I was going to apply to CCA but their lack of NCARB certification was a deal breaker...even though they say they are up for it in 2008.

Almost done with UCLA statement...and then I am sending out all my packets, and I will finish the online portions by Thursday night.

<<i wouldn't swap, because you're bound to unconsciously pick up ideas or style from who you're reading, and even unintentional plagarism still will throw you quickly to the reject pile.>>

But it's such a.. well.. personal thing. It's everyone's own experiences, history, and ambitions for the future. How could that be plagiarized? Well, I'm sure someone could do it, but it would be weird.

I for one am ambivalent about sending mine to others... not so much because of fear of plagiarism, but for some reason it freaks me out to share with you guys more than it does to share with the schools!

Gin, I would take a look at your statement but I am applying to M.Arch programs too, including the GSD. If you feel like getting feedback/swap then let me know.

I'm going to sound bitter and tired and incoherent (cause I am all three right now), but I hate whoever created this biographical narrative essay ... because, I keep on writing either a silly lifestory type thing, or it turns into a research paper, or I have a version that kind of goes through major experiences in my life but doesn't say how they relate to why I want to study urban design and what I'll do with that degree in the future, and I think I've gone through so many drafts/ideas/rewrites that I don't even know how my background informs my decision to pursue this degree anymore. I'm actually angry right now!! I want to quit! Hahaha... Grrrrrr.

So, I wonder if you have decent recs, portfolio, personal statement, and a TERRIBLE bio essay, ... gets tossed into the rejection pile? Oh well. I guess with two days left, I can't expect much to poop out of my brain.

Haha, I'll add that I'm willing to look at others' personal statements =P ... no plagiarizing, just procrastination, I promise. (they're two different essays anyway hehe) but yeah, seriously - plus, i'll be done with my stuff after this friday so will be free to help people out (especially the non-archs =P who might be freaking out the way i was when i tried to start my portfolio after seeing all the awesome ones from arch students) okay i'm off to bed...

Gin, you'll probably get my statement tonight. I'll assume that was yours I got emailed. = )

Ah, yeah, that was mine. I assumed the e-mail would show my Archinect screen name.

In the spirit of Guiggster, q+, and others...FUUUUUUUUUCCCCCCCCK!

At least they got into good schools....

Anyone using screw posts for the binding? Or have any thoughts -pros and cons - on using them? I'm really leaning towards them- have always wanted to use them. Only thing is - it may be difficult to get the pages to lie flat when opened. I tested some pages out by scoring them, but it takes off like a good 1" from the inside page, which is not good for me. Any other opinions? or advice on using them?

I personally think posts look tacky and they don't hold up from the abuse the portfolio will go through while in review. I saw some of the portfolios at UCLA this summer and the screw post portfolio's were all floppy and haggard. If you do use them make sure they are nice and tight to avoid the floppiness of the pages. I don't have any suggestions to help them lay flat. Its gonna have a bulky bind edge so it seems inevitable that it won't.

300 dpi is photo res. anything higher than that is overkill. Aim for 300.

so freakin nervous about my chances now....my goodness

To tell you the truth . . . I'm not the least bit nervous. In fact, I just feel pretty damn great that I completed the admissions process. Whew! It's nice to have a really solid portfolio come out of this - a lot of hard work and editing went into it.

Im not nervous. I'm feeling almost too noncholant. If its meant to be it will. I second sanofisyn. Its awsome just to go through the process. Better if it takes you were you want to go. BUt you don't always know what you need ey?

Nervous? hah...I just want this %@!$ process done. But still got a bit to go.
1. missing one transcript from one of my schools. Have to go get it tomorrow.
2. NONE of my letters of recommendation letters are in. They've all promised to have it done by Friday but ....
3. Sent my Statement of Intent and resume to several english majors, etc. that I know for review this weekend. Haven't heard back from any of them. arrghhh
4. Portfolio 80% done.

What me nervous?

Hi gang....

Just checking in, but after about 8 hours of rewriting, I *think* my SOP is now finally done. Editor Master Caroline (aka best friend) has officially signed off on it, and I have a very, very different statement than when I started.

