU lack of interviews give me some hope. I'm just honestly relieved about not applying to Berkeley considering how it seems to be utter devastation last week. 

[Mercury0919]

Just now, Beezy said:

I'm convinced I have no chance with Cornell so I'm not too sure. But the CMU lack of interviews give me some hope. I'm just honestly relieved about not applying to Berkeley considering how it seems to be utter devastation last week. 

The berkeley ISchool PHD is even more competitive. They usually only take 7or8 students out of hundreds of application. So not applying isn't any loss.

[Beezy]

1 minute ago, Mercury0919 said:

The berkeley ISchool PHD is even more competitive. They usually only take 7or8 students out of hundreds of application. So not applying isn't any loss.

I know that it was a complete crapshoot. As most admissions are, but I found how they forced the TOEFL scores to be only valid for 18 months instead of two years to be completely off and honestly kind of elitist against international students. 

[Mercury0919]

Just now, Beezy said:

I know that it was a complete crapshoot. As most admissions are, but I found how they forced the TOEFL scores to be only valid for 18 months instead of two years to be completely off and honestly kind of elitist against international students. 

Yeah that's not cool. They even charged 140 US dollars for application, which is the most expensive one I had. Simply annoying.

[Beezy]

Just now, Mercury0919 said:

Yeah that's not cool. They even charged 140 US dollars for application, which is the most expensive one I had. Simply annoying.

I genuinely think they want only a certain class of international students to come to this program which is actually really terrible and not worth the effort if you ask me. 

[Mercury0919]

Just now, Beezy said:

I genuinely think they want only a certain class of international students to come to this program which is actually really terrible and not worth the effort if you ask me. 

Simply off-putting. Not what prople usually expect from a PUBLIC school. Anyway, just move on from this, doesn't worth the time spent on complaining.

[Beezy]

Well let's just hope that we get good news soon! 

[Mercury0919]

Got admitted by UW CS PhD!!! Super excited!

[Mercury0919]

Another offer from Wisc iSchool! Very grateful

[Saratuzi]

When did you receive interview from UIUC iSchool? Is it phone or video interview?

[Mercury0919]

On 2/6/2021 at 3:14 PM, Saratuzi said:

When did you receive interview from UIUC iSchool? Is it phone or video interview?

I think it is Jan 25 or 26, by zoom.

[Inging_329]

On 2/2/2021 at 6:52 AM, Beezy said:

Hey I've also applied for PhDs in information and HCI so far I've spoken to professors at : 

- CMU HCII 

- Syracuse I school 

- university of Toronto 

- IUPUI 

which went relatively well and they seemed excited but no interview.  

I also applied to Cornell and Michigan and had email exchanges with professors there however no interviews at both schools. Pretty miserable with the wait so far. 

 

 

Hi, I've also applied to HCI programs in CMU and Umich, and I think Michigan has already sent out their PhD admissions. Do you have any ideas about when CMU would release their results? The wait is really anxious now....

[ThreeTrees]

On 2/6/2021 at 1:14 AM, Saratuzi said:

When did you receive interview from UIUC iSchool? Is it phone or video interview?

I interviewed with UIUC during the week of Jan 5. I had one video interview with admissions and one of my PIs. 

[Saratuzi]

30 minutes ago, ThreeTrees said:

I interviewed with UIUC during the week of Jan 5. I had one video interview with admissions and one of my PIs. 

What’s your background? 

[ThreeTrees]

20 minutes ago, Saratuzi said:

What’s your background? 

Worked in the tech industry for ~3 yrs, undergrad in information systems, 4 years research experience, 1 pub, 1 on the way. 

[disgruntledmoose]

Has Berkeley admitted anyone in HCI?

[KatGrad757]

Hi everyone,

I had my interview with Syracuse for admission to their Information PhD program. It went really well... but who knows. I had 2 great interviews with Cornell and I still wasn't admitted. Syracuse did tell me that this will for their 2nd round and their 1st round of admissions offers already went out. I just received my rejection letter from CMU for the HCII Phd program. I wasn't banking on CMU, if I'm being perfectly honest I only applied because I was offered an application fee waiver. Good luck everyone!

[Mercury0919]

4 hours ago, KatGrad757 said:

Hi everyone,

I had my interview with Syracuse for admission to their Information PhD program. It went really well... but who knows. I had 2 great interviews with Cornell and I still wasn't admitted. Syracuse did tell me that this will for their 2nd round and their 1st round of admissions offers already went out. I just received my rejection letter from CMU for the HCII Phd program. I wasn't banking on CMU, if I'm being perfectly honest I only applied because I was offered an application fee waiver. Good luck everyone!

Hi there,

I'm rejected by CMU HCII too, just a few hours ago. Their rejection isn't surprising anyway.

Good luck to your other programs! I think Syracuse is very likely to admit you considering you being interviewed by Cornell.

[Mercury0919]

On 2/2/2021 at 1:27 PM, Mercury0919 said:

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

 

MIT EECS (pure lottery, no hope now)

Cornell Information Science (also lottery, no interview till now, 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 interview 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)

 

My background: Bachelor and master degree in non-CSE major at Top2 Univ in China. Meh GPA, rich research experience and 4 pub in meh journals and conferences, 2 submissions to top conferences(but both got later rejected after phd application deadline), no portfolio. No GRE, but decent TOFEL(112=30+30+25+27). Two remote internships at UW Allen School and MSRA. At least 2 strong recommendation letter.

I will update any incoming results to this thread. Please fell free to make any comment or post your status here!

Updates: Accepting offer from UW CSE, declining offer from Wisc iSchool. Rejected by Cornell, CMU, UW iSchool, Wisc CS, waitlisted by UMD. Although I still have UIUC iSchool and GT HCC pending, these results won't affect my decision. And I'm telling them my decision for the good of other students.

Officially, my application season ends today. I'm very grateful to all the help I received, and I'm also very willing to give advices if you need any from me.

Good luck to everyone!

[Saratuzi]

3 hours ago, Mercury0919 said:

Updates: Accepting offer from UW CSE, declining offer from Wisc iSchool. Rejected by Cornell, CMU, UW iSchool, Wisc CS, waitlisted by UMD. Although I still have UIUC iSchool and GT HCC pending, these results won't affect my decision. And I'm telling them my decision for the good of other students.

Officially, my application season ends today. I'm very grateful to all the help I received, and I'm also very willing to give advices if you need any from me.

Good luck to everyone!

Thanks for posting this thread! Great move that you are telling the rest that you already already accepted an offer. It definitely will leave space for other students.

[KatGrad757]

9 hours ago, Mercury0919 said:

Updates: Accepting offer from UW CSE, declining offer from Wisc iSchool. Rejected by Cornell, CMU, UW iSchool, Wisc CS, waitlisted by UMD. Although I still have UIUC iSchool and GT HCC pending, these results won't affect my decision. And I'm telling them my decision for the good of other students.

Officially, my application season ends today. I'm very grateful to all the help I received, and I'm also very willing to give advices if you need any from me.

Good luck to everyone!

Congratulations!

Did you apply to the Information Studies PhD at UMD? If so, when did you hear from them? I haven't heard from them yet. You haven't heard from Georgia Tech yet, correct?

[KatGrad757]

9 hours ago, Mercury0919 said:

Hi there,

I'm rejected by CMU HCII too, just a few hours ago. Their rejection isn't surprising anyway.

Good luck to your other programs! I think Syracuse is very likely to admit you considering you being interviewed by Cornell.

Thank you and I hope so! Good luck with everything.