Personally I would not want to go to a school which was just accredited although my great uncle went to the Art Institute in the 1930's/1940's. I have heard good things about University of Illinois Urbana Champaign, and it is one of the oldest architecture schools in the United States. Also, in terms of a general ranking of the University UIUC ranks signifantly higher than UiC under National Universities by U.S. News & World Report. Good luck!

dont go

I'm not sure what you have heard that is negative about the program on this forum. Most of the commentary has been quite friendly. Can you be more specific?

SAIC is one of the best fine arts institutions in the country, and has been for over a hundred years. I suppose it would be fair to look at RISD as a comparison, and I understand Cranbrook is looking at getting accreditation for their architecture program. Yale is strong in the fine arts too, but I don't know if their architecture program is very connected. Those would all be reasonable curricular comparisons. Of course, none of them are in a world class city, and most people, oddly, choose graduate school for location, not because of the program.

UIUC has a reputation for being very technical, and it is in the middle of a cornfield. It is about as different from the art institute as you can get. So if you want to become an MEP expert or real estate developers assistant, definitely opt for there.

The comparison to IIT and UIC is possibly appropriate -- they are within a couple of miles of one another, and share a noticeable percentage of faculty over the long term (with Archeworks and Harrington). In both cases you trade lower published tuition for much larger class sizes, and many fewer instructional resources. IIT churns out competent neo-modernists, although apparently they still loose about 2/3 of each class. UIC has been trying to rebranded as a theory school for decades; although I have yet to meet a theorist who graduated from there. That is a pretty tough proposition however, architecture seems to be able to accommodate no more than one or two new theorists a year, worldwide, which makes it an odd direction for a school that size.

The curriculum at SAIC is quite different from any of them, and for that matter, from most schools. They have effectively relegated the NAAB criteria to a single technical course per ter, so studios can engage wide creative concerns without having to stop and teach building code for a month. Six architectural history and theory electives mean that the average student gets as much or more theory as anyplace else, and has much better choices. And a studio elective every term means that you can explore a creative agenda that doesn't have to bear fruit in building at all (or you can take a bunch of BIM).

It is a young program, which means a motivated student can take advantage of what is available to get what they need, and someone who needs their hand held every step of the way will find it frustrating. But if you just want to learn how to do things by the book, a masters in structural engineering takes half as long and pays better when you get out of school.

i would advise against the program.

of last years incoming class (arch.) all but one student left the program. almost entirely due to issues with the curriculum, faculty, and course integration. many of us were actually advised to leave the school by faculty outside our core studios.

it is a program that has grand visions of what it will be after it received a nod from NAAB, and hopefully now they will become that program. unfortunately during my time there it failed to deliver on many accounts. lofty language for a quite flat studio experience. when a studio professor refuses to discuss the "why" of decision making it leads to a critical vacuum that is less than enriching.

i do agree with mespellwrong that the elective courses and surrounding academic environment of SAIC is a plus.