monkeyboy: i didn't realize how great it was to work with winka till i worked at another firm after graduating. i interned with winka, and it was an amazing experience. she's a great designer and actually a very cool person to work for too.
which sort of segues in to some good news, got accepted to u penn, m arch II. got the package last night.
still waiting on ucla and cornell.
those who applied to ucla m arch II, and haven't gotten a response yet, what do you think our chances are?
happy birthday to the birthday people!

heterarchy, congrats on upenn! Just checked your website too. Very articulated designs. I'm still waiting from upenn and ucla, and it's nice to see that you, nancy, and monkeyboy are considering columbia (MSAAD).....
also, it seems UCLA and Columbia are neck to neck in digital facilities/student work. What do you know about Upenn or Yale?

dp you think thom mayne hangs out exclusively in the ucla department or do you think he spends like 2 weeks only, like Richard Meier and peter Eisenman at cornell?

cheers

I still haven't heard from UCLA. There open house is in a week. Just give me a letter that said I was rejected, or tell me over the phone. I really don't believe you are still mailing out letters, so stop telling me that when I call. C'mon.

I got offer from UCLA today. it shows that the letter has been sent on 11th, but it takes more than 10 days to reach me, how poor the letter is!

barbaric-yup, yup. thesis semester. looks like i'll be deciding between columbia and yale, if they decide to take me after all. and yeah, i still haven't heard from ucla, so dude, i totally hear you sahar. by the way, can someone post the link to heterarchy's website again, from what i hear, it's the bomb!

UCLA people: check the website for your application status. One of my friends found out that way...

You didn't get in. We are just to lazy to tell you. We think you should get it after this week.

my results are finally in...and i'm a very confused as to how to proceed:

parsons: accepted
upenn: rejected
columbia: waitlisted*
berkeley: e-jected
pratt: ?

columbia has been my first choice from the beginning, so i'm going to try to stay patient and ride it out. i put parsons slightly above pratt, so i'm not worried about pratt's decision. but if i don't get into columbia, i'm not sure if i should go to parsons (and pay a small fortune) or wait another year and re-apply. honestly, i have no architecture background and it's almost impossible to get an architecture related job in nyc if you have no experience (which is where i live). so would it really make a difference if i wait another year?

lking - youre right about it being tough to get an architecture job in nyc with no experience. i'm thinking about going back to new england and doing boring residential architecture just to have some sort of experience...i'm just not sure if that's the best option. and i dont want to leave ny...

barbaric: thanks. as for yale, i don't know much, except that it seems they've had a challenging time making coordinated reactions to the changing world around them. as for u penn, i've heard it's a good school from several people, and it seems to be making conscious, measured strides towards finding a place in the contemporary architectural community. certainly any actual students of the schools would have better insight though..
i've heard thom is a bit schizo in terms of how much time he spends at ucla, if he's really in to the studio/certain students work, he's there a pretty respectable amount of time. just like most starchitect/teachers, you can't expect him to spend as much time there as we students would like. at the least though, it's more than eisenman at cornell..
nancy: thanks, but it's not quite the bomb.. that's what grad school's for. :)
interupt: checked ucla's website, been checking it everyday, but still nothing. exact same bs as sahar shared. i'm fast losing respect for the good people administering admissions for ucla. afterall, we've all got to make decisions in less than three weeks!

Just an update for those waiting on RISD. Decisions have been made/mailed.

I'm on the wait-list for M.Arch II. So I guess that's good and bad. If I decide to go this route, I won't know if I'm in until the END of April. Man, that's a long wait.

pazdon, that's also an option for me. i've thought about leaving nyc for a year and heading to my home state of NC where my mom just started her own interior architecture firm (i'd love to help her out, even though i wouldn't expect to get paid). but i love nyc and my fiancee will be starting grad school here in the fall (for directing), so i'm not quite ready to quit and leave yet. but if i don't get into columbia and i turn down parsons, then i fear that i would end up taking another really boring job just to pass the time by (and there's no saving money in the city).

well...got a bag of coal from harvard today. On my birthday no less! thanks alot harvard. oh well. i would much rather go to yale, columbia, or ucla anyway. I think it s a good thing...i was getting over conifident. plus people i know locally who are also applying to grad schools are getting pissed that i have been accpeted everywhere so far...not anymore.

monkeyboy: screw harvard. :) ha. even though i didn't apply there, it 's fun to say that.

i'm with you Het. i've said it about 23 times inthe past 30 minutes. They dont know what theyre missing. Thats what my mom told me anyway.
If youre interested in seeing my physical portfolio gone gone digital its temporarily iin the 'work' section of my website www.erikverboon.com
i just took the illustrator files and made jpegs of them so it is not formated for my website which i havebeen slowly revamping.

there goes my anonimity.

Erik! You're totally Flash happy! You nut! Your thesis pres is awesome though, nice job.

Also, Harvard sucks anyway. Don't worry about it.

Thanks Em, i'm not stressin. its my birthday! my golden b-day! 26 on the 26th. I was playing around a little with flash. i dont want a flash site though. i like to keep in simple.

Monkey are you still going to Yale's open house?

it's okay, monkeyboy.

i too just got a lovely rejection from harvard.

thank you, really, no - keep your seats.

does anyone know if there's an open house at uPenn? the info that came didn't say anything about it.

Hey, got my first response. Finally. A big fat "thanks but no thanks" from our friends in Cambridge. No GSD for me.

.mm

I also added to my collection of Ivy league rejections today... thanks GSD! Now all I've got left is the MIT rejection...

Marc

penn open house is april 11, right down to the wire for decision date

has anyone heard from rice yet?

