Write a polite letter to CU and tell them about the situation, that you are in dire need of assistance, prefer to attend CU and but was given half tuition from another ivy. Ask them if there is anything they can do about it.

Personally, I can't stand the UPenn/ Sci-Arc crap but it's an architecture degree, and half tuition is a lot better than no assistance.

FYI..

I was also accepted to Columbia and received an email that stated: "all funding is awarded at the time of admission and we do not negotiate or match offers from other schools."

I am not saying you shouldn't try though..

Good luck

Did both of you applied to a dozen schools making competitive schools even more competitive- for entrance and for financial aid?

In all honesty, if you have applied to other schools and didn't get aid from your top choices, you should really consider the better offers. Your degree will have very little bearing on what you do or how much you make. 15 years down the road, a free degree from say Clemson will give you a lot more freedom and buying power than the loans you racked up from Columbia.

I want to emphasize what burningman states.

UNLESS you absolutely wish to study a particular course or connect with a specific instructor at Columbia, I can't see any good reason to turn down the better financial offer from Penn. They're both extremely well regarded schools, located in interesting urban environments (no, Philly isn't quite NYC, but it should provide for a good life as an arch student).

And yes, in the end, I'm unconvinced by the relationship between success (either personal or financial) and "top"-school attendance.

Take everything you read from anonymous posters on a message board with a massive grain of salt, but take my word for it.... I'm a whole lot more satisfied as an underpaid yet overworked Starchitecht-slave, having graduated debt-free from a no-name Provincial school than racking up thousands in debt at some prestigious private institution, only to find myself in the same employment situation.

I attend Penn and have a friend who goes to Columbia, so I may be able to help you with your decision. Message me if you want!

I went to Penn... more than 10 year ago (rather not admit that)... had a wonderful time. did not get in to Columbia, but have friends who went there... have to agree with IamGray... they are both fantastic schools, Philly is a hop skip and a jump from NYC (living expenses in Philly much cheaper than NYC too)... Penn's offering you money, take it...

Ken

UPenn

I also got into Columbia, and they were VERY distant about the whole admissions/financial aid process. One email I got from them even stated something along the lines of "We do not council students on financial aid"... seriously? I'm going to pay 21K a semester without any help from you and your'e not even going to talk to me about what my options are????

GSD offered me half-tuition, I guess the situation is a little different than yours because GSD was by far my top choice anyway. But nonetheless, take the money at UPenn - I'm terribly turned off by the attitude at GSAPP, or at least their general disposition concerning incoming students.

hope you figure it out and are at peace with your decision before the 15th

The reason GSAPP doesn't "council students", and they actually mean their department, is because they have a campus wide financial aid office that will.

go to upenn... gsapp is NOT a better program.

No Columbia-supporter? lol
Thank all of you for the help.
this website is aw~esome.

Someone please tell me: when I accept my offer from Penn, that my class will not be filled with people who have no idea why they applied there.

hahaha @Sivad Bop - I'm a first year at PennDesign, so I'll probably be seeing you around next year! And don't worry - people know why they're here. (or at least hide it well if they don't...)

Interesting you should mention Clemson Burningman because according to what Matt_A posted in the concerning licensure thread Clemson is one of the very top schools based on passing rate.

I know almost nothing about Clemson and was just pointing out something I noticed while reading another thread this morning.

I have looked into a lot of these Ivy League programs years ago and quite frankly wasn't impressed at all with what I saw. They were peddling their names to push the theoretical side of architecture. I was particularly turned off by UPenn's website and the portfolio of student work online. It was obvious at the time that they were all eating the same theory as virtually all the projects look like one mish-mash variation of the other.

My bet is that graduates who went there, and from what I have seen in the workforce, would be less inclined to take the exams. It must have something to do with all that useless theory....Having said that, the advantage of a Penn post-professional degree is that it is only two semesters.

My bet also is that if you swapped the curriculum of the Ivy League schools with lesser name schools like Clemson (no disrespect), 99% of kids would still choose to go to the bigger name, more expensive schools for no other reason than branding.

Question for the students who are at PennDesign: why are you there? What made you choose it over the other schools you were accepted to?

I would pose the same questions to Penn students, of course.

burningman, you seem to have an axe to grind with Penn in particular, and also tend to tout Clemson as a degree-equivalent and thus much more valuable... which are both fine and valid points.

But...and I'll go thru this in descending pragmatic order to satisfy the naysayers' lust for bottom line value around here...

1. Penn would cost me $24K after scholarship. Clemson would cost me $17K before it. Maybe they'd cover a lot... But at what point in the following list of considerations would, say, a $15K/yr difference be made up?

2. Isn't it more valuable to attend Penn and then look for a job in Philly? No matter how theoretically puffy a program gets, it's still bound to a city where the profs all live and work. I've lived in Vancouver BC for 5 years and doing an arch undergrad here has opened secret doors in the city for me. Leaving will be the most difficult factor in my decision.

