Do any non-architects want to share their background and grad schools to which you were accepted ? I studied history and I'm trying to figure out my chances for schools. Want to list gre scores, gpa's, portfolio links? Especially portfolio links. No schools have examples of great portfolios by people with no architecture experience.
GRE: 590, 720, 5.5, majored in studio art, accepted at GSD, Penn, Texas, UCLA. I went to Career Discovery at Harvard over the summer, which was absolutely essential for fleshing out my portfolio as well as getting great advice from my instructor while I was there about applying.
GRE: 590 V + 730 M
Johns Hopkins University, BA in Cognitive Science.
3.10GPA
In at Catholic, UMich and IIT.
Rejected at Columbia.
Waiting on UCLA.
http://xaphan.deviantart.com has my non-drawing pieces. so my portfolio was a lot stronger than that. Essentially, my portfolio consisted of various fractals, 3d renders and portrait drawings.
Accepted to Wash U, Tulane & Ga Tech, rejected from UOregon
no portfolio link (sorry)
But I suppose I prove that the portfolio is key...mine is ok, nothing spectacular. Everything else is good (gpa, gre, etc) , and I have experience working in an architecture firm and architectural lighting design firm. I knew I didn't really have a shot at being accepted to the top schools (and no desire to go, either) so I only applied to schools where I knew I had a good chance of being admitted and thought that they had what I wanted from an architecture school
GRE: 620 V 730 M 5.0
UCLA Business/Economics
3.2 GPA
Accepted to Yale, Columbia, Berkeley, Sciarc, among some others
Rejected to GSD & UCLA
look at the great grad portfolio post. some of the stuff has been taken down since but some should be up. also, if you visit schools they have accepted portfolios that you can view. about 1/3 of m.arch1's (roughly) are not arch backgrounds so basically, you've got a chance if you're serious about it. i also took the summer program at UCLA and found it very helpful and alot of schools have similar programs as well. it'll cost you about 2-3k but worth it in the whole scheme of things.
BA uchicago (sociology) gpa 3.5
MA columbia (sociology)- my focus was on urban soc, culture/arts, social movements
gre was like 1420, 6.0 writing
work background in social science research/non-profit (urban stuff)
i did columbia summer studio, which was great for 1) helping me decide to make the switch 2)helping me learn more about what i wanted from arch. ed
i've also done a lot of art classes (painting, photo, sculpture, drawing) and though i can't post my portfolio, it was some stuff from summer studio, and then mostly drawing, and sculpture. it was also short (16 pages i think?) and my first attempt ever at using photoshop and indesign, so it was really rather simple. i also asked many people to look it over and give me advice, so i definitely got a lot of help there.
got into columbia, penn, and uiuc
rejected from princeton, gsd, and yale
undergrad in poli. sci and spanish
gre was 600, 630 5.5
after college worked in non-profit in NYC, took photo at cooper union and drafting at parsons
working at an arch. firm now and i did summer academy at UT Austin (that being where i wanted to go) it was great for helping me understand grad school, figuring out if i wanted to go and learning about the application and portfolio process.
i have ZERO drawing skills (working on that now) and my portfolio was all photography - but i was told during summer academy that the layout/design/constrcution of the portfolio was as important IF NOT MORE important than the content. it's all about showing potential and an eye for design. and i'm very happy with my portfolio but i don't have a link to it...i should photograph it or something...
i'm in to UT Austin, Wash. U, Tulane - waitlisted at U. Washington.
BA Historic Pres- Univ. of Mary Washington (3.3 GPA, 3.4 in my major)
Currently Work as Architect Intern/ Project Designer for a firm
GRE - so horrendously low I'm not going to post it (but, i got a 5/6 on the Writing portion... Math was the disaster)
My undergrad program had me heavily involved with documentation & FW, both hand & CAD drawing, Arch history, Building conservation, Pres law and planning (in addition a ton of bulls*&t courses like Museum studies and Folklore). Working for an Arch firm after graduation has helped me immensely... I feel like I learned everything I know about CAD from work. Also, Ive had a little bit of exposure to the designing aspect of architecture, something I had nothing of in college. The grad school horror stories everyone in my firm keep telling me are also helping me get ready for next year (more like freaking me out... not cool)
My portfolio had my measured drawings, photos and various projects I made in art class in college. Nothing extravagent, but it showed the extent of my architectural knowledge to this point. (looking back at it now I could have done more... oh well)
I'm going to Texas A&M this August (MArchI) since they have a fabulous Preservation program attached to their architecture dept. Their HISP program even offered me a scholarship making me eligible for instate tuition + $1000.
