I would strongly recommend against UT Arlington for graduate school.

You are interested in UH and UTA because of their location? You are a fan of Houston and Arlington but not Austin? What is wrong with you?

I went to UH and taught there. Email me sometime. I was recently on a jury for a graduate mid review and got a good look at what's been going on since I've been gone.

Why don't you just post here so we can all learn something?

Based off your username it may be safe to say that you are from Baylor.
Regardless I'll give you my perspective of arch schools from Texas.

In case you were wondering I graduated from A&M with a B.E.D. last spring (took a year break) and will be going back to A&M this coming Fall. (I did get rejected from Rice and UT).

A&M: The only real strength they have is their Healthcare program (Certificate) which, as far as I know is one of only two US programs that (other is Clemson) and is internationally known. As a result many foreign students study Healthcare (other then being not very expensive). Everything else is with in Department of Arch is mediocre. Another advantage I see is that the College of Arch is quiet large and diverse: The Department of Landscaping Arch is ranked top ten and as for Construction Science I remember before the recession they had more job offers than students.

UTA: caters to Dallas firms and as a result work is not very creative.

Tech: A couple years back they almost lost accreditation, however I have heard that they have since rebounded with a new Dean.

UH: A wanna-be Rice (they offer 'Master of Science in Space Architecture'). I remember a two years ago the UH dean visited our studio and was impressed with our work and was willing to offer anyone in our studio a free pass to take an accelerated Masters program if we applied to UH (as far as I know no one took her offer).

UTSA: haven't heard much other than their architecture department is located in downtown, away from the main campus.

Of course these are just my opinions.

How can you call UH a wanna-be Rice? Completely different manifestos guide each program. Rice students are great storytellers while UH grads build far too many models, sometimes clients want words and sometimes they want to see something tangible. Sounds like you know very little about UH to make such a generalization and I'm calling BS on your studio story and the two aggies sitting across from me tend to agree.

Since ichweiB won't post about UH, I'll give my two cents...

UH, is actually in a city...when you look outside of a window in a small college town you see fields...here you actually see buildings...some horrible Philip Johnson buildings and some rather nice pieces. This is often overlooked when choosing schools in Texas but the city of Houston really is your laboratory. The city has real issues and the graduate school does a good job of getting students out into the community to take on these problems. Their digital fabrication lab is also relatively new and one of the nicer facilities that I've seen at very low costs to students. Yes, there is space architecture but that isn't open to everyone.

It of course has many flaws as does every architecture school but the degree to which they effect you is entirely up to you. If you want to coast, you can coast right through studio with little penalty from the faculty. Some students choose to embrace this and I think its the major downside of the program. The arch college and university administrations are utterly useless and generally apathetic towards student complaints and concerns. The computer lab hours are terrible so if you don't have your own computer with all the programs you need you are SOL. There are really no study abroad or school sponsored internship opportunities for grad students so you have to make your own.

In contrast to student apathy mentioned above, if you show that you actually want to succeed and push yourself you can go as far as you want. The professors are very supportive of outside the box ideas as long as you prove to them early that they can trust you not to show up empty-handed at the end of the semester. The professors will never turn you away if you have a question after hours. Independent studies are always available and as long as you have a valid topic you can get credit for it to replace electives.

Random fact worth noting...Gensler employs more UH graduates than any other university. And I recently interviewed with a large international practice and the office manager knew UH and had a favorable view of the program.

I thought when you looked out a window in Houston all you saw were highways...

;)

Most Texas Tech grads that I have met are idiots. I wouldn't recommend them to anyone.

LITS4FormZ

Let me clarify some things if you don't already know:
Since A&M's B.E.D. is a pre-professional degree we need to attend (in U.H. case) M.Arch 1 program, however after being impressed with our studio (prof was Mr. Marcel Erminy), she stated that we could instead apply for the M.Arch 2 program. I forget the woman's name, I want to say it was the new Dean, at the time, but she oversaw graduate admissions for U.H. Arch program.

Maybe what prompted me to state that U.H.'s program is a 'wanna-be-Rice' was that this women was invited to A&M for a lecture series and I remember her presentation was something about U.H.'s 'Master of Science in Space Architecture' and the work the students produced.
Maybe I shouldn't have judged based on my first impression.

