Sister, if you're so out to lunch you have to ask, just go to MIT and get it over with....

ok, father.

jj01, i asked a question about columbia univ. and somebody posted me a link of the top 20 univ in the world. and harvard i believe was #1. mit was up there too..but if u liked the idea of harvard up there...then maybe go for that? good job :)

That was for graduate schools in general, not for architecture schools specifically.
Isn't there some deal where you can take classes at MIT if you go to the GSD and vice versa?

I think people really overestimate the power that picking one elite architecture school over another will have on their future career and life. Don't agonize too much over this, either school will give you a great education and you will probably get exposure to what the other school is doing.

thanks.
i don't really care about the whole ranking system and i'm usually am turned off by people advising me to go to the GSD because its the GSD. its also about 50 G's a year.
I'm leaning towards MIT because of what i've been hearing. I'm a cultural anthropologist and MIT's profile seem to emphasize more on architecture as agents to address certain social needs. is this true?
are there any MIT students that can share their experiences?
am i right to assume that harvard is more "corporate architecture?"
i just want to find a school where i will feel more motivated and not discouraged.

MIT has the media lab and a strong urban studies program and Adele Naude Santos is the dean of the entire school of Architecture and Planning there and I know she has a strong housing orientation and she used to teach at Berkeley, which also has a strong social needs in architecture thrust. When I was applying to schools, Harvard had the rep of producing project managers, while other schools produced designers-how true this is, I don't know. But it seems like you are on the right track and MIT might be right for you. Again, I have heard that seminars, which might be what you are interested in if you are into cultural/urban anthropology-are cross-listed between both schools-so you could take GSD studios and then some MIT seminars. I have heard that MIT is on an upswing, since they brought Yung Ho Chang in.

They are just up the street from each other-couldn't you just fly to Boston and check them out?

olddirty,
thanks again for the info. I am familiar with Harvard since i did the whole career discovery thing in the summer and not too familiar with MIT. however, im checking both schools out this week.
i've also heard that MIT is on an upswing and heading towards an amazing direction.
are you a student or have graduated from one of these schools?
do you know anything about the student vibe in the two schools?
for instance, either mad competitive or helping eachother out kind a deal.

sorry dude, just saying

I don't know shit but it seems like the way to go is to go to the GSD (excuse me, Hahvad design school) and take theory classes at MIT.

(j. chen - MIT was actually number 2 on the aforementioned list, though i really don't think those categories have any substance... it was for grad schools in general as well.)


as a disclaimer, i should state that the open houses should be the most enlightening in terms of your decision. in any case;

it does seem that there is a growing energy around the department at MIT. Yung Ho Chang is a welcome addition and has some plans to bring in new faculty, increase facilities for full-scale building and prototyping, and even draw some connections with china.

one obvious difference is size - read into it however you want - MIT has less than half the students as the GSD. my decision was partially based on this matter, given the student-teacher ratio is quite small at MIT, and access to facilities, faculty, and even other students (for help as well as collaboration) is quite easy. i'm not sure what your offer entails, but this usually means there is more money to go around as well.

i've heard arguments either way in terms of the studio culture with small classes. my feeling is that is makes everyone much more available - i'm very familiar with the way my classmates are working and it seems supportive overall (though some people feel it's difficult to 'blend in' in smaller studios, or it lacks a critical mass - perhaps it's less 'corporate' in that regard). i often am able to get direct help from profs. and PhDs, and cross-disciplinary connections are encouraged.

also, as a sidenote - while the social focus exists at MIT, it has much more to offer than low-income housing. the discipline groups (building tech., hist/theory/criticism, and computation) produce strong reasearch. personally, i'm amazed at the level of computation happening at the moment, it's very much beyond blobs and rhino models and well into scripting, parametrics, and fabrication -- all within diverse software environments.

see you thursday...

i am speaking from conjecture, here, having not been a student at either school. that having been said, i must admit that i was totally turned off to harvard on account of the vibe i experienced while visiting. i actually experienced open hostility from some students and a general coldness while walking around the studios. when coupling this experience with the rumored reputation of harvard as a corporate architect-factory, i decided not even to apply.

however, i found that mit students were much more open, inquisitive and willing to engage in dialog. i felt somehow that the individual personalities were expressed more at mit, whereas the harvard students seemed cast from similar molds.

i will also be at the mit open house and am making plans to study there. i am coming from an arts background and expect to approach my architecture education from a non-traditional angle. and for what it's worth, i think mit has worlds more to offer me in terms of customizing my own education. as was previously mentioned, size is also a huge factor in this.

i wish you luck in choosing the right school for you.

meant to say... visit and trust your instinct.

Overall good points. However I would not be so quick to judge GSD as corporate. I would rephrase corporate and replace it with "consistent" There are also plenty of people at the GSD who are very interested in social issues and bottom up grass root rebellion. Three people I would quickly mention are Margaret Crawford, Allen Berger and Michelle Addington. (a mix of urban landscape and architecture) As for housing? Andrea Leers, Monica Ponce de Leon and oh so many more. These are just a few names to get you started. Throw in the super stars and lovable theory/history faculty and you have something pretty exciting.

I know MIT has there own people with their own reputation and so on but dig a little deeper and you'll find out more for yourself than these random archinect posts.