My advice: find what aspect of architecture you're interested in and look into programs that cater to that. Then have your portfoilio also mirror your interest. If you like the computerization aspect of the arch field, look at the programs that deal heavily with computer technology. Same is the case if you're into sustainable design/ LEED.
*BA - Colorado College - gpa: 3.5, Studio Art - major gpa: 3.68 (note too that a lot of schools care only about your last two years or within your major)
*GRE - 500v, 700q, 5.0w (EVERYONE says this matters the least, if at all, it only seems to matter when you have to go through a general graduate school, UT Austin is a good example)
*architectural work experience (pragmatic, not design - so none of that was included in my portfolio)
*portfolio was good, but in retrospect I think it could be much better, very simple layout with little text, lots of photography (which was my focus), but also included Career Disco stuff, jewelry I've made, printmaking and some drawing - no link, sorry.
In: Penn, U of Washington
rejected: Yale, UVa, UT Austin
no clue: SCI-Arc
My GREs: 800v, 720math, this was a few years ago and the writing test wasn't part of it yet.
My GPA was lackluster: around 3.2, and particularly weak in my later 2 years. My grades included everything from A through D.
My undergrad background was a liberal arts degree from a small middle-of-the-pack type of college.
My portfolio was a lot of drawings, pages of my sketchbooks, various conceptual sculpture, painting, etc. - mostly done outside of an academic setting, though I did take a lot of art and design courses in college. I didn't do anything like Career Discovery. I had a lot of work that I'd done over the years - more than enough to fill a portfolio and the hard part was editing it down, but I decided to go with a "more is more" approach and just let it be full and cluttered and not particularly focused.
I think my reference letters helped me. I had taken classes with some people who are relatively well known as architecture theorists and they were very encouraging and supportive.
The statement that I wrote had nothing to do with architecture or specifically with the schools to which I applied. It was more of a personal manifesto of the moment.
Accepted to Yale, MIT, GSD, Pratt, University of Illinois at Chicago
Rejected by Princeton
undergrad Geography from Berkeley
3.8 GPA, 690V, 720M, 700A
took some painting, drawing in undergrad and continued to do it while working for the past few years. did M+M at Sci-arc, really helpful! As far as porfolios go, they really like to hear about the process and thought behind the work, don't just show pretty pictures. i had a fair bit of writing in mine.
got into UCLA, Sci-Arc, Columbia M.Arch; Penn and Berkeley for MLA
I graduated in 2004 from UNC-Greensboro with BFA in Design and Technical Theatre. School is known in North Carolina for theatre, but invisible outside of the state. Worked as a properties master in regional theatre since graduation.
GPA 3.65
No GRE scores.
Applied and accepted to RISD
Portfolio included scenery sketches, models, and photographs of the final product. Also, costume sketches. Mostly, I tried to show a creative progression of each show I featured from initial sketches to models to the finished set.
Wrote a little essay about my personal connection to architecture, why theatre design had interested me, and how that related to what I wanted to in architecture.
I graduated from Northwestern University. 3.4 gpa; gre: 680V, 740M 4.5 A
portfolio of drawings, political organizing work, models from a class I took at UC Berkeley. portfolio a little skimpy- 13 pages- in my mind.
Accepted: UPenn, MIT, U Michigan, UT Austin, Oregon, Washington
I am mostly wondering about UPenn v. MIT. my sense is they are vastly different programs, but I don't know too much. If anyone can tell me how they are different, offer advice, make a life decision for me, I would really appreciate it. Thanks...
BS in mathematics/nuclear power; 500 v, 660 m, 5 w - no link to port, sorry. accepted to UT-Austin; spent a lot of time in southeast asia/middle east - used that experiece with sports background (4 x All american) in my essay. My first and only choice was UT. I have minimum drawing experiece, but just went for it and used several mediums in my port: pencil, clay, glass, wire molds, and a few models I just made up...
even more impressive...one of my closest friends boxed for the air force academy and i have a good idea of what you went through training-wise. well done.
i was at air force from '91-'95 so i might be a bit older, but it's always nice to be in touch with another service academy geek...even if you're a squid! ;)
drop me an email if you get a minute...would love to hear your backstory.
sorry about hijacking the thread for a bit everyone...back to business as usual.
