I got a package from WashU with my official letter of acceptance, and some information about this open house thing. Turns out you have to pay $275 to go to it. That email felt pretty misleading to me--I don't recall it mentioning having to pay a "registration fee". I was under the impression this open house thing was gonna be free.

Is anyone still gonna go? I haven't decided yet...

I think most schools are gonna require a registration fee if you accept there offer. I think Yale's is like $400. Is that $275 a registration fee separate from open house or is that some kind of fee for attending the open house?

That's $275 just for the open house....it's $300 if you actually plan to attend the school in the fall.

yeah i got Wash U letters today too. I thought I was going to be free too. $275 for two days. I can deal with it. I'm going for sure.

oops "it was going to be free......."

i'm curious about that Friday night dinner.

Well damn, I am glad I went and visited schools when it wasn't open house then. Its already expensive to get there, then when you do get there they want some more money. Also, I figure if you really want to see how a school is (or how anything is really) you don't go when they invite you. You just show up on there door on some random evening, that way they don't have time to clean the place and put on fake smiles.

Agreed... I already have a good idea of what my order of preference is for the schools I applied to, so depending on finances, I may postpone a vist until I'm ready to look at housing.

whaaat.... no way a school charges for open houses. i don't beleive that for a second. an ivy league school would charge $400 for a day of student-led tours, a lecture by the dean, and a panel of students and faculty? yeah, right.

Yale doesn't charge for an open house. I never said they did. Sorry if that was confusing. I have never heard of any school charging for an open house until now. Yale does have a registration fee of around $400 if you accept there offer but I imagine most schools do.

cpnorris. how did u like Wash U? what are the pros and cons? How are their facilities? do you mind to provide some details? Thanks.

I never went to Wash U. don't know much about it. I almost applied but then decided not too for no good reason.

outside dream 86 is who brought up wash u

ok... i would love to know something about Wash U before I pay that $275.

did you get there catalog? i got it and i thought the work was pretty good. also there study abroad programs look awesome.

WTF, you have to pay to attend a school's open house for admitted students? I have NEVER heard of that. Can you explain?

I totally understand about the place-holder security deposit thing if you accept their offer of admission, and besides that is usually credited toward tuition and fees.

If that $275 includes airfare or train travel and accomodation in a hotel, that's actually good deal (for everyone who can't just drive there from home - not such a good deal if you're local.) But if it's that much just to attend the open house, I'd be so infuriated!

"If that $275 includes airfare or train travel and accomodation in a hotel, that's actually good deal (for everyone who can't just drive there from home - not such a good deal if you're local.) But if it's that much just to attend the open house, I'd be so infuriated!"


My main issue about it is that they sent out an email about the open house saying that travel and lodging would be free, and the way they worded it I was under the impression that the whole visit would be free, except me paying for food and whatever. Then they come back a few days later saying, oh no, we actually want $275. It was very very misleading. If they had just been up front about the cost I wouldn't have even mentioned it. But to say that something's free, then have an outrageous "registration" fee...

In fact, the more I think about it, the angrier I get. >:O

I agree, that's very deceptive. (Even though $275 for travel/lodging is probably a good deal for many people.)

Would you still have to pay the fee even if you live a mile from the school's campus and can just drive there and back for the duration of the open house? Maybe they have that "Registration fee" policy in place so everyone has to pay, in order to offset the cost for traveling students. Which is pretty unfair, IMHO.

I'm counting on being able to afford to attend the open houses for all of my schools (in the unlikely event I would get into all of them, but I've budgeted for it just in case), because 4/5 of them are within a brief $30-or-less bus or train ride from where I live, and I'd only need to fly out to one school. In every city I can stay with someone for free if necessary, and don't want to have to pay the school for accomodations and travel expenses I won't need. Hopefully this won't be an issue, but does anyone know whether other schools have a similar charge for open houses?

Oh, I also understand that charging a fee might be an attempt to discourage people from just saying, "HEY FREE TRIP!" and attending open houses, even if they know they will not attend the school because they've got another, more preferred offer from a different institution. But even in that case, why not just say "we can offer discount lodging and travel expenses for $X00?" That would surely accomplish same thing and I'm sure anyone seriously considering would be glad for a discount.

Yay, I woke up to find a message on my phone from a professor Richard Dagenhart saying I got into Georgia Tech! It's my #4 choice out of 11 schools, which is excellent.

11 schools? holy crap!

Well last year I applied to 8 Clinical Psychology PhD programs and didn't get in anywhere, so there was no way in heck I was gonna repeat that again this year. I know PhDs are harder to get into...but I wasn't going to take ANY chances. I didn't know how I stacked up against other applicants, so I figured, what the heck, better safe than sorry.

which were your other 10?

I have it on my profile, but I'll paste it here for ya:

1. University of Cincinnati
2. University of Texas Austin
3. University of Illinois Chicago
4. Georgia Tech (Accepted 3/6/07)
5. University of Houston (Accepted 2/21/07)
6. NJIT (Accepted 3/1/07)
7. University of Nevada Las Vegas
8. University of Colorado Denver
9. WashU St. Louis (Accepted 3/2/07)
10. University of Texas San Antonio
11. University of Washington Seattle

congrats on 4,5,6, and 9.

my applications are also in the double-digits... made for long november through january.

jesus, and I thought that six applications were bordering on too much... did you guys get to use the same portfolios for all of them?

all but penn...was limited to 20 pages for that one.

