i don;t know but would appreciate any advice too....
- i have had a drafting class, pencil &paper, and a few model assignments in the one arch class my liberal arts school offers... other than that am feeling horribly unprepared for portfolio...
ieugenei, i was talking with a rep from a grad school the other day, he had a few sample portfolios of students who'd been accepted- the ones whith no studio experience were mostly personal artwork, drawing, photography, some built pieces- -
1) i am wondering though, if it would be worth doing a summer program arch or otherwise , to help produce portfolio work- ... i think it could help crank out a lot of materiel.
2) i also think for those of us who haven;t got that studio experience/portfolio, we shouldn;t even compete on those lines with those who have had it , but rather, emphasize other work, other ways of thinking. essays, photography, sculpture, etc...

i wonder whens the best time for a summer program.
im thinking about enrolling in the columbia arch program. but don't know if it's too early for such a program or too late.

as their 2005 site isn't up yet, my guess is it's not too late...... was reading the description seems cool- I don't know what i would do for housing in nyc though...if i;m not working..
i've heard mostly bad things ab the gsd career dicovery - and mixed reviews on the DIS program...

parsons has a portfolio prep major for one year...though I wouldn't take their summer program. If you have never taken an intro to architecture studio and want to do a summer program...DO IT ASAP!!!!!!
or any design studio in general.
M. Arch 1 programs aren't looking for drafting skills, they are looking to see your abilities with drawing( preferably not pictures) and composition.
Test yourself by making your own design project and have friends or family be your client. That would be great to put in a portfolio.

A summer program is an excellent way to test whether architecture school is a good idea for you - whether you enjoy the work and the atmosphere and the frantic pace. Especially for those with no previous design school experience these programs can be eye-opening as to what architecture school is really like.
But, the work is of limited value for your portfolio because projects from Harvard's Career Disco and from Columbia's summer thing are instantly recognizable as such, and there are so many applicants who attend those programs who end up with such similar work.
Unless you have NO other visual work I would discourage using more than one project from those programs in your portfolio. For someone with no architecture school background it's much better to use your own personal, non-architecture projects that give some indication of your own interests, progress, process, sensibilities... It doesn't really matter what kind - could be any mixture of painting, photography, textiles, fashion, graphic design, you name it.
About a third of first-year M.Arch students in most programs are from non-architecture backgrounds, and most of them blend in pretty seamlessly by the second semester. Often in the first few projects they're the ones making weird models out of marshmallows and popsicle sticks - but there's no harm in that and critics usually critique the concept more than the craft.

One more note: Parsons' "portfolio prep" program is a choice of 1 semester or 1 year. But what it amounts to is just sophomore undergrad studios (which at Parsons tend to have very little to do with buildings and are more focused on materials transformations and performance art), sophomore visual language courses (aka drawing and computers), a few electives, and a 1-credit "portfolio preparation" course that is mainly about using a grid to unify your pages. It's very expensive and completely all-consuming timewise. Again I would not recommend this approach unless you have absolutely no previous visual work. Even then, a couple continuing ed courses taken practically anywhere that focus on freehand drawing (whether lanscape, life drawing, architectural, whatever) will likely amount to a larger body of useable portfolio pieces with less time and expense.

so far, what i see in my portfolio is some photos i've taken in europe, high school photography class, some graphic flyers (freelance graphic designer... mainly for events and parties on campus), sketches from my sketchbook, and maybe some rennovation projects that I plan to enact on my fraternity house (i feel this would be an interesting part of the portfolio, take picstures of how it used to look as to after rennovating.. right now it's a trash heap). most likely i'll add some works from art studio classes (drawing/sculpting) and the summer program at columbia.

StabmasterArson? Is your name Mike A.?

it'd be interesting to see stats for some of the big name schools about how many people applying had what undergrad degree and what percentage of them got in, for example, maybe 10% of arch undergrads that applied got in, but maybe 45 % of fine art undergrads and 35 % of philosophy undergrads got in

kai is that a guestimation?



music can be a portfolio item yes?
some free-time mixing of tunes on a sonic foundry acid pro..

no, not even a guess, just so people knew what I meant, the numbers meant nothing. However, I've heard wuite a few people say that they think it is easier to get into a top arch school with a non arch background

i wonder if they go in depth with GPA or more in depth with individual classes and how i did in each

am hoping to intern for a year before doing grad- and though there may not be portfolio work comming from that angle, i assume this would weigh in on the admissions decision..? This is what i want to do for the rest of my life, - hope that i can get that accross to some admissions comitee that is probably already saturated with slick design-school portfolios... If only you got accepted based on how badly you wanted to ......

competitions compeitions competitions---thats all i have to say

where did you get an undergrad w/ no studio experience?