my background is urban planning, and i applied to mit, berkeley, yale, uva, and penn (got into all of them, to my absolutely shocked surprise). i'd taken some of the undergrad architecture studios during my undergrad - right now i'm working on my masters in city planning.
gpa - not really that great - 4.4/5 i think it was. i always got As in studio, though i really don't think that means much.
gre - 1420. meh. i dearly hate standardized tests and my goal was to get out of there as soon as human possible.
according to one of my studio professors, the portfolio is the most importnat thing and they don't really care about your grades. he claimed to not read statements either, but it was certainly useful for me to clarify to myself that this is what i wanted to do. i had my current advisor write me a recommendation even though he doesn't approve of my architectural proclivities - no idea what he said...
If I could do it all over again, I would trade my worthless 4 yr. Environmental Design degree for something solid like a degree in Material Science. THEN, on to the M.Arch...
thanks! i think i posted about yale on another thread...perhaps the "open house" one? i didn't reject yale outright - i went to visit on thursday. i was favorably impressed by the open house in general, but i thought that the pinup presentation materials i saw weren't particularly compelling. the other main flaw i saw in the program was that it didn't have enough of a connection and interaction with other programs, whether it was engineering or art. having never been in an architecture school, i find that the non-architects keep me sane. and i guess the last thing is that the ways in which the digital fabrication machines are used didn't merit the glut of equipment that the school has.
awol I wish I could view your portfolio but the PDF is not working for me. Bummer. I looked on your rock star aspirations and you seem nice. The barefoot-at-home-ability thing was huge for me, too; it's amazing how much that can affect happiness. Good luck wherever you go!
hmm, how is it not working? perhaps it's the size? it is pretty big. it might work if you right-click on the link and save the file instead of trying to view the pdf in the browser.
I am able to download to the browser, but can see only blank pages - when I tried to save to my computer, I got a file corrupted message. Grrrrrrrrrrrrr.
Neither fine art nor arch in my background, here's the story...
B.S. in Ecology (Cook College, Rutgers Univ.), A.O.S. in Culinary Arts (NECI) and about a decade of fine dining experience as a chef.
I took to kitchen and restaurant design like a bear to berries...got swept up in it all. Quit my chef job, and have been working for an Arch firm as well as a commercial kitchen designer for about 2years.
Almost no formal training, but robust computer skills in 2d & 3d. Have started taking on restaurant jobs on my own as consultant and designer.
Only applied to Pratt. Accepted. Will defer. There's too much professional, billable work available for me right now to justify going back to school, especially at the cost of private education. Maybe UC Berkeley next year.
My portfolio was not as strong as it could have been...although i'm a pretty harsh critic of my own work. It was all digital work and photography. A nice InDesign set-up, 11" x 17" comb-bound, some sexy graphics. Definitely lacking in sketching, my weakest side, but always improving.
I'll post it at some point if i get to setting it up...
This has been a pretty interesting thread, i must say.
Also, I think the admissions board must have looked favorably both on my portfolio as well as my culinary experience, because it sure wasn't my paltry excuse for an undergraduate gpa.
what can i say, i didn't know how to apply myself back then.
susansurface - i can email it to you if you really want to see it, but it's just a portfolio - there are a million people out there with a better one than me. anyway, shoot me an email if you want it.
UPenn B.A. Bio
GRE's in 600's, math a bit higher.
GPA 3.0
my rec's and essay I think were pretty solid.
Took my portfolio v seriously.
At the time, in 1995, at least at most schools, they split the applicants into 2 diff pools, with or without undergrad arch education
So I decided to make somewhat of a gamble and try to present myself as someone who could put together architectural stuff even though I knew I was going to get put in the non architect admissions pile. I made a portfolio of my Career Discovery GSD projects that was ruthlessly architectural, i.e. no freehand sketches or drawings (which most of my non architectural classmates were putting in, like figure drawings, building sketches and such). It was really abstract and cryptic, blakc white, super minimal, stark hardline drawings and models, super simple format. In the end, it was probably more abstract then most portfolios from applicants w prior architectural education. I put in maybe 3-4 months part time fleshing out the summer projects then going back and editing the crap out of it and also getting advice from other ppl. Kind of a long time but I didn't know what I was doing back then and my application depended on it.