3. Theory shmeary. If 3 classes of *history COMBINED with theory* is enough to take the rigorous, grounded edge off a school, then count them ALL out. Unless you're just suggesting that cheap schools have a monopoly on Thinking For Oneself. And I didn't get the same vibe from Penn's website... maybe it didn't seem to have AS STRONG a shiny digital fetish as the other top-tier schools, but hey, we're both probably working with a little confirmation bias.

4. Philly's my home town. Mom's fridge is 25 minutes away on I-95 and dad's metal shop is 22. Best friend's home brew is equally close.

5. My bet is that the inclination to take the exams is probably a good way to get out of Clemson, SC (no disrepect). My bet is also that curriculums are semi-swappable, and branding may be almost worthless (except for eventually teaching, maybe), but that there are many layers of factors, and it doesn't amount to rolling dice with your professional future and seeing on which underappreciated State school your sixes land.


My situation is unique, but so is everyone's. Making the decision seem black and white denies the complexity of desires and motives that make people LOVE architecture in the first place. At the end of the day, I'm sure that at least 50% of kids who struggled to pay for Penn don't feel like suckers, nor do they get treated like them. It takes foresight, but that's why we're in this forum.

Burningman,

Name me 1 influential arch grad / professor at Clemson and I'll name you 30 influential arch grads / professors at Penn. Which school is better is completely subjective, and Penn produces its fair share of inept students just like any other institution...but, if you excel at Penn, you will be visible amongst a community of the most influential designers around the globe...just like at any of the ivys and other top schools. fact.

Enzie,

Congrats on getting into both great programs. I went to both open houses and I know some people there. Anyways, here are my two cents.

GSAPP was very impressive. The sheer intensity of students and faculty there was impressive. Also, even being in nyc they had a good fab lab. (They are gonna get a plasma cnc machine soon! i think) There are so much varieties in the choice of studios. You also get all the people resources that are passing by nyc. Many students get employed through that connections also. I read somewhere in another post that students from columbia do not get jobs (5% employment rate??), but that was def not true. From the students and faculty i spoke to there, most students who wants to work have found work at an architecture/design firm. Another interesting note, I actually met a UPenn student in M.Arch that was transfering to columbia.

UPenn was nice to, but their chair of architecture have sadly passed away. So there seems to not have a clear defined push, other then doing the status quo (which is understandable, and prob be fixed soon). Which is the opposite feeling I get at columbia, where they are clearly pushing the out skirts of design and theory and whatnot. Also, columbia students were alot more open to speaking with you and open.

Obviously, I'm favoring GSAPP over Penn. Again, Penn is a great school with an amazing history. And, this is just my personal opinion. I hope it helps.

"UPenn was nice to, but their chair of architecture have sadly passed away. So there seems to not have a clear defined push, other then doing the status quo (which is understandable, and prob be fixed soon)."

Just to clarify this point, Detlef Mertins was the former chair and has been gone for three years (although he just passed away a few months ago). Bill Braham has been chair for the past three years. This week we just had presentations made by the two candidates for the next chair, Inaki Abalos and Jeanne Gang. If all goes right, one of them should be in place as chair by next fall.

I wasn't exactly touting Clemson however I do knock Penn, I've looked into the program and the spaceships they call architecture on their website still leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Columbia's student work seemed at least seemed a little more rational. I was comparing $$$ to name branding and when you take the names off, often it's like being in a blind taste test.

Point is school is a huge investment -particularly these days when an architecture education costs 40-60k a year at top schools and you don't come out making what people were anymore making 30 years ago; but paying 10x more these days for that same education. I was just saying a student who has a free ride to another school should definitely take that offer over a slightly bigger name school. I've been to UPenn, great campus and arguably one of the most beautiful in the world. But unless you are going to be working in Philly, there's absolutely no advantage over going to Penn than taking a better offer from another school.

It's an architecture education/ art/ humanities.... Hell, if you told me you were going to nursing or to do an MBA, a school like Penn would definitely give you an edge over most schools and may be well worth a little more.

But the post was originally about getting a better offer from Penn.

I'm just trying to get you to admit that there's a point at which: Yes, it *does* make sense to go to Penn. Even if one guy thinks their work is collectively weird. This stuff from GSAPP isn't quite down to earth either :

http://www.arch.columbia.edu/imagegallary/diaz-alonso/advanced-architecture-studio-iv-cathedrals-speciation-gallery

but, beautiful

LOL, these were the reasons I neither applied to UPenn nor Columbia ( nor Clemson :). This is what happens when you have a bunch of non-practitioners trying to teach architecture - you can't tell up from down on most of these projects - literally flip them upside down and you'd still be in space.

