Short version. They are all design schools, so there is no fundamental difference in that sense.

Longer version. The name of the school has little impact on what they teach. Architecture is a design field, if you are going to an architecture school then you will be going to a design school. Some schools have more traditional approaches it is true, but this does not really have any relationship to the name of the school. If they are all accredited programs then you will have similar fundamental information that you will have to cover, above and beyond that each school has it's own approach.

Neither of the "traditional" schools you mentioned are particularly old fashioned though, so the fundamental separation of at least RISD is uncalled for. I don't really know anything about Parsons for architecture. I think Michigan and Cornell have more established names in architecture, but Michigan doesn't have the most ideal location for networking, that's more geographic than anything else though.

 

I think the poster meant the difference between what would be primarily be an art-centric school as opposed to a general university that has everything including architecture and the arts. 

By "traditional school", I think he meant "all-rounded school with mix of majors", not necessarily "old fashioned school". By "design school", he probably meant "artsy" school.

I'm not a huge fan of an artsy school, but I highly respect RISD, SCI-ARC, and Art Center College of Design in Pasadena (although this school is not related).

But I'd go to Michigan or Cornell if reputation matters to you.

verticalgaze beat me

My comment was actually supposed to cover this as well, because the response is still the same in my mind.

Most of these "traditional" programs are situated within separate art/design colleges within the larger universities, and the work of any program does not seem to reflect the mentality that one is a "design" school overall and another is not. Yes many of the "design" schools are "artsy" but so are a LOT of the "traditional" programs. Or at least that is my observation.

Sorry for any confusion, I was trying to kill two birds with one stone. People get really confused about naming conventions, you wouldn't believe how many people thought I went to a technical school for my undergrad just because it had "technological" in the name.

I don't think Parsons has much of a reputation in architecture. For fashion or something in that area, it's probably going to be fine. RISD is recognized as an undergraduate program but graduate architecture is likely a secondary thought for them as opposed to Michigan or Cornell with solid established programs across the board. 

At art schools, you'd probably see a lot of cool projects and art-driven things to do around campus but if that is too restricting, then a traditional university should provide enough of an escape within school grounds.

Each program pretty much has their own insular buildings or rooms so day to day, there isn't much of a difference. Neither environment is bad (there might be a lot more hipster types at art schools but that's a personal peeve) so it depends on what sort of place you're looking to study at.

I see. That's a good point, natematt. I can't really think of "benefits" (what the OP was wondering about) for going to an artsy school over a general university. Of course there's an argument that you are surrounded by artsy people and have more exposure to art in general but same can be said to most of general universities, indeed they can offer more than art/architecture related classes.

I'd be interested in hearing what the 'benefits' are for going to an artsy school as well.

Sorry, I should have first said, Congrats on your acceptances!

If you don't get into Cornell/Michigan, I'd go to RISD if I were you.

Well, here is the thing.

One has to understand that here we have two categories of schools (regardless whether it is artsy or a big University

1)The schools that mostly focus on undergrad education such as BArch and BS. Those schools could be UPenn, RSID, Ohio, Pratt, SCI Arc and few more.

2) The schools that mostly focus on grad education such as MArch, MS or even PhD. Those schools could be GSD, Columbia, Yale, Cornell, MIT, Michigan, UCLA and few more.

There are only a few schools that have both at a great level, such schools could be MIT,  Cornell and UCLA I guess.

In my personal opinion so called artsy schools are very good for undergrads, I went to that kind of school and took many other classes that weren't directly related to architecture. Those classes were; sculpture, drafting, urban sketching, watercoloring, and color studies. I liked it and it helps me a lot, but in the same time while me going to grad school I want to study materials, fabrication, tectonics and some theory too. So if I were up to a decision what school to go to I would go to a less artsy school.

Also, one good thing with a big university (GSD, Yale, MIT etc) is that you can take other classes form other schools as well that might become helpful in future.

Locations also are important but not that much I guess, For example Parson is in NYC but I highly doubt that school really matters in architecture although it's a great Art school.