I got into where I applied, GSD, Sci arc, Berkeley, MIT, UCLA.
wow. my statistics are pretty similar to all these, 3.02 GPA, (3.72 in arch hist. courses), 1400 GRE, non-arch (B.Fin - not ivy but top 50), recs from great professors, including a visiting lecturer @ GSD, applied GSD MIT UC Berkeley Yale RISD, passed over by all.
Portfolio was kind of a mess I guess - goes to show ya.
asking for recommendations from professors has always been a mystery to me as well. which professors do you ask? does asking your favorite german/philo prof for a rec hold less water than asking your thesis adviser? are schools only concerned with former professors and not, say, former employers?
greenlander, out of curiousity, who did you ask for recommendations... career disco profs? science profs? others?
and did you end up going to GSD?
recs from 2 drawings profs from undergrad, 1 from career disco.
yeh I went to GSD, almost was about to go to MIT and last minute I got a solid but not great financial aid package. Without the big aid, no way I wouldve gone to GSD. I was really poor at the time, not that I'm much better off now.
imfalling- to respond almost 2 months later - yes I am planning to apply this year, looking back on my essays & portfolio I'm sure I can improve both significantly
Nov 1, 08 9:27 pm ·
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Non architects (mArch 1 or 3+) that got accepted to grad school
Do any non-architects want to share their background and grad schools to which you were accepted ? I studied history and I'm trying to figure out my chances for schools. Want to list gre scores, gpa's, portfolio links? Especially portfolio links. No schools have examples of great portfolios by people with no architecture experience.
philosophy 580 or so average Columbia.
GRE: 590, 720, 5.5, majored in studio art, accepted at GSD, Penn, Texas, UCLA. I went to Career Discovery at Harvard over the summer, which was absolutely essential for fleshing out my portfolio as well as getting great advice from my instructor while I was there about applying.
GRE: 590 V + 730 M
Johns Hopkins University, BA in Cognitive Science.
3.10GPA
In at Catholic, UMich and IIT.
Rejected at Columbia.
Waiting on UCLA.
http://xaphan.deviantart.com has my non-drawing pieces. so my portfolio was a lot stronger than that. Essentially, my portfolio consisted of various fractals, 3d renders and portrait drawings.
hope it helps.
UG degree in Economics
580V 790M 5.0
3.8 GPA
Accepted to Wash U, Tulane & Ga Tech, rejected from UOregon
no portfolio link (sorry)
But I suppose I prove that the portfolio is key...mine is ok, nothing spectacular. Everything else is good (gpa, gre, etc) , and I have experience working in an architecture firm and architectural lighting design firm. I knew I didn't really have a shot at being accepted to the top schools (and no desire to go, either) so I only applied to schools where I knew I had a good chance of being admitted and thought that they had what I wanted from an architecture school
GRE: 620 V 730 M 5.0
UCLA Business/Economics
3.2 GPA
Accepted to Yale, Columbia, Berkeley, Sciarc, among some others
Rejected to GSD & UCLA
look at the great grad portfolio post. some of the stuff has been taken down since but some should be up. also, if you visit schools they have accepted portfolios that you can view. about 1/3 of m.arch1's (roughly) are not arch backgrounds so basically, you've got a chance if you're serious about it. i also took the summer program at UCLA and found it very helpful and alot of schools have similar programs as well. it'll cost you about 2-3k but worth it in the whole scheme of things.
BA uchicago (sociology) gpa 3.5
MA columbia (sociology)- my focus was on urban soc, culture/arts, social movements
gre was like 1420, 6.0 writing
work background in social science research/non-profit (urban stuff)
i did columbia summer studio, which was great for 1) helping me decide to make the switch 2)helping me learn more about what i wanted from arch. ed
i've also done a lot of art classes (painting, photo, sculpture, drawing) and though i can't post my portfolio, it was some stuff from summer studio, and then mostly drawing, and sculpture. it was also short (16 pages i think?) and my first attempt ever at using photoshop and indesign, so it was really rather simple. i also asked many people to look it over and give me advice, so i definitely got a lot of help there.
got into columbia, penn, and uiuc
rejected from princeton, gsd, and yale
undergrad in poli. sci and spanish
gre was 600, 630 5.5
after college worked in non-profit in NYC, took photo at cooper union and drafting at parsons
working at an arch. firm now and i did summer academy at UT Austin (that being where i wanted to go) it was great for helping me understand grad school, figuring out if i wanted to go and learning about the application and portfolio process.
i have ZERO drawing skills (working on that now) and my portfolio was all photography - but i was told during summer academy that the layout/design/constrcution of the portfolio was as important IF NOT MORE important than the content. it's all about showing potential and an eye for design. and i'm very happy with my portfolio but i don't have a link to it...i should photograph it or something...
i'm in to UT Austin, Wash. U, Tulane - waitlisted at U. Washington.
waiting to hear on some more schools...