***For all of you still struggling to write your statements, might i suggest the following:

-definitely refer back to the requirements of each schools essay. I went back and looked and they asked me to describe what i wanted to research, so I did, and it added a lot to the whole thing

-be specific. Cite instances, or tell a story, about something that sparked your interest in returning to grad school. Specifics will be more memorable to an admissions committee than generalizations or platitudes

-use the word "paradigm". Ok, so not really a suggestion but I used it and I feel about 10 degrees smarter.


Good luck to everyone applying to UCLA!!! Is anyone on here NOT applying to a school in southern California? Theoretically we could all end up there. Where's garpike to calculate the chances...

Yep, I'm applying to UCLA too. I think if you've never done LA b/f in your life, then you'll always have an itch to find out what it's all about. At least that's how it is for me. Despite knowing that most of my grad school time there will be spent in studio, I can't wait to ride my bike, hike, run, swim, all outside. I will be free of the suffocating gym once and for all. Yep, no more cold and snowy winters, hopefully.

WonderK: I've noticed that architecture schools seem to have a fetish for the words "pedagogy/pedagogical" and "milieu" (as in "cultural milieu"), so I'm making a point to liberally sprinkle those words throughout my SOP. Goddamn, I feel smart.

I'm not applying to UCLA. Applying to Harvard, MIT, Yale and UT.

I'll be up late tonight and probably all night tomorrow finishing my personal statement. Last thing left.

Good luck everyone.

WonderK- I am NOT applying to school in Southern California. Although Art Center is great and I already have my foot in the door at Otis.... I need out. I'm applying to schools in San Fran, Seattle, NY, Baltimore, and Savannah.

so just to confirm again - UCLA and Berkeley - since we are submitting SOP, etc online, we don't need to submit it in paper format, right? i'm sending my portfolio tomorrow but sure could use that extra night to polish my SOP.

their book is kind of ambiguous, because "statement of purpose" is listed under the "public to department of architecture...box 947...los angeles" (ucla catalog p. 59)

BTW, I'm applying to a bunch of East Coast Ivies, so I guess that puts me outside of the SoCal crowd as well.

Well I have another potentially strange question.

So I'm applying to programs in sustainable design. If I have something that is 2 pages long, say, my resume, can I get away with putting it on 2 sides of one piece of paper?

It would certainly serve to emphasize my seriousness about the subject....

rereading it on the web page for UCLA...

"Part C - Statement of purpose - of the AGA plus a detatched written Statement of Purpose"

Sooooooo this actually means include a paper version of the SOP? Which means, finish it tonight, and send it with my portfolio? Am I reading this correctly? SHIIIIIIIT

Don't freak. Just remember, you know yourself well and you're smart. Don't tell them what they want to hear; tell them who you are, because who you are is somebody great. You are beautiful my friend. Trust what is in your soul.

That is all.

Remember: Just be yourself... Unless you suck. :)

O.k. I'm full of it. I'm in a major panic myself. Can I ask for opinions on the main points of my personal statement? I'd like to know if you guys think it sounds cheesy.

Thanks.

ok wow i should have looked at the online app earlier - yes for sure i gotta write it tonight and send it!! what about berkeley?

I don't know about any of the West Coast apps. Sorry.

okay, berkeley can submit online OR send, and it's postmark by friday. UCLA essay by tomorrow morning is the problem. oh, and having time after work to do the berkeley / harvard stuff.

Portfolio done! I have printed, assembled, and bound 2 copies.
I am pretty proud of it! I think that for my other 3 schools (applications due at end Dec/beginning Jan) I may add a project or two, but over all it has enough.

However it looks huuuuuuuuge! I mean fat huge, not dimensions huge. I printed on thick paper, and the pages are doubled up because I could not print double sided, so it is seriously about the size of a Bible. Eeeee.

For those last few copies, I am going to look into Lulu because my foray into printing and bookbinding was a major PITA.

HEY MARGIN Q.

How much margin space should be allowed for a wire comb bind?

If you're using fine wire bind, I'd say 1 cm is plenty enough. At least for the kind I got, not sure which kind you'll be getting.

