After winning 4 fellowships and getting accepted to PhD programs at Stanford University, Carnegie Mellon University, UC San Diego, Northwestern University, Cornell University, and more, I’ve had so many people reach out to me and ask me for advice. Thank you! I’m honored that you think I’m worthy of giving advice.

I’m no expert, and this is not a “How to Apply to HCI PhD Programs”, but I’m more than happy to share my story, things I did, and what I’ve learned in the process.

I'll update this soon after I gather my thoughts. But for now, here are some resources I used:

• MIT EECS Communication Labs's Graduate School Statement of Purpose
• CMU's Writing Your Graduate School Application Essay (PDF)
• Lucy Lai's Statement of Purpose
• CS PhD Statements of Purpose
• Code to PhD
• Eugenie Lai's Annotated SOP
• Ritesh Kanchi's Applying to HCI PhDs (Medium)
• Michael Nebeling (YouTube)
• UW CSE's Pre-Application Mentorship Service (PAMS)
• CMU SCS' Graduate Application Support Program (GASP)
• Cornell IS PhD Student-Applicant Reading Program (SARP)
• Andrew Kuz's CS/HCI PhD Application Review Program Tracker