I would like to add some more info concerning A&M,
For the graduate level work you won't see any 'eye-candy',
about half of the graduate students end up pursuing healthcare
and as a result it is very much heavy on evidence based design,
even the A&M overall is very much a research university.

Yeah, I'm not confident the Texas A&M story is accurate either. I know the former Dean and current Associate Dean and this doesn't seem consistent.

My graduate experience at UH was a bit different because I actually left UH for a while to attend another university internationally and then decided to come back and finish so that I could get a professional degree and be able to get licensed. I studied Business and Design and a private university in Texas in undergrad and then headed to Houston for grad school. I chose UH for a few reasons-a big part of it had to do with the fact that I was married at the time and my ex-wife was doing graduate work in the med center (no Architecture didn't ruin my marriage). I am glad I chose UH.

I will second much of what was said above about UH. UH truly engages in the city. Houston is a peculiar city-one with many stereotypes. I was happy to find that there is much more to it than its highways. I've been impressed with the Design and Music scene here. There is a drastic difference between Houston proper and the suburban mass that surrounds it.

The graduate program is small-I believe 20 students or so start in level 1 and work their way up through three years of studios together. The first year program is led by two guys I have a deep respect for-each incredibly talented. In terms of developing a fundamental design vocabulary, I feel that the sequence of projects in first year is incredibly strong. UH encourages the use of a wide variety of media to achieve these projects in hopes to develop one's sensitivity to the quality of their craft and an ability to develop strong spatial compositions that ultimately inform Architecture. The rigor of the program is two sided-you are critiqued on the quality of what you make (your craft) and then on the strength of your composition(s). You will have one Architecture project in your first year. This year's first year studio is designing an Archive for the Contemporary Arts Museum located in Houston's Museum District. I was a guest on the mid review for this project and was impressed with the work thus far.

First year students also take a Visual Communication course that parallels with studio. It is taught by a talented guy who teaches 3D modeling in Rhino and I believe Maya. I don’t believe he gets into grasshopper, but more so just the fundamentals of 3D modeling. Students also learn sketchup and AutoCAD. I have not asked if Revit is being introduced or not. That is something I can ask about if anyone is interested-but I would highly recommend learning it!

Second year will truly make or break you-I actually may offend some people with what I am about to say, but it is what I experienced and what I see keep happening. If anything is true about how UH and Texas A&M interacts, it is this- second year studio is when more students get added to the program if they already have a degree in Environmental Design from another University. What this has meant for UH is quite a few Texas A&M students entering in the second year of the Studio sequence. This was great in a lot of ways because the A&M students brought a lot of technical knowledge to the studio. The downside that I experienced was that many of the students were not incredibly focused on design. I recognize design is a broad term and can encompass a great deal, but it became a bit conflicting when students that had just finished the first year studio that focused heavily on craft, design composition, and design theory were mixed into a studio with students that didn’t share the same commitment. It was as if the studio was split into students that had incredible design vocabulary with students that did not at all. Truly, A&M is not a design school-it may be trying to become one, but from what I have seen in the undergraduate and graduate studios there, “design” is not the school’s focus. This dichotomy hits during the graduate studio sequence at an incredibly interesting time because the professors guiding the second year studio aren’t interested in output as much as they are theory, ideas, etc…so when it comes to final reviews, they expect you to use what you learned in first year-they don’t hold your hand and show you how to do things. Some students that start in first year will hold on to what they picked up in first year and continue to make beautiful work…and some slack off because second year allows it. I thought it was unfortunate that A&M students didn’t get the type of guidance students do if they start in level one.

At the end of the second year, the third year professors meet with students to have them start considering what their thesis project will be about. The idea is to spend the summer on your own developing an idea of what you would like to research. Then, during the first semester of your final year, you complete the research portion of your thesis project, and the second and final semester is dedicated to designing it.

