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Time Spent by Admissions Committee Reviewing Portfolio?
I'm currently in the process of applying to M.Arch I programs and have been trying to get a better understanding of how the admissions process works. I am particularly interested in how the portfolio is reviewed.
While I was at GSAPP for the Intro to Architecture program a few summers ago, the TAs held an informative lecture on the process and claimed that the committee only flipped through portfolios and didn't actually spend more than a few minutes on them. Does this sound about right? Obviously I understand it's difficult to answer this question, but I think it is a worthwhile one to explore. I would imagine given the large number of applicants, it would seem logical that they would not have time to read all of the text and scrutinize all the content. At the same time, I don't know if this was mere speculation or grounded in some truth.
Any feedback would be greatly appreciated. Good luck to those applying!
I was on the M.Arch admissions committee at UMich's Taubman College and I can share some insight into the process we used.
There were teams of 3-5 students, each with a faculty advisor. Each person of each team would be given a certain amount of applicants to review; this entailed reading the personal statements, looking over all prior academic records, and of course reviewing the portfolio.
After the team's entire batch of applicants had been "peer" reviewed, the team would sit in with the advisor and discuss what they perceived the strength's and weaknesses were in each applicant. We would essentially argue for and against students being admitted into the program.
To answer your primary question; I would say I spent about 1-2 hours per applicant. I don't know how it is at other schools, but at TCAUP we spent a great deal of time reviewing applicants. However, I can imagine that if left to the time and devices of ONLY faculty, the time spent per applicant would definitely be less. Utilizing "peer" reviewers aided by distributing the load and allowing for greater attention and time per applicant.
Hope that sheds some light into this topic. Again, this is how it worked at TCAUP while I was on the committee. Things may have changed under the newer administration.
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