It's been a few years but I just remember Penn's website was all about these spaceship white models with holes and endless curves (kind of like the link to Columbia to post but all white) and it made me wonder why every student's project looked the same. I didn't want that kind of work in my portfolio so I decided against it.


*I did suggest to the OP to take the offer from Penn. Or even vice versa, half tuition is always better than no assistance when you can't tell up from down.

Burningman, your sweeping generalizations while being wholly uninformed are borderline irritating...

look through the student work at:

http://www.arch.penndesign.net/

If you want/prefer something more sensible, look through the Enrique Norten, Stefan Behnisch, Marion Weiss, Brian Phillips, Kieren/Timberlake, Scott Erdy studios...

Sounds like you saw a few Ali Rahim studio renderings from a few years ago (back when he did all white) and have now summed up the entire program in this manner.

Marik, I think your link of flashing student work just reasserts my point. It's no different from the link Savid posted from Columbia.

Same doo-doo. So half-price doo-doo is better than full price doo-doo.

you are a sad, little man.

Wah wah wah, not sad enough to pay for that doo-doo.

RE: Crosby

Sorry, about that. I honestly didn't know it was three years since the interim chair took over, just that Penn is interviewing for new chair. My mistake.

I fell in love with both. The same kind of work emerges out of both schools. But Columbia is way ahead of Penn.
At Penn, they do one thing and they do it very, very well. Their curriculum is very singular. And it is glued to the current trend in architecture. Because they focus so much on parametric design, all of their projects are fully resolved. Hence, you see the most beautiful high resolution work, ready to be built. 
At Columbia, they do not kneel before the pretty object in awe. Columbia started what Penn is only now doing. At Columbia, they are applying the theory of parametric design to a global platform. They are doing everything Penn is doing plus way, way more, and at a deeper level. And that is not all they're doing. There is a blatant sense of plurality to Columbia's curriculum. They are aware of what is constant and what is current, what has come before and what might lie ahead. And they instill this in their curriculum. The figure of the architect is constantly changing. 15 years ago, we drafted by hand. Today this is almost unspeakable. The only constant in architecture is change. I don't want to only learn what is current, what is the trend -- I want to learn what is constant in the discipline. Anyone of us can be a Grasshopper monkey. It really isn't that hard. We have to be aware that the hype is not going to last. We should not be basing our decisions on the next 3 years, but, rather, the next 60.
Penn's current curriculum is a time capsule. It is represents what is contemporary. Columbia's curriculum is a time LINE -- where the state of what will happen 10 years from now is always challenged, tested and redefined. That is not to say that Columbia is a think lab going various directions with no clear hypothesis. They obviously still teach the fundamentals of building. There is just an edge to what Columbia instills in its curriculum. They ask questions. They encourage debate and disagreement. This is the reason you go to graduate school. 
A lot of people are turned off by this "attitude" that Columbia is perceived to have. It is a misconception. That is just Mark Wigley being real with you. No, they do not "wine and dine" you at the Open House. They want you to have a glimpse into what it is like on a regular day at Avery Hall. And holy wow, it is RIVETING. There are hives buzzing at varying degrees of intensity. People are as engrossed in theory as they are in practice. There is no such "snobbyness" that you read in these threads. They treat you like a grown-up. They do not hold your hand -- as they should not. We aren't undergraduates.
I went to both open houses. I fell in love with both. I realized I had to fall in love with both to determine which one I want to marry. And, indeed, it's Columbia. There are so many things that refined this decision -- many of them I have mentioned. But, mind you, Penn was also offering me a large sum of money and Columbia was not. I made this decision clean of any factors outside of curriculum, vision, and education. I can say that with absolute conviction. Trust me, because I am turning down 20K a year from Penn... for Columbia. It took a lot of research, a lot of conversations, a lot of revelations but I walked into Avery and the calling was undeniable from the get-go. 
Yes, I would have (will have) done amazing work at Penn. I still love the program and can still see myself going there. They are great! But they sit in corners and make pretty things and aren't challenged conceptually about how they arrived at their beautiful form-- they just do what they do and fail to contextualize their work on a global scale. It is singular, with remnants of an undergraduate curriculum. Columbia is operating at a higher caliber of higher education. Columbia teaches you not only to be a "tool" and learn the tools, but also, and more importantly, how to THINK. 
There is a very similar aesthetic coming out of both schools. But I promise you, and their 09-10 catalog says it all, there is thought, research and understanding behind everything done at Columbia and nothing more than pretty, un-informed form(s) out of Penn. It's a close race between both schools, but once you fully understand what I have discovered, you'll know that Columbia wins by a landslide. It's undeniable. 
It also doesn't work in Penn's favor that they currently don't have a dean! Any school that is in transition is in trouble. You don't want to be the guinea pigs under a new person's agenda. Reputation, curriculum, all of that, is put on hold. In essence, Penn is stuck in a time capsule, and will continue to be for a few years. The kid who is transferring from Penn to Columbia, to restart at the 1st year, says it all. 
Good luck to everyone. I hope you find the conviction and serenity we are all seeking by choosing one of many, all amazing schools. The wand chooses you. We are all going to do great work. Anyone can tell you many opposing conceptions/misconceptions about the Columbia/Penn dilemma. The people at these schools know what's really going on. And I hope my refined perspective dispelled some myths and revealed some authenticity... substantiality.