3rd year studio has three major components. The first semester is focused on a comprehensive studio in which you are asked to suggest the comprehensive nature of a building which includes, programming, site development, structure, MEP considerations, etc… You are given a fairly complex program in which you are given room to explore theoretical ideas, but mainly the purpose of the project is to developed a building comprehensively. You are asked to build a section model at a pretty large scale that demonstrates all the systems in your project.
The second component is the thesis research that I mentioned earlier. The entire studio is divided into usually 3 or 4 groups. Each group has an adviser that guides them in their thesis project. You meet with your group twice a week for the entire semester to develop your thesis research-research that will ultimately inform your design in the second semester.
The final component is just that-the thesis project. At UH, it is a big deal. Projects are usually quite comprehensive in terms of ideas and also what is expected to be produced. Students to go work using the shop’s CNC router, 3D printer, etc… UH is big on physical model making so it’s usually an awesome site come final review.
The thesis project is not decided by the advisers. You make the decision about what you are interested in; however, it is that thesis research course that helps guide you to a concept that can be realized as Architecture.

Truth is-some projects are amazing and some suck. Some students fail. Some students are asked to not come back due to the continual lack of quality in their work. However, I have never seen a student fail nor be asked to leave because they didn’t try-it was more so because they were there just trying to get a degree and get out of there. There are not too many of these issues, but I have seen it happened.
The advisers in the third year studio are great people. One worked for Renzo Piano for a while, and the others have interesting experiences that contribute to the ideas that bounce around the studio.
Architecture school is truly what you make of it; however, it also has a lot to do with the resources made available to you. I was impressed with the quality of UH. I continue to be impressed with those it hires and the things it involves itself in. TexFab is run out of UH essentially by two of the professors there. The faculty continues to get stronger and stronger. UH is pursuing tier 1 status and with many changes the University has made as a whole, the College of Architecture is seeing more funding consistent with other programs in the state that it once did not have. UH is also a part of a larger dialogue that exists in the city with its involvement in the Rice Design Alliance.
No, UH is not a “want-to-be Rice.” –two completely different schools. Do I think Rice offers more? Of course in some ways it does and probably always will for a variety of reasons. I’ve seen many different schools in the US and in Europe. I’m impressed with the things going on at UH.

I should be back for more reviews at the end of the semester. I will let you know if I can think of anything more after that.



Agree with statements above at A&M. I presently work for a healthcare studio at my firm and I've been to A&M for a few conferences. The work is research based and highly focused on healthcare.

If you want my most honest opinion, then I will give it. None of the research I have found incredibly interesting. Of the PhD candidates that presented work while I was there, I honestly can't believe they will give degrees for the work done. Candidates did research to "prove" that natural daylight is essential to healing environments. Sure, I get it, they want to be able to quantify it, but i'm sorry, this just doesn't seem PhD worthy. Other research analyzed how exercise for the elderly improved their physical state of being-so I suppose that when designing a retirement home, I need to remember that it's good for older people to get out and walk? I just don't understand what the fuss is about.

Oh man. Maybe someone can help me identify the school in question...

About 12 or so years ago I was living in Montreal. A professor that thought at one of the Texas schools would bring an entire class for a summer term over at McGill. Half of these kids looked like cattle wranglers. They had a certain deer-in-the-headlights look to them, like they've never been in a city with actual sidewalks before. The work they presented was truly horrific. I'm talking finger-painting quality here. But true to their Texan roots, they were super nice and polite. Got to talk to a bunch of them during a party we threw. A lot of them talked about moving to Phoenix after graduation. That seemed to be the holy grail of architectural success.

Does this sound like one of the schools down there? It just seemed so far removed from anything I've ever seen in architectural education until that point.

OFFICIAL: I RETRACT MY STATEMENT CALLING U.H.'s PROGRAM A 'WANNA-BE-RICE'.

Now to clarify some confusion concerning my story of U.H. admissions.
I was under the impression that since our B.E.D. degree was pre-professional that we are required to go through all three years if we where to attend U.H. not the two years your impression gave me. Maybe the U.H. prof tried to misled our studio otherwise.