BA Historic Pres- Univ. of Mary Washington (3.3 GPA, 3.4 in my major)
Currently Work as Architect Intern/ Project Designer for a firm
GRE - so horrendously low I'm not going to post it (but, i got a 5/6 on the Writing portion... Math was the disaster)
My undergrad program had me heavily involved with documentation & FW, both hand & CAD drawing, Arch history, Building conservation, Pres law and planning (in addition a ton of bulls*&t courses like Museum studies and Folklore). Working for an Arch firm after graduation has helped me immensely... I feel like I learned everything I know about CAD from work. Also, Ive had a little bit of exposure to the designing aspect of architecture, something I had nothing of in college. The grad school horror stories everyone in my firm keep telling me are also helping me get ready for next year (more like freaking me out... not cool)
My portfolio had my measured drawings, photos and various projects I made in art class in college. Nothing extravagent, but it showed the extent of my architectural knowledge to this point. (looking back at it now I could have done more... oh well)
I'm going to Texas A&M this August (MArchI) since they have a fabulous Preservation program attached to their architecture dept. Their HISP program even offered me a scholarship making me eligible for instate tuition + $1000.
My advice: find what aspect of architecture you're interested in and look into programs that cater to that. Then have your portfoilio also mirror your interest. If you like the computerization aspect of the arch field, look at the programs that deal heavily with computer technology. Same is the case if you're into sustainable design/ LEED.
Good luck to you next year!
*BA - Colorado College - gpa: 3.5, Studio Art - major gpa: 3.68 (note too that a lot of schools care only about your last two years or within your major)
*GRE - 500v, 700q, 5.0w (EVERYONE says this matters the least, if at all, it only seems to matter when you have to go through a general graduate school, UT Austin is a good example)
*architectural work experience (pragmatic, not design - so none of that was included in my portfolio)
*portfolio was good, but in retrospect I think it could be much better, very simple layout with little text, lots of photography (which was my focus), but also included Career Disco stuff, jewelry I've made, printmaking and some drawing - no link, sorry.
In: Penn, U of Washington
rejected: Yale, UVa, UT Austin
no clue: SCI-Arc
hope that helps. :-)
My GREs: 800v, 720math, this was a few years ago and the writing test wasn't part of it yet.
My GPA was lackluster: around 3.2, and particularly weak in my later 2 years. My grades included everything from A through D.
My undergrad background was a liberal arts degree from a small middle-of-the-pack type of college.
My portfolio was a lot of drawings, pages of my sketchbooks, various conceptual sculpture, painting, etc. - mostly done outside of an academic setting, though I did take a lot of art and design courses in college. I didn't do anything like Career Discovery. I had a lot of work that I'd done over the years - more than enough to fill a portfolio and the hard part was editing it down, but I decided to go with a "more is more" approach and just let it be full and cluttered and not particularly focused.
I think my reference letters helped me. I had taken classes with some people who are relatively well known as architecture theorists and they were very encouraging and supportive.
The statement that I wrote had nothing to do with architecture or specifically with the schools to which I applied. It was more of a personal manifesto of the moment.
Accepted to Yale, MIT, GSD, Pratt, University of Illinois at Chicago
Rejected by Princeton
undergrad Geography from Berkeley
3.8 GPA, 690V, 720M, 700A
took some painting, drawing in undergrad and continued to do it while working for the past few years. did M+M at Sci-arc, really helpful! As far as porfolios go, they really like to hear about the process and thought behind the work, don't just show pretty pictures. i had a fair bit of writing in mine.
got into UCLA, Sci-Arc, Columbia M.Arch; Penn and Berkeley for MLA
last year application, if it helps...
580m, 780v, 5.5w
3.75, BScBA economics, xavier university
portfolio of writing only
only applied to cincinnati, got accepted
early draft of portfolio now, got interships at kpf-ny, ziger-snead-baltimore, interning at kpf now
I graduated in 2004 from UNC-Greensboro with BFA in Design and Technical Theatre. School is known in North Carolina for theatre, but invisible outside of the state. Worked as a properties master in regional theatre since graduation.