Cornell is upstate NY, but it won't matter at all because it's a great school. (I might do my PhD there).

What is confusing for many students in many cases is a location of a school. If someone thinks that while being at Columbia he can have time to hung out in NYC I want to tell him that he is wrong and has no idea how ruthless a grad school can be and how much time it could take. I did my MUP in Buffalo NY and never couldn't leave the campus to visit Toronto, which is an hour away from Buffalo.

Also, in big cities lay wide opportunities and many professors how teach lets say at Columbia might help a good student to get a job in NYC, or at least give her a recommendation. So, do not tarn down a offer from a school that is not in a big city in your case it's Cornell.

sirhc

What is you fine decision sirch, where are you going ?

Yale or Cornell?

@ sirhc Thanks for the congratulations! And reputation matters a little to me in the sense that after I did my undergrad I worked for a few years and it was brutal getting a job, I was lucky to have a few connections to help me out but others were not. And the fact that I went to a redbrick university (UK's equivalent of Ivy League) was a real boost. Even if you have a great portfolio a lot of places won't even look at you if you went to a school that wasn't deemed "good enough". Over here the artsy design schools (like the royal college of art) are highly respected and people put them on the same level as the more traditional schools like UCL and Cambridge. I was trying to find out if thats the same situation in America. I dont want to spend 3 years in school only to come out and realise that my degree won't get me very far.

@verticalgaze, I think I agree with you that the graduate program at RISD might be a bit of an afterthought, on another post someone from the school said that the undergraduates and the graduates do their whole course together. If that is true, I really wouldn't like that. I feel that at this stage of my life my motivation is different from someone just starting out ad I don't see how I can benefit from sharing classes with undergraduates. I'd rather be surrounded by people the same age as me who have experienced a bit of he real world and have similar goals.

@natematt thank you for your insight, one of the reason I applied to design schools is not necessarily because I was looking for something "artsy" but because I thought they were more likely to look at architecture from a more design point of view as opposed to a technical point of view. And I understand that individual departments in more traditional schools can be design led but I worried that they may be limited. Obviously it would be easier if I could visit these schools but all I have are the schools websites to go by, which is only helpful to a point.

^ As a matter of scale consider that while RISD has 2200 students as a whole just the Art & Architecture building at Michigan has around 1100. The scales of the design culture are not that different. Within the architecture program Michigan has almost three times as many people as RISD's architecture program, so there is also that.

I don't think you are off about most of the "design" schools being design oriented. But like I said, most "traditional" schools are too. How good each are at design is another question.

When deciding what schools I was going to apply to this year, I looked at the student work posted on the school's website, the school publications, and searched on Issuu/Google/Flickr for student portfolios and then looked at each faculty member's personal work.  With that, I think I was able to get a good feeling of the work/quality of projects/stylistic agendas/breadth of projects that the schools were interested and then if that matched with what I wanted to do in grad school. I think that was more of a factor to me than name or rank.    

I believe the benefit of going to a large research university are the resources. Because Michigan is a research institution, there is a ton of funding, drawing  new faculty and fellows  at the school. As a result, not only will you find an entire array of diverse faculty there is also interesting work constanly being done. 

I think I'm heading to Michigan after being awed during Preview Weekend. I love the resources and what seems like a wide variety of studios offered, so hopefully, I'm able to pick what I'm interested in.  

I keep hearing about interdisciplinary (or transdisciplinary), but I'm curious as to the extent.  The studio that worked with the real estate developer in China is the only thing I can think of. During my undergrad, there were studios that mixed Architecture + Landscape Arch or Architecture + Interior Design students with co-teachers/invited profs and each specialty would create a project in their discipline while working with the other so at the end of the semester the projects were intertwined but defined, which seems interdisciplinary.  Is it only interdisciplinary when there is an adviser?/ Where/Who is utilizing the research going on outside of Taubman College? I'm just curious, I got into architecture in high school after hearing Mark Sexton (Kreuk+Sexton Architects) discuss working with an artist on the spitting fountains (Crown) in Millennium Park. 