No offense was taken concerning A&M 'ichweiB'.
I mostly agree with you.
I have a friend currently attaining his M.arch at A&M and told his thesis was going to be about retirement homes, and when I asked why, he stated 'just cuz'. Granted an M.Arch thesis does not have to be original.
As for the A&M students at U.H. I would respond by saying that about 3/4 of the B.E.D. students are intent on Architecture. With that said A&M's undergrad programs is not 100% geared toward architecture, some studios are more like 'applied art'. I know people who have went on and used their degree to be graphic artists, shoe/furniture designers, and painters to name a few. Not many people from A&M, I know, go on to U.H. The top students usually land a job or go on to UT and UT Arlington. Since about 150 B.E.D. students graduate every year, there is the potential for a lot of unstimulated students, maybe that is why that one U.H. prof was impressed with our (Honors) studio, she was use to seeing otherwise.

And much like LITS4FormZ's comment, many students/profs tend to be complacent, however if you self-inflict your self with more challenges a prof will respond positively to that and take an interest to your work. (comment toward Freedbirdy)

As you can probably tell I am an A&M grad (C/O 2010) and got accepted back into grad program before I decided to defer my acceptance for a year. I made the mistake of only applying to U.T. (rejected) this year and kinda don't want to go back to A&M, but the economy is forcing my to get my professional degree.

As for RUSTY!'s comment, I would be inclined to say that those students where from Texas Tech (next on the list would be A&M).

For anyone here with first hand knowledge of either school---

If you had to choose between U of H and UT Arlington for the 3.5yr M Arch, which would you choose and why? I've visited both campuses so far and honestly the seem to be on about equal footing. Any more insight would be great. Thanks

the problems with the UTA m.arch program are many (see here if you're interested in a rant), but chiefly among them is the complete lack of admissions standards, which is pretty much also the case at every other program in texas other than UT Austin or Rice.

because they let anyone in (there is, i shit you not, no application portfolio required), most of the faculty hates teaching the 3.5 year master's students (what UTA calls 'path A'). they openly discuss how miserable it is to teach path A students, because the overwhelming majority of them have zero talent or dedication.

in fact, i was actually encouraged to leave by my studio professors to go to a better school, which was actually what i intended to do all along (i just used UTA as a 1-year prep course, and i'll be heading to either MIT or UT Austin in the fall).

though to be fair, i believe the UTA undergraduate program to be much, much stronger than the graduate program. for graduate school though, in texas i wouldn't even consider any school other than UT Austin or Rice.

I don't know much about UH, but A&M, UTSA, Texas Tech, and UTA are all pretty terrible in terms of graduate architecture education.

Mr. Minimal - Thank you for the response and I'm guessing that your choice would be U of H then. I would love to go to UT Austin especially since I live in Austin now and of course Rice but the problem is I'm not one of the people here that have a 3.8 GPA and are applying to Princeton, Yale, Harvard, MIT etc, etc. UT Austin has a 13% acceptance rate according to their website and I'm sure Rice is pretty close to that as well. I'm going to apply to UT Austin but realistically I'm not expecting to get in.

I have just under a 3.0 but have some serious work experience - 4yrs as an Army Officer serving overseas (including a 12 month tour in Iraq) plus 4 years in corporate America. The grades were largely a result of spending the first 3 semesters in Engineering at CU. I can draw really well, have a certificate in architectural graphics, know Revit, 3DS Max etc, etc and have some other unique things I can put in my app.

The other factor for me is money. While I'm sure I might be able to get into some other better programs out of state, I don't want to be saddled with 80-100k in debt either. 30k for 3.5 yrs works for me based on my situation. Anyway I appreciate your honesty.

@Buff03

first let me say that i honestly know nothing about UH other than what i've seen on this forum, so i can't say which would be better. i think UTA generally has a stronger reputation than UH, but i don't really know.

second, and more importantly, i think you may really be selling yourself short. you'll be applying for the fall of 2012, right? that means you have around 8-9 months to put your portfolio together, and that truly is the most (maybe the only) important component of your application.

so here's my advice, which you should feel free to entirely ignore. much of this you probably already know, but it can't hurt to see it again.

you're confident in your drawing ability, so round up some of your best drawings and dive into some new ones, maybe in an unfamiliar medium or of a particularly challenging subject. nice figure drawings go a long way. look for ways to maximize the three-dimensional depth of your drawings (layered semi-transparent materials, pencil and/vs. ink, descriptive drawing vs. tonal value, drawing background objects on the reverse side of mylar or vellum, etc). basically start designing your drawings in addition to just putting them on the page.