As for the snobs...well what can I say? It's the GSD (and I really think that's a fair statement) people go to the GSD for many reasons (top faculty, top facilities, center of the world type atmosphere etc.) but lets not forget brand name baby. It hurts but it's a reality. In my mind a factor one should embrace and push back rather than shiver and turn away from. That being said I believe the vibe you are getting from people as you walk through the trays is more of a super busy super focused charged environment (with a pinch of east coast silver snobbery) where people move quickly and produce a heck of a lot. A ton of people pass through the doors of the GSD to visit and snoop around but most students have little time to address all of them in a warm manner. Trust me, come three in the morning, starving and without sleep lovable friendships do form.

And although the school is large, faculty/student interaction is frequent and large exposure to pedagogical differences between critics is perhaps GSD strongest assets.

Ok, enough of my jibber jabber. Remember not to judge my commentary on punctuation alone and good luck.

thanks for all the feedback...
in terms of concentrating on a single focus while at grad school for architecture, such as sustainability and what not - i've heard from many people that that should not be the reason why you chose a certain school.
Meaning that, you should go to a school that will offer you a solid foundation in which to build upon after you graduate.

i guess for me the main factor that will ultimately influence my decision, well besides the obvious financial aid package, is the overall student and department atmosphere and that can only be determined as i go to both the open houses this week.

i am very new to all this and am nervous as hell. i just need to see which school fits me better.

I was always under the impression that different graduate programs have distinct differences, so when you apply to them you apply based on your interest, not because its number god knows on the rankings that don't even mean anything anyway. It seems that GSD and MIT are very different schools, so I don't understand why you coming to this website to decide your future when no one even knows your interests. I don't mean to just bust on you, but I guess its a build up from all the other stupid threads of people asking "where should I go?"

Don't you already know? If not, then just flip a coin or just ask lee.opold

At GSD, you are challenged to become the professional that you see yourself to be. You said you are a "cultural anthropologist". Well, are you going to become an architect after graduate school or else? You may elect to attend MIT and think all that MIT is about and which is somehow more "supportive" or "appropriate" to your immediate past. However, you may or may not know whether that is the path to take. At GSD, your recent academic or professional training is appreciated but that's it. It's always about what you see yourself grow into. So, it's a place very different from many grad schools, which "brand" themselves with "themes" or "focus"; Berkeley is about "social justice", UCLA is "blobby trendy form"...etc (rightful labels or not).
I don't know about other schools, but at the GSD, you will examine your presumptions and true potentials. That's not always pleasant. However, it would be one of the best possible education and experience you could ever have.
Good luck.

Jj01:

In the past, I would choose GSD if I had a chance. Harvard is a mulitcultural institute, this is highly reflected into their arch. philosophy. When I looked their alumni's design, I saw the various solution in a more broad range because they will inject their thinking in culture, social, politics, construction method, construction materials into a building. I believe they have a way to wrap all these ideas together and still can create a building with clear idea.

Now, I believe other people provide some good comparing infomation. If you can fly to boston, you should talk to several professors in both schools like Mr. Cheng--- the new dean of MIT. See his opinions about arch.

www.fcjz.com/

you really can't go wrong (or right). You'll find something to bitch about wherever you go.

if you are at all interested in the planning side of things, go to MIT, where the planning department is a real (substantive) department. having taken classes at both schools, i find that i much prefer the engineers, despite everyone's best attempts to stereotype us as dry, uncreative, and boring. i've enjoyed some of the classes i've taken at harvard, though i find the students to be a little pretentious. but really, you should visit both schools and see where you like the people better.

I find that there's a lot of scope to explore ideas at MIT... and, as awol said, there's a lot of scope to interact with other disciplines, such as transportation planning, civil engineering, urban planning and so forth. Studio is important but, I feel, more balanced than at some other institutions, with other design-related (and, if you want, non-design related) course work. There are also opportunities for specialized study:-- building technology, design computation, history theory and criticism, and city design & development (you can, for example, earn an M.Arch with an Urban Design Certificate, to indicate a type of concentration in urbanism).

Sorry, but there is no competition between GSD and MIT Architecture, it is usually between GSD and Yale, because GSD is #1 and Yale is #2 in US. I think for MArch you probably might choose GSD, why? well several reasons; 

I think one important factor is you have the chance to have design studio with Rem Koolhaas, Ben van Berkel, Toyo Ito, Wang shu, etc; 

http://www.gsd.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/courses/index.cgi?term=201220

is it important whose studio are you in? yes of course, you are going to school to learn how to design, or get better at it, then here is a chance to work closely with most creative and important architects of our time, considering the fact that even if you work in their firm it wouldn't be the same thing, and you probably never talk to them. 

another thing is yes the rankings! you should care about them in fact, because most of them at least shows which school is strong in what category:

http://archrecord.construction.com/features/Americas_Best_Architecture_Schools/2012/schools-2.asp

http://www.archdaily.com/295331/2013-united-states-best-architecture-schools/

http://www.archdaily.com/297294/forget-the-rankings-the-best-us-architecture-schools-for-2013-are/

3rd, yes GSD is so big, you can find almost anything you are interested in, you should double check the schools courses to see what i mean, anyhow I don't think that one who get GSD admission might hesitate about it. but in the end I also think that schools won't do much for you, and sometimes people form unknown schools around the world becomes  far better architects than those from GSD or Yale,..