Couldn't disagree more with this.

Being at an architecture program embedded within a design and/or art school is extremely different than being at one embedded within a state/research school.

The institution as a whole will have very different goals depending on what the focus of the school is. Being surrounded by other programs that focus on research, publications, etc. will impact an architecture program and its faculty differently than a school that focuses on its museum(s), galleries, and context within the art/design community.

A RISD architecture professor I know (who has been there a long time) can tell you all about how other programs and faculty who are artists have impacted his teaching career and the department's pedagogy on a whole. For example, because he and others are surrounded by artists, there is an intense focus on personal discovery, while maybe a neglect for publicizing and showing the work.

Not to say one is better than the other, but it is false to say that "They are all design schools, so there is no fundamental difference in that sense"

^interesting perspective.

So to be clear, I am not saying all these programs are the same, I am just saying the overall school does not inherently result in a particular type of program.

I also think results mean more than proposed pedagogy. If the portfolios don't tell a distinct story from ones at other schools then I don't see how they are that different.

natematt, I agree that across many schools, the results of the work are very similar, suggesting a hegemony among many different "design" schools.

if you look at schools like RISD, Cooper, etc. (and other arts schools with architecture programs), however, you will see the results of the affect I referred to above. the portfolios by students coming form those schools is quite different.

^Most of them you could pass off as portfolios from 50 other schools and no one would question it.

I do think those two have fairly "artistic" programs, but I don't want to stereotype which kind of school has which kind of program based on such a small sample.

But when did we start talking about art schools, the original question was about "benefits of going to design school as opposed to a traditional school," which is why I am trying to make it clear that they are ALL design schools.

Being a good designer and being versed in the technical aspects of architecture should not be seen as two incompatible traits.  The problem I see with many architecture schools, in the US at least, is that they treat architecture education as an either/or affair, you either are trained to be almost exclusively a designer or an engineer.  I was lucky to have a few semesters with visiting faculty from Spain and they were bewildered as to why this was.  They were great designers, but were experts in structural engineering, AND the management aspects as well.  They told me that this was instilled into them through the polytechnic education they received at their universities.  Of course there ARE architects in the US who can do both, but through our separation of responsibilities we've really made it to where it's not necessary, that being said it's also done a lot to make for the state of affairs that we see today in the architecture world where we're seen only as a necessary evil rather than an indispensable resource.  I'd be careful approaching your architecture education in such exclusive terms, as architecture is not ALL about design, how a building comes together, and how it stands up can be just as poetic as its facade. 

to natematt, risd is both an art and design school, which complicates things a bit, hence the reason I am saying that it is quite different than other schools that are design schools. same with cooper... take the GSD for comparison. it is a disservice to both schools to say you can't tell the difference between their work.. maybe it is not most evident in portfolio presentations (although I disagree), but by looking at the courses you can decipher a wide gap between the schools we are talking about.

Hupope, I agree. I mean different in a positive way.

I also got into RISD and so have been talking to people about it and looking into the program. Big difference there is that they still do hand drafting their first year, and there is a lot of emphasis on sketching and drawing in general. Most other arch programs in big universities will start you on the computer right away. Also, you get to take electives from their other departments. Friend of mine took a ceramics studio as part of her M.Arch, for example. It's a good place to gain exposure to other artistic disciplines, or if you are also interested in furniture or product design. 

If you go to a big university/not an art school, this will offer you opportunities to take classes in other fields. I'm not sure about Michigan specifically as I haven't looked into the program, but for example at Penn you can take business classes at Wharton through their RE certificate, etc. And the mix of students you meet outside the program will be different. 

Personally, I was put off by RISD because 1) It just doesn't seem as well funded as a lot of programs in big universities. There are some study abroad options, but they aren't really integrated into the studios, and the costs aren't subsidized by the school. and 2) the whole doing the same curriculum as undergrads thing. But I know people who went there and were very happy with it. You can definitely get a great education going there. 

I think there is a big difference. You will learn "design" at any of these programs, but an art school will approach it differently compared to an architecture program in a university.