experimenting with watercolor and sculpture can be really work in your favor too. find a few favorite architects and look at how they've rendered their ideas. you can learn so, so much by looking at the non-architecture work of architects.

definitely put in some of your digital graphics work as well, but try to keep it balanced with your analog images, and make the digital stuff as exciting as possible. revit, while arguably very useful in the real world, rarely yields the kind of seductive images you want for your portfolio, unless you use it very creatively. if you're competent with 3ds max, on the other hand, you can really drop some science on admissions committees.

@Buff03, continued

don't feel like you need to wait until everything's done to start designing your portfolio. this is probably one of the most overlooked parts of the process, that the portfolio is a design project unto itself.

your GPA is no where near as big a problem as it probably seems. as has been discussed on here before, it's not atypical for admissions committees to look at portfolios first and immediately sort them into 'yes,' 'no,' and 'reconsider' piles, with no consideration of any other credentials (except for the 'reconsider' stack, obviously). if your portfolio is badass, you will win the day, period. the best programs around have plenty of low GPAs and low GREs. your talent will get you where you want to go, not your numbers.

as far as the money thing is concerned, i completely understand. you might be surprised at how much money some schools give out though, again on the strength of your portfolio. some schools are more generous than others, so that's worth looking into, but you might be able to afford out-of-state schools more easily than is immediately obvious.

you also might want to look at the summer academy at UT to give you a few nice architecture-school type projects, too. and it can't hurt to impress UT's faculty, since you never know who might be making admissions decisions later. kevin alter runs the summer academy, and he's also the graduate dean, so he's a good guy to have in your corner.

you would be going into an m.arch program with huge advantages over your fellow students, specifically your understanding of drafting, your computer graphics skills, and the discipline i'm sure you got from your time in the military. an alarming number of m.arch students quit because it's 'too much work,' or they failed a project because they refused to pull an all-nighter. admissions committees see an army officer as someone who commits him/herself to seeing a task gets done and gets done right.

i think you can get into UT (or most anywhere else). mostly because i was in a similar situation once, and i was just accepted to 5 of the 6 schools i applied to, including UT and MIT.

send me an email if there's anything i can do to help.

Rusty's comment about the kids in Montreal could be about Texas Tech but I argue that A&M is more “hick-ish” than Tech. Tech has a heavy presence in Montreal and I know many students who have been there. Although, it wasn't 12 years ago more like 5-6. Most of the students who studying abroad from Tech are ungrads and it's a requirement for graduation that you take a study abroad studio. The schools sending another group up there this summer (with a new set of professors) along with groups to Spain, Chile, Italy, and France.

Tech's grad program is growing. The school has begun to pull in professors who have graduated from the big name schools and have worked for the big name firms. The administration has started new certification programs (like digital fabrication, visual representation, etc.) and is working to build diversity in the programs educational paths with options like Land Arts. The school is trying and slowly, progress is being made. The drawback is the location and because of that, many people rule the school out. Yes, it smells like shit and is in the middle of cotton fields. I still believe that the ungrad program is stronger than the grad.

I see the architecture student body there in three categories. 1. The students who are good enough to go to bigger and better schools and actually go to them. 2. The students who are good enough to go to bigger and better schools but who financially cannot afford to go. So, those students choose to stay at Tech. 3. The idiots, that Mrs. Hamilton so kindly pointed out above. Don't lie, you know all schools have these students.

If the quality of your graduate education is what you’re looking for and you have to stay in Texas, I would stick to Rice or UT. Heads up though, Rice only accepts 12 students and I'm not sure about UT. Otherwise, I would get out of Texas.

So anyways, you bet my boots and "cow wrangler" attire will be joining me when I head to the east coast this fall. ;)

Hi Minimal,

Thanks for vote of confidence and also the tips on the portfolio and hand drawings! I'm going to give it the old college try and who knows maybe I'll get lucky and get into UT. I'm definitely going to take your advise on the portfolio as well. Righ now I'm taking a digital publishing class at night where we learn and do all our projects in In Design CS5 so now I'm starting to feel more confident in being able use the software tools to put together a nice looking layout --- before this class I was pretty nervous because I really had no idea how to do it but now that has subsided.