Yeah, I would have lost my mind trying to do 11 different portfolios. Since I'm applying for a M.Arch I degree, I didn't really have to tailor my portfolio to any specific program. I just made sure it fit the criteria for ALL schools (ie, some school wanted at least 5 drawings, another wanted at least 3 types of artistic things...painting, drawing, photography, etc).

I also tried to do all my applications within a 2 week period so I could have all my information out and easy to find, instead of going, "Hm, what was my undergraduate major GPA again? Where did I put that transcript..." It felt like doing one application 11 times.

congrats on GT, I graduated from the undergrad there in 2004

hey,
march madness. congrats to all who have goten in somewhere and good luck for ones waiting on for that first kiss. i have a lengthy grad school list (in personal rank):

penndesign
u michigan
washington u *accepted
sciarc
ui chicago *accepted
pratt
r.i.s.d.
ball state *accepted

> ui chicago is offering a full ride schoolarship + $6,500 a year. i applied there as a backup school but after getting this award and researching further into the school i'm drawn to it. does anyone know about there program/ranking? their knew architecture and health design program sounds interesting..

i'm going to check out the school right after washington flies me to st. louis. i'm from la and work at a firm so it's challenging to get to some of these schools.

dermit, I heard from UIC via snail mail, but I didn't get the scholarship offer that kalamazoo got. That's awesome, kalamazoo...I don't think it happens all that often for M.Arch programs, so congrats. I wonder if they'll wait to contact me regarding financial aid until after they know if people like you are accepting or not...

thanks nomadic,
hopefully they'll throw some money at you.. the schoolarship is an assistantship. it was an additional letter that came yesterday with the acceptance. it's called the pillsbury schoolarship.

i don't think you will find UIC on any of top30 lists.
i am at uic undergrad right now, and don't know much about its grad program. i do know that people (out of states) come to UIC because it is at chicago. great city to learn architecture. and good professors.

you can search archinect discussion threads about UIC.
i applied to UIC as well. hopefully acceptance letter will be waiting on my desk when i get home. i didn't think too much about scholarship. now you mention it, i want it. but it's too late, i guess.

i didn't even think uic had a scholarship. i didn't think too much about scholarship. now you mention it, i want it. but it's too late, i guess.

thanks for the info sparch>

after uic where do you want to end up at school? (if applying)

kalamazoo: where would you like to go? what's your top 2

nevermind.

ding where do you wanna go?

1. penndesign
2. ?- u michigan, wash u, sciarc, uic

just curious what you like about penn?

i visited UPenn. Dude, it's old. Yeah, why do you like UPenn?

me? honestly, i have no idea. seriously.

what about you, cpnorris?

Well I applied to GSD, Yale, Syracuse, Rice, UT Austin and UCLA and I have now visited them all. I honestly think that Yale may have the most solid program out of all these schools. I really like what they are doing there. They have a string emphasis on making things and everyone actually builds a house in the second studio.

But the bad thing is I can see myself being happy at any one of these schools. They all have great programs that interest me in different ways. However, I was way impressed with all the east coast schools, so I think I would rather go to any of those three schools if I have a choice. Syracuse has an excellent program, a very nice new facility, awesome study abroad, dual studio instructors for every studio and tons of space to work in. Its really a great program and anyone applying next year I would recommend them to check it out. GSD and Yale are just on a different level and are both amazing. So yeah, there is a lot to think about and a lot of positives and negatives to every school. It'll be easier when there are letters of acceptance/rejection and real dollars in front of me.

current faculty, louis kahn legacy (he's a big hero of mine) and interdisciplinary options with business/ real estate. also the girls there,, jk

i've never been to the school though. thanks for the insite..

well just to let you know, i spoke with a lot of students at harvard and yale last week and many of them are penn undergrads (actually it was surprising how many of them were in these 2 schools) and all of them thought penn was headed in a bad direction. some of the faculty that these students were close with told them they should go somewhere else for grad school because of this. the school has changed a lot in the last couple years. just a warning of something to be skeptical of when you go visit.

further, i like detlef mertins, their current dean

i stopped by penn the last time i flew into philly (last summer)--didn't get to meet with anyone but i wanted to at least see the facilities/environment--it felt comfortably small, whereas the gsd kind feels like a gerbil cage. i think the farjadi studio/AA study abroad program is appealing...

although the gsd does have a laboratory feel, which is nice

on the facilities/ environment note, i would like to give u of michigan and sciarc recognition for having a great studio environment. ecspecially scirarc

I have "no back school" regret. In the 11th hour, I am wondering why I picked "the most famous schools" I have ever heard of as "my grad strategy." Anyone else, have this problem....I don;t know..I was just not that into the other options. (I live in Denver...the school here blows)

sorry..thta's "no back UP schools"