GPA 3.65
No GRE scores.
Applied and accepted to RISD
Portfolio included scenery sketches, models, and photographs of the final product. Also, costume sketches. Mostly, I tried to show a creative progression of each show I featured from initial sketches to models to the finished set.
Wrote a little essay about my personal connection to architecture, why theatre design had interested me, and how that related to what I wanted to in architecture.
Good luck!
im still going to the Univ of Houston (architecture). will attend Columbia Univ this summer for 3 semesters for my masters (AAD).
gpa 3.7, no gre, portoflio? my models, 3d computer mods, anything that a book lets ppl know who and what u can do?
I graduated from Northwestern University. 3.4 gpa; gre: 680V, 740M 4.5 A
portfolio of drawings, political organizing work, models from a class I took at UC Berkeley. portfolio a little skimpy- 13 pages- in my mind.
Accepted: UPenn, MIT, U Michigan, UT Austin, Oregon, Washington
I am mostly wondering about UPenn v. MIT. my sense is they are vastly different programs, but I don't know too much. If anyone can tell me how they are different, offer advice, make a life decision for me, I would really appreciate it. Thanks...
BS in mathematics/nuclear power; 500 v, 660 m, 5 w - no link to port, sorry. accepted to UT-Austin; spent a lot of time in southeast asia/middle east - used that experiece with sports background (4 x All american) in my essay. My first and only choice was UT. I have minimum drawing experiece, but just went for it and used several mediums in my port: pencil, clay, glass, wire molds, and a few models I just made up...
one last note (UT-Austin specific): the grad advisor gave me the following numbers on what they "look" at:
40% portfolio
20% statement of purpose
20% Letters of reference
10% transcript
10% GRE
-may help prioritizing your time...I'd ask the grad advisor of your prospective school what he/she thinks...
would st1 or anybody else know what they had for columbia?
what sport st1? that's an amazing accomplishment!
boxing
even more impressive...one of my closest friends boxed for the air force academy and i have a good idea of what you went through training-wise. well done.
TOO FUNNY! I went to the Naval Academy, and my rival was at airforce!
490 600 3.099 cultural anthropology major.
accepted: Harvard GSD; MIT; RISD; Univ. of Washington; California College of Arts.
rejected: Yale.
#1 advice: PORTFOLIO
Personal statement
i was at air force from '91-'95 so i might be a bit older, but it's always nice to be in touch with another service academy geek...even if you're a squid! ;)
drop me an email if you get a minute...would love to hear your backstory.
sorry about hijacking the thread for a bit everyone...back to business as usual.
Jj01
can i ask where you went for unergrad?
my background is urban planning, and i applied to mit, berkeley, yale, uva, and penn (got into all of them, to my absolutely shocked surprise). i'd taken some of the undergrad architecture studios during my undergrad - right now i'm working on my masters in city planning.
gpa - not really that great - 4.4/5 i think it was. i always got As in studio, though i really don't think that means much.
gre - 1420. meh. i dearly hate standardized tests and my goal was to get out of there as soon as human possible.
my portfolio: http://web.mit.edu/awol/www/portfolio/
according to one of my studio professors, the portfolio is the most importnat thing and they don't really care about your grades. he claimed to not read statements either, but it was certainly useful for me to clarify to myself that this is what i wanted to do. i had my current advisor write me a recommendation even though he doesn't approve of my architectural proclivities - no idea what he said...
Nice job, non architects. You guys cleaned up!
If I could do it all over again, I would trade my worthless 4 yr. Environmental Design degree for something solid like a degree in Material Science. THEN, on to the M.Arch...
awol:
nice job, i really like your portfolio. i'm curious as to what made you reject yale outright...
thanks! i think i posted about yale on another thread...perhaps the "open house" one? i didn't reject yale outright - i went to visit on thursday. i was favorably impressed by the open house in general, but i thought that the pinup presentation materials i saw weren't particularly compelling. the other main flaw i saw in the program was that it didn't have enough of a connection and interaction with other programs, whether it was engineering or art. having never been in an architecture school, i find that the non-architects keep me sane. and i guess the last thing is that the ways in which the digital fabrication machines are used didn't merit the glut of equipment that the school has.
awol I wish I could view your portfolio but the PDF is not working for me. Bummer. I looked on your rock star aspirations and you seem nice. The barefoot-at-home-ability thing was huge for me, too; it's amazing how much that can affect happiness. Good luck wherever you go!
hmm, how is it not working? perhaps it's the size? it is pretty big. it might work if you right-click on the link and save the file instead of trying to view the pdf in the browser.