Best of luck, congrats on getting into UT and MIT and I hope your next school will provide you with a more positive experience.

InDesign will be hugely valuable in making your portfolio. Way too many people try to do it all in Photoshop, which is really the wrong tool for such a complex document.

I went to the UT open house today, and I met a lot of admitted students who thought a low GPA would be too big of an obstacle. And all of them had multiple options for top-10 schools. It's all about the portfolio, and you've got time to knock that shit outta the damn park.

Big changes are afoot at UH which will transform the program for the better. Let me list them:

1. Four concurrent faculty searches are going on for: a new graduate director; a digital media and fabrication professor; a new industrial design professor; and a new interior architecture professor.

2. The new dean, along with faculty, is heavily reworking the curriculum. This will mean changes in conceptual focus, in scheduling, in the faculty who teach in certain areas.

3. A major push is underway to retool the graduate program. It's tended to play second fiddle to the undergrad program (mainly because the undergrad program is so large,) but the dean wants to change that. This leads to the next point.

4. UH as a university is pushing strongly to attain "tier one" status, which would raise it into the ranks of major public research universities (currently, only two of these exist in Texas: UT Austin and A&M.) This will mean that the university will be supportive of an improved, research-oriented, and dynamic graduate program.

5. The digital fabrication and digital media offerings at the school are very good. There are a group of new, younger faculty who are dedicated to these issues. This, coupled with the fabrication lab with its huge 3-axis CNC router and a bunch of other tools, means lots of resources. Also, Tex-Fab is a great resource--UH hosted the TexFab conference this year.

6. UH is also unique in that it has an industrial design program within the college of architecture. This means that there is cross-fertilization between these related disciplines.

7. The space architecture program mentioned above is interesting, but it's really a minor focus of the school. It's off in its own area and doesn't interact much with the larger program.

Other things to consider:

Houston is a great and interesting laboratory as a city. It's weird, overgrown, and a place where many things are possible.

UH is a school where you can make opportunities for yourself.

Additionally, the UH Architecture building offers a lot of space and is generally a decent place to inhabit for a few years. Great, accessible library. Very accessible faculty who really are dedicated to the students.

And what the poster above said about UH as a "wanna-be Rice' is emphatically not true. If anything, UH pays very little attention to Rice. My perception is that UH is better about engaging Houston and its architecture scene, where Rice feels like it's more in conversation with the east coast Ivies.

Personally, I think programs in such a state of transition are really problematic. UH might be hot shit in a few years when they've accomplished some of the things you listed, but in the meantime, why not apply to schools that had the foresight to make those improvements years ago?

And as far as engaging Houston is concerned, is a Houston-centric program really what you want? If Rice is 'in conversation with the east coast Ivies,' maybe that's because those schools are interested in a far broader and more sophisticated context than a single city.

Because engaging in a city like Houston isn't sophisticated or broad enough? Ask Sir Peter Cooke about his ideas for Houston per his lectures here a few years ago. I'd say they would leave anyone interested in what Houston is.

I'm not convinced UH is going through such a retooling that students would suffer from lack of clarity or direction. Plus-change is good when its necessary. People unwilling to change that believe a single system is relevant for all places and for all time are kidding themselves. So what? UH realizes it needs to transform itself...that doesn't mean it doesn't build on what it already has, but rather it takes advantage of what it has been given. I think its an exciting time for the school-Architecture schools go through change throughout their lifetime...however, I would say that when they tend to be big shifts ( as in UH recently becoming a tier 1 University-per a professor's new signature on his email this evening that I got) sometimes the changes can feel rough and costly-I'm not convinced,however, this is what is going on at UH. Go check the school out! I will even meet people to talk afterwards.

mr. minimal,

Actually, Houston is a phenomenally interesting city from a global perspective. Some key texts on urbanism have been written with Houston in mind, including Lars Lerup's "Stim and Dross," Albert Pope's "Ladders," a great essay of Sanford Kwinter's called, simply, "Houston™." It also figures heavily in Alan Berger's concept of Drosscape and in the thinking of many other architects and urbanists.

