RISD: got the acceptance call this morning - was such a nice surprise! do not know how much financial aid yet though

Your portfolio is excellent! Congrats on the acceptance!

thank you!

in at Penn!

in at Berkeley!

Congratulations @otherplacer! RISD and Penn and Berkeley woww!

Thank you @A_leaf_amongst_many!

in at Harvard with a full ride scholarship!!! so unbelievably happy right now

that's amazing! your portfolio is really great so all these acceptances are definitely deserved . does full ride mean full tuition or is there a stipend/gra/fellowship or something for cost of living?

oh wow congratulations otherplacer! 

Amazing @otherplacer for GSD, now either a) it won't be a hard decision, or b) completely opposite- a more complex decision. Congratulations regardless, that's a great position to be in :)

Congrats on Penn! I just got an acceptance email from them yesterday too - no information about financial aid on my end either though

Congrats to you too! Maybe we'll see each other at Penn in the fall haha

Congratulations @fullofbeans!

thank you!!

also in at Cornell!

Congrats!! I hear Cornell has a really great program

@fullofbeans, will you be coming to Cornell? Have they offered any financial aid package? 

@A_leaf_amongst_many Cornell didn't offer me any sort of funding which feels a little rough, honestly. they've also done the least amount of personal outreach so far. I'm planning to do their virtual open house but unless I'm blown away by something it's probably off my list. still waiting on Penn financial aid, also accepted to UVA with a partial scholarship! so it'll likely be between those two and OSU for me

@fullofbeans, maybe we will meet online in the Cornell open house. I haven't received any financial aid either and the admissions office seems pretty swamped/ non-responsive to questions about the same. I hope we will know more on 14th. I was reading through the other discussions, I saw someone on an M.Arch forum mention that Cornell offers 20k$ as a basic financial aid package to all and additional 5k$ if you demonstrate further need. Also their funding page mentions if you have offers with financial aid from comparable universities, they might match the offers. Don't know if its for UG or grad school. All the best, UPenn will release financial aid info on 13th right? UVA partial scholarship sounds cool.

@A_leaf_amongst_many I hope you're right about the $20k aid, but since architecture and landscape architecture are in entirely different schools at Cornell (AAP vs. CALS) I feel like the funding process would be completely different. I could be wrong! Hopefully the open house will be helpful. And yeah, Penn official letters/funding are posted on the 13th at noon. Fingers crossed!

@fullofbeans, MLA being situated in the CALS it is able to accept government funding which is not the case with AAP (based on hearsay), so I hope they offer more than 20k$ aid. Although its just hopeful speculation. Fingers crossed!

@A_leaf_amongst_many were you able to go to the open house? I'm curious to hear someone else's thoughts on it

@fullofbeans, I did attend it. The curriculum and program are definitely well rounded and the active research projects and collaborations are fantastic. They seemed pretty inflexible on offering any sort of funding the first year, with TA/RA options that have tuition fee remission limited to second year only. And to top it off, additionally painful uncertainty of STEM designation (makes no sense taking out a humongous loan). My wishful thinking definitely didn't manifest. What did you think of it? Also did you get $$$ from UPenn?

@A_leaf_amongst_many agree it's definitely a solid program and the faculty is doing a lot of interesting work, but the funding options are not great compared to other schools, especially since my program is 3 years. Penn gave me a decent offer, it would be a little less than Cornell for me. not ruling it out until I learn more about funding options. I think there's a good chance I'll go to OSU though, really good program for a much lower price for me. good luck!

Results- Got accepted at RISD (with a fellowship), UC Berkeley (joke of financial aid), UVA (partial scholarship), Penn State (one year TAship with tuition waiver), Cornell (No financial aid, but hoping to get through an appeal)

Rejected at Harvard GSD, Waiting to hear from UPenn and TU Delft
(Fingers crossed and wishing for 13th March to come earlier)

Hi A_leaf_amongst_many. Those are great options you have. Congratulations. A tuition waiver at Penn State is amazing, and I think there is some really interesting work in the department.

You mention above that you noted the GSD students seemed unhappy? I'm wondering if you could elaborate on this a little? I only applied to GSD and UPenn (international student) and trying to make decision between the two for MLA I AP, and MLA II respectively. Fortunately I have no fees to pay at GSD, but not sure what will come of UPenn. Will find out on Monday. Appreciate any help you can offer as I missed the Open House sessions. I was enrolled in a course elsewhere and left, so decided to apply quite late.

@ODMA, Congratulations on both the admits and the scholarship too!! About the GSD open house, it had a current student panel which was unsupervised by faculty or administration. A few questions were put for them by the attendees about cross registration with Harvard. The student panelists didn't exactly say in the same words but they did mention that the curriculum could be a bit flexible in terms of electives, it's somewhat theory heavy and rigid currently.

*cross registration for courses with other departments and schools within Harvard.  

I hope UPenn matches financial aid offered by GSD should you choose Upenn. Still, Upenn and GSD both amazing programs. 

Those are fair observations on the programme. I believe it is possible to replace these electives if you can show an equivalence between electives in the GSD and another school. I would hope to take electives at other schools such as HKS and School of Arts and Sciences. Thanks for the info A_leaf_amongst_many, and keep us updated.

Waitlisted at UPenn. I guess that doesn't count since I've read they don't offer any financial aid to waitlisted candidates who are notified of status update changes, if I ever manage to get off the waitlist :(

ETH Zurich - rejected before reaching Department of Architecture by admissions. According to regulations my undergraduate institution is not a university. Totally black and white BS! Anyway.. moving on.

UPenn - early admit. Do not know anything about financial aid yet

Harvard GSD - Mixture of Dean's Merit Scholarship, financial aid, and university funds means I will have no fees to pay (or it covers 94% of the fees to be more precise). Quite happy with that.

Tough luck with ETH. They are quite strict, overly so possibly :(

Hi, congratulations on the admits! I'm curious about GSD's scholarship and financial aid as an international student. Could you send me a breakdown of the aid via private message? I still have 2 years to apply and I want a better view of finances. Thanks!

Hey plantsplus. Great schools. University of Guelph looks really interesting and I like that there is a strong agricultural component. Am I right that it's the oldest landscape programme in Canada? In any case those are all cool schools to choose from.

yeah that's correct! oldest in Canada and thus largest network of alumni etc to tap into. Really torn on there and UBC right now. Thank you! Your list look super exciting as well. good luck:)

Have you heard back from any schools? My friend heard back from UC Berkeley on Monday but I haven’t gotten anything yet.