I am able to download to the browser, but can see only blank pages - when I tried to save to my computer, I got a file corrupted message. Grrrrrrrrrrrrr.
Neither fine art nor arch in my background, here's the story...
B.S. in Ecology (Cook College, Rutgers Univ.), A.O.S. in Culinary Arts (NECI) and about a decade of fine dining experience as a chef.
I took to kitchen and restaurant design like a bear to berries...got swept up in it all. Quit my chef job, and have been working for an Arch firm as well as a commercial kitchen designer for about 2years.
Almost no formal training, but robust computer skills in 2d & 3d. Have started taking on restaurant jobs on my own as consultant and designer.
Only applied to Pratt. Accepted. Will defer. There's too much professional, billable work available for me right now to justify going back to school, especially at the cost of private education. Maybe UC Berkeley next year.
My portfolio was not as strong as it could have been...although i'm a pretty harsh critic of my own work. It was all digital work and photography. A nice InDesign set-up, 11" x 17" comb-bound, some sexy graphics. Definitely lacking in sketching, my weakest side, but always improving.
I'll post it at some point if i get to setting it up...
This has been a pretty interesting thread, i must say.
Thanks for other's input.
Also, I think the admissions board must have looked favorably both on my portfolio as well as my culinary experience, because it sure wasn't my paltry excuse for an undergraduate gpa.
what can i say, i didn't know how to apply myself back then.
susansurface - i can email it to you if you really want to see it, but it's just a portfolio - there are a million people out there with a better one than me. anyway, shoot me an email if you want it.
a couple of people from stanford who got into gsd...
i think they both got a bachelors in engineering w/ specialization in arch design
http://www.stanford.edu/dept/archdesign/Docs/josephportfolio.pdf
http://www.stanford.edu/dept/archdesign/Docs/marcelaportfolio.pdf
UPenn B.A. Bio
GRE's in 600's, math a bit higher.
GPA 3.0
my rec's and essay I think were pretty solid.
Took my portfolio v seriously.
At the time, in 1995, at least at most schools, they split the applicants into 2 diff pools, with or without undergrad arch education
So I decided to make somewhat of a gamble and try to present myself as someone who could put together architectural stuff even though I knew I was going to get put in the non architect admissions pile. I made a portfolio of my Career Discovery GSD projects that was ruthlessly architectural, i.e. no freehand sketches or drawings (which most of my non architectural classmates were putting in, like figure drawings, building sketches and such). It was really abstract and cryptic, blakc white, super minimal, stark hardline drawings and models, super simple format. In the end, it was probably more abstract then most portfolios from applicants w prior architectural education. I put in maybe 3-4 months part time fleshing out the summer projects then going back and editing the crap out of it and also getting advice from other ppl. Kind of a long time but I didn't know what I was doing back then and my application depended on it.
I got into where I applied, GSD, Sci arc, Berkeley, MIT, UCLA.
greenlander, out of curiousity, who did you ask for recommendations... career disco profs? science profs? others?
and did you end up going to GSD?
wow. my statistics are pretty similar to all these, 3.02 GPA, (3.72 in arch hist. courses), 1400 GRE, non-arch (B.Fin - not ivy but top 50), recs from great professors, including a visiting lecturer @ GSD, applied GSD MIT UC Berkeley Yale RISD, passed over by all.
Portfolio was kind of a mess I guess - goes to show ya.
yah, from of the look of things portfolio >>>>>>> everything else.
are you planning to reapply this year, conormac?
asking for recommendations from professors has always been a mystery to me as well. which professors do you ask? does asking your favorite german/philo prof for a rec hold less water than asking your thesis adviser? are schools only concerned with former professors and not, say, former employers?
greenlander, out of curiousity, who did you ask for recommendations... career disco profs? science profs? others?
and did you end up going to GSD?
recs from 2 drawings profs from undergrad, 1 from career disco.
yeh I went to GSD, almost was about to go to MIT and last minute I got a solid but not great financial aid package. Without the big aid, no way I wouldve gone to GSD. I was really poor at the time, not that I'm much better off now.
that stanford guy has some nice paintings!
imfalling- to respond almost 2 months later - yes I am planning to apply this year, looking back on my essays & portfolio I'm sure I can improve both significantly
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