I am a Penn alumni, and so many professors at penn have studied at or taught courses at Columbia. The schools have a similar way of thinking and you have to consider who you really want to study under and if they are worth tuition. You will find that maybe taking summer internships with you dream professors at Columbia, to be more valuable and free rather than paying extra tuition to go to school under them. The student body at penn is very active and intelligent, and have a wide variety of interests. Of course penn does so called "space ship" architecture but there are so many other types of architecture as well such a wide variety of possible professor choices. What ever you want penn's got it.

@israelias

Thank you very much for the detailed insight of GSAPP. It assures me that my choice could not be wrong and I would likely to attend GSAPP this fall. I have a few questions though. My background is in B.A Architecture and will be doing MArch 3  years. I have used CAD, 3DsMax, Rhino. I have never done parametric designs and I heard Columbia is heavy on computer programs and less on physical models. So, what should I prepare this summer if I am enrolling coming fall? Any tips on anything that could prepare me to be ready would be much appreciated.

@phycon You could start with Rhino's Grasshopper plugin ... it's pretty easy to pick up, it's free if you have Rhino, and it will get you started thinking about parametric concepts.

@Enzie

I was in your exact situation several years ago, I got into Columbia and Penn (for different degrees though) and got no assistance from Columbia and half-tuition from Penn. I chose Penn and never looked back. Don't believe what some people are posting here about "white spaceships," yes, that stuff exists at Penn, but you can chose to accept it or not. I chose to head a more research-driven route and took courses from KieranTimberlake, Bill Braham, and Annette Fierro, all amazing and highly supportive profs who really pushed me to explore what I'm interested in. I have fonder memories from Penn than my undergrad school. I didn't feel like I "missed out" going to Penn over Columbia -- most of your profs actually live and work in NYC and are somehow a part of Columbia's circle as well.

In my opinion (putting my academic hat on), Columbia has shady processes for accepting students. I have never heard of someone NOT getting accepted to Columbia, and personally, all the people I know who have been accepted have never gotten funding.

Just to add to the discussion happening over here: I am having to choose between Columbia MSAAD and UPenn MArch II, I am deeply passionate about emergent digital designs and would like to push myself to another level. As I am an international, I will not be able to attend both the open houses and will rely heavily on the friendly feedback of fellow posters here... Aside from all the points raised earlier, another major point of consideration is after completing my course, which will substantially boost my chances of the possibility of working in NYC or Philly based firms. I am seriously looking at spending a few years in the states either practicing or pursuing my research interests in some academic form or other... Any alumnis care to give their 2cents about this? Thanks a lot!!

I was just browsing through the forum, not expecting to post anything, but I feel like I have to respond to some misconceptions, so here goes...

Like Dani Zoe, I too got into both Penn and Columbia and chose Penn.  This was because--to turn israelias's phrase around--Penn is doing everything that Columbia is doing, plus way way more and at a deeper level.  It seems like israelias was swept off his/her feet by Columbia's manufactured atmosphere.  I attended the NY/Paris program at Columbia, and I was struck time and time again by the shallowness of a lot of the words and more importantly, a lot of the work. 

It seems as though israelias dug deeply enough to get excited by the image of Columbia, but didn't get quite deep enough to understand that a lot of it is just fluffy nothing.  Don't get me wrong, there is good work happening at Columbia.  I don't hate the program.  But, they are also good at constructing nicely polished veneers (mostly via flowery words) to distract from some pretty empty design work.

(As an aside, israelias goes on and on about how Penn and Columbia are so evenly matched, while also stating that Columbia is so much better--summed up with this quote: "It's a close race between both schools, but once you fully understand what I have discovered, you'll know that Columbia wins by a landslide."  I don't know the root of this cognitive dissonance, but I would question this person's motives.)

For some reason, some posters on this site believe that PennDesign students are mindless drones, sitting in corners, making cool shapes, but never learning how to Design.  I went to Penn.  I can tell you from firsthand experience that this is not the case.  I had many challenging conversations about the meaning and context of my designs with both my professors and my classmates.  We pushed each other and, though things got very tough at times, this made me a better designer (and yes, I can script and do some parametric design too).

It burns me up to see my education made into the caricature that israelias portrays.  It just isn't true.