Hammer! I calle rice friday - they were "deliberating as we speak" the woman on the phone stated - so, this week? i hope so.

hey matr--it's getting a bit ridiculous--they have a few months to review, and we'll be left with maybe two weeks to decide?

Does anyone here know anything about MIT Scholarships? I got a pretty fat one, but in their letter addressing tuition support grants and tuition plus fellowship grants, they said that you must obtain a 4.0 GPA in order to keep it for the following year. I know I needed good academic standing but a 4.0!? I hope hope hope it was meant just for the fellowship kids. DAMMIT.

My boss who is a Rice grad said he heard from Rice via telegraph...it was in the 90's. Sounds archaic, but pretty cool. I wonder if they're doing that this year.

I think they are using the pony express.

lenaV, did you get full tuition at MIT?

I got half tuition, that does not carry any work obligation. So there are plenty of other ways to suppliment the award. It's the best so far, Columbia's was only 8,000 and UPenn's with Merit + Need was 9,900.

I'm just torn at the moment, because I'm really into the theory based curriculum at Columbia--and it's NY! Plus, I've lived in Boston for 3 years, I'm ready for a change....

I received an offer from Columbia and booklet last week. I was disappointed in their work and their admissions letter. I'm not really sure what Wigley is doing over there and the school is not the same Columbia from four years ago. I have still not heard from Penn (which can go either way I suppose...however my mail is sporadic and sometimes doesn't come for days at a time)
I also received the same generous offer to MIT and their encouraging admissions packet but am really unclear about the program and want to check it out in person along with GSD on the 7th. Personally I think Penn has some really exciting things going on at the moment along with an established study abroad program at the AA which is amazing…and the new Dean is doing a lot to build up the department.

penn isn't that far from NY.

ny isnt as great as people say it is, anyways. well, today it isn't...tomorrow it will very probably rock again.

for those who heard from GSD saturday, was it by post or email? i'm still waiting. perhaps they've overlooked my rejection?

gsd rejection was by post

I got the same offer from MIT (1/2) tuition
which is about the same as I got from the GSD
I would say the work in the MIT is somewhat misleading as it is the stuff from 2001-2002.

I've been an undergrad in the MIT program for 2 years. we have the same professors as the grads and share studio space. but I still don't have a good idea of the program either. The structures and computation classes are of course very strong. But in studio there are all types of professors who run the gambit from completely theoretical to totally pragmatic.

pimp, i still plan on going to Yale's open house. but i dont have high hopes that they will make their offer competative with columbia or UCLA. It almost seems like a waste of a trip..but I havent been to Yale ever so it should be an educational experience at least.

nervous,
i'm not exactly sure what their program is about either. what i do know, however is that their student body dynamic is exactly what i'm looking for. i think that i'll eventually base my ultimate decision on the amount of money i receive from either school, but right now, all fin. aid aside, columbia seems to be leading the pack. is anyone here going to their april 6th open house?

i've been to MIT, so i think i'll make it out to penn and columbia these next few weeks...can't take too much time off from work though :(

bleh. . . .

monkeyboy ... i don't understand your last post ... are you hoping to negotiate your aid package from Yale? Are you trying to leverage your acceptance at other programs as a way to ger more $ from YSOA?

have you guys been getting merit based $ offers from these schools?

monkeyboy: great portfolio thus far-some of the last images look like a building in Qutar.

monkeyboy: great portfolio thus far-some of the last images look like a building in Qutar...it's in the book Green Architecture.

threads: hope i don't sound uncool, but i thought columbia's booklet was pretty excellent. i was worried about columbia when berny left, but so far i'm digging the direction. then again, i haven't visited since tschumi left...
monkeyboy: your work's awesome. what's intended for the research section?

thanks mjh and heterarchy, i will have to look up that building you speak of. Het, i am not sure what will go in there yet. Most likely past and future writings pertaining to my graduate focus. As you can see the applications processs put a major halt on the development of my website...and anything else for that matter.

smokety, i have heard from a yale grad that is has been done in the past allthough i dont have high hopes nor do i really know how to approach the subject once at the open house. Plus, I dont know what the ivy league schools would think about students considering a competiing offer from a a public school like UCLA. If one said "well...i got a full ride to UCLA" they may say "So?" I think it really depends on how much they want you. The person i spoke with was applying to the MArch1 and was an attractive prospect due to his Harvard Undergrad degree.

Nor do I want to sound ungreatful for the scholorship I have already been offered. It might be better to keep ones mouth shut.

monkeyboy ... I've heard of people doing that as well, but with non-professional schools and programs. It's pretty much a high-risk strategy ...

True that...but my middle name is Dangerous. Actually i dont have a middle name but thats what it would be if i had one.

Has anyone heard from SCI Arc yet?

On a lighter note, I've realized that applications and dating are very similar: an early rejection is much more appreciated in the long run than a LATE one....

;)

why are they taking sooooo long!!! Open house people, our faith rests with you!

does upenn have an open house? if so, does anybody know when it is?

Emerson123: i didn't apply to SCIArc, though i very seriously considered it. i've been surprised to see how few people seem to have applied there (as far as archinect posters at least), any thoughts/opinions on SCIArc from anyone here? if you applied there, why? if you didn't, why not?

southpaw: it's been posted that penn is having an open house, though there wasn't anything about it in my admission package either. i'm thinking of going, but we'll see. check this thread and earlier threads, you'll find the date that is presumed to be the penn open house.

any ucla waiters have any new info? i'm going to end up making a decision before i here from ucla... pretty lame and unprofessional on their part. arg.