I was just going back through the online application for UCLA before submitting it and under "plans for graduate study" it shows that all the deadlines for March and Phd to be Jan. 5. Anyone questioned the department about this...I sent them an email and they confirmed it as the 15th...just curious.

yeah, the deadline last year was Jan 5 but they never updated the graduate division website (where you apply online). the most reliable info is on the department of architecture website:

ucla

unfortunately this seems to have caused a lot of extra (and unnecessary) stress for people.

good luck robust. btw, where were you given the opportunity to submit your SOP in the online application. everything i saw indicated that you were to fill out the form, print it, and send it in with your SOP (along with all the other supplemental crap). anyway, just the fact that there's this much confusion means they should probably revamp their process.

Yeah UCLA's application process is by far the worst of all the schools I applied to. Confusing due dates and lots of supplemental sheets that don't seem to like to print correctly. Oh well. It's over with.

sent mine today also, so well put...over with.

I am not applying to UCLA but am sending my first one out today....I've got butterflies in my stomach! Another one tomorrow, the remaining 3 next week....

Still waiting on one recommender, which kind of blows.

with most schools, if our rec writers are sending it in on their own, we have no way of knowing if or when they sent it

with harvard, we can see if they have sent it in or not. so if my rec writers have good intentions and have promised to get them in, but the deadline is 24 hours away and i see they havent submitted, what should i do? it's kind of rude to bother them again when i already reminded them 4 days ago.

is it a problem if they dont submit until, say, next week?

I am having the same problem with one of my recommenders. He is a prof and has assured me numerous times that schools are not gonna care if he is a couple days late with the letter. They are strict with the deadline for everything that you are responsible for i.e., portfolio, essay, transcripts, GRE, etc. I still wish he would just do it on time but then again he does this every year so I trust that he knows what he is doing. So I would like to think, based on what he has told me, that it won't matter if it is submitted next week.

cool thanks chuck

my recommenders told me that they won't start the letters until mid-January sometime ahhahahha. they do that every year.

quick BERKELEY question...

so although the PDF versions of the app forms are prettier, we can just fill it all out online now right? so if i do that, all i need to include in the envelope is:

1) portfolio
2) transcripts

is this correct? am i missing something? ucla had some stuff i actually had to print out and fill out and send.

I just finished my first 2 portfolios!
I am going to mail them now!

:D :D :D

robust -- pretty sure you're correct there; portfolio, transcripts... (assuming that you have GRE, recs, etc all taken care of). hahaha, i'm finishing my bio essay as we speak... and had a few crash-tests with the printer there but finally have the portfolio printed out.

since i'm applying for the dual-degree with city planning, i also have the gpa calculator and other supplemental forms to send in as well, plus they want a "photocopy" of my portfolio... and i'm hoping they literally meant photocopy when they said that, cause that's what they're going to get (sitting and readjusting every page in indesign before it would print to accommodate my printer cutting off edges of a full-bleed layout... didn't want to go through that headache a second time)

doesn't it feel great to be DONE! =D or almost done in my case... 6:16am right now, i gotta get on a train at 7:30am and teach 3 classes but the end is near!! whoohoo!

love, seopee :)

sweet, didn't even know berkeley has a dual degree with city planning!

as far as i can tell, us m.arch regular applicants have to do the gpa calculator, but i didnt see anything about supplmental forms beyond what was in the online app.

i think i'm gonna submit my essays in paper form rather than online because i dont want to make sure my text formatting and font are decent - who know what they'd do with my pure ascii text.

i havent started the bio essay (postmark isnt til TOMORROW). but i'm gonna basically take my essay from ucla (it's kinda long anyways) and split it into 2 shorter essays: academic interests + personal history. may have to beef up the personal section a but for the bio but that's easy right?

whats the difference between the SOP and the bio essay? and what schools ask for 2 essays?

berkeley does right?

Okay, I think I've hashed out a pretty decent Statement of Purpose, which I will be fine-tuning tonight.

It clocks in at just under 1000 words, which will be fine for GSD and Cornell. Unfortunately, I'll have to reduce it to about half that size for Penn, Columbia, and Yale. Arrgh.

It's nice to hear that somebody else has that problem.... from the statement of purpose you read, Gin, a couple of schools are getting one without the first 2 1/2 paragraphs. I'm sorry, I'm just a wordy person, it's hard to get to know me, where I come from, where I want to go, and where your school fits into that, in 500 words or less. It's even a little tough at 1000 words or less.