This isn't to argue the merits of Houston or even UH over other cities and schools. Only to say that your perspective on the issue seems unnecessarily limited.

Additionally, one could make a counter-argument that schools in transition (particularly positive transition) are actually the best places to be. Students have the opportunity to shape the dialogue. New resources become available. New faculty members have a transformative effect, etc. etc. When a new and dynamic dean comes into a school, the first few years are the most exciting, before the agendas they put in place are allowed to stagnate or succumb to inertia.

To clarify, I never registered any opinion whatsoever about Houston or its capacity to function as an urban laboratory (or anything else for that matter). I don't even personally know that UH is particularly focused on the city of Houston; I was just responding to how Semiglossy referred to it in comparison to Rice.

All I meant was that any architectural program that is structured around a single city (in this case, Houston, though the same could be said about UTA and Dallas/Fort Worth), is by definition substantially more limited than programs that explores a broader palette of place, culture, and context.

I'm all for UH (and any other school) improving its program, but change takes time, and I wouldn't want to have to wait around for the improvements to take hold when I could attend a school with a far stronger reputation that has already established its faculty, facilities, and approach.

Or more simply, I agree with p_11_tx (but again, this is just my opinion); if you want to stay in Texas and you want a quality graduate education, UT and Rice are the only real options.

Quality is a subjective thing, and it's definitely possible (even more starting this year) to get a quality graduate education at UH. But I understand minimal's concerns about attending a program with an established faculty. Absolutely, if you can get into Harvard, Yale, or Columbia, by all means go there. I don't think UH is competing with those schools.

What is perhaps true is that Rice and UT are the only graduate architecture programs that get widespread recognition outside of Texas. I went to an Ivy League graduate school and while I think I got a great education, what has mattered more in my 10 years out of school is the name recognition on my resume—and the name recognition of the faculty I studied with. But one of the studios I took with a very well known architect was a terrible experience. We saw him 3 times in the semester, got no guidance or compelling criticism, and all had half-baked projects at the end.

On another note, UH isn't structured around a single city. It does find opportunities in that (very interesting) city and makes use of them. But faculty are running studios based around the US and the world (Brazil, Viet Nam, Mumbai, Italy, other parts of South America), and are dealing with wide sets of cultural and contextual issues.

Concerning acceptance rates, you should read further. UT Austin publishes its acceptance rate as the number of students who matriculate divided by the number of students who apply. To think you wouldn't fit under a 13% umbrella is misleading.

Their acceptance is more in the 20 to 25% range. I saw one stat that they accepted 90 of 400 (or so) applicants. 40 to 45 of those 90 matriculate.

Also, stop selling yourself short. UT and Rice are great schools, but they're not the gamble that getting into Harvard or Yale are (which looks more like a lottery amongst a couple hundred talented students at the top of the applicant pool.)

There's plenty of time to beef up a portfolio (which, admittedly, assumes you have some skills and vision.)

Thank you all for your comments.  It has been extremely helpful. I've decided to continue my education at the University of Houston.  I'm sure UT and Rice are amazing schools but UH is a better fit for me.  Again, thank you. :D

Good for you. I went to A&M for undergrad (BED) and UH for my masters, and it made me wish I had just gone to UH for my undergrad to begin with. Although I agree with a lot of the comments about A&M, I'd like to think I was a bit different than my aggie classmates in the design department. I'm looking to go back for a post-prof degree somewhere outside of Texas to make up for my A&M years. Good luck!

If you're coming into UH for level II, make sure you get your waivers in early for classes that you may have already taken in undergrad to free up some electives. Especially structures in the fall unless you've forgotten the basics. Wish someone would have told me that before I started haha. 

Okay looks like its going to be between University of Houston and UT Arlington for me since I got rejected from UT Austin.  Anybody else have any thoughts on UT Arlington other than Mr. Minimal's bad experience?  Have seen some good things about Houston from this and other threads but not a lot about UT Arlington. From an outside prospective it seems like Houston's facilities are a little nicer but I like the location better at Alington.  What about summer internships?