whizkid, why did you ask? I'm from South Africa so my knowledge of the different universities is quite limited in comparison to other people here. I tried to read up as much as I could about the different places I applied to.

are wait listed candidates invited to open houses?

I am so sorry, I didn't realize I had posted the same thing so many times. I was stuck on page 49. my bad :(

billibneen
Total Entries: 0
Total Comments: 10
03/27/08 9:01
and where did the creator of this portfolio get into school?


*********

Just randomly looked over this thread and saw a mention today!

I'm currently a 1st yr student at Yale.

I was accepted there the other day and I wanted to hear some feedback on it because I haven't heard much about it...

oh ok.

cirtus: Ahhh, you are referring to Amy Kulper, who is equally as impressive. All that I can say about Michigan is that is shouldn't be counted out among the good schools. Just trying to decide if I should go back or not.....

why the hell have I subscribed to this thread. damn thing's sending my emails every minute.

_juut,

I still have not heard from MIT and am a non-AP MarchI. I've been admitted to GSAPP and Berkeley thus far and rejected from GSD and Princeton. I'm assuming I'm getting a "no" from MIT too but it is a bit odd that nothing has come yet, given that the open house is next Wed. A bit tacky, I think...

MIT did the same type of late non response last year.

ok, just got my harvard rejection....0 for 4...so ends my contribution to this thread. To tell you the truth I am VERY shocked that i didnt get into ONE of these schools. 3.75 gpa, undergrad at a great arch school, great portfolio, great recs from well known people in the world of architecture, pretty impressive resume for someone 22 years of age, 1200 gre (irrelevant), and what I thought were some pretty well written essays....this has really opened my eyes. unfortunately, im not sure what they're opened to. fortunately, I have a couple months to figure it out, regroup, and try the whole thing over again. hopefully with a better angle/direction. and hopefully, which i completely believe, this will lead to something great for me. also, on a plus side, I will actually be able to have built work to put in my portfolio for next year....

see some of ya on '09's version....and congrats again to everyone who got into all these great schools!

asbuckey...you are really young to be applying to march programs. i wouldn't sweat it taking a year off. i am turning 25 in july and i took this year off to apply. I'd love to see your portfolio. where did you apply?

and i did the same thing only applying to top tier schools. i figure i'd rather wait another year and reapply than settle for a place i didn't want to be.

nambypambics...i'm waitlisted at Yale and it is my first choice...
what do you think of eeva pelkonen? I'm reading some of her books right now.

UCLA - Yes
Syracuse - Yes
Yale - No
Berkeley - No
Univ Wash - ?
Rice - ?
Harvard - ?
Columbia - ?
SCIArc - ?

So at this point should I pick UCLA or Syracuse?

Buck: good luck to you... as SkyCap said, you're only 22 and have plenty of time to regroup. I'm 28 next month and if you asked me 6 years ago whether I thought I could go to one of these school I'd have called you crazy.... but it's happening, and I'm sure it'll happen for you. (well not SURE, but ya know)

yeah sky...my age is a positive. I applied to uva yale princeton and gsd, so its not like I wasnt aiming hi.

If you want to see me portfolio its way back in the teens pages.

Under...I'd say UCLA based on location alone.

out of curiosity why uva and not gsapp or upenn? Isn't that aiming high? Because I recall you classifying gsapp as not-so-high...Perhaps I am wrong, I am not quite sure but I think it was you

UCLA!!! Come on, Thom Maine? Greg Lynn? Awesome Mexican food...Hollywood clubs (the Dresden Room being one very cool and bizarre option)...Venice Beach...awesome sushi...great art...the best movie theaters in the world...yoga...need I say more?

Home of the Eames... Neutra...

UCLA all the WAY.

also, buckeye, sorry to hear about the 0-4. I wish the best of luck to you in the next round.

Lastly, anyone here apply to California College of the Arts? Not the most well-known school I realize, probably because of the lack of accreditation, but Im trying to decide between there and UCLA. I live 6 blocks away from CCA's campus, so that would be ridiculously convenient...

UCLA!!

um no..nothing against columbia. based on some cursory research columbia got the axe from me cause I wasnt completely sold on their program being the right fit for me. That sentiment was misinterpreted into me downing it a few pages back, and ironically I was accused of being a rankings whore, even though im pretty sure columbia's on those same lists.

awww asbuck,.. don't sweat it.. everything will work out in the end!

asbuck - it's got to be pretty frustrating for you - I having a hard time trying to make sense of my rejections and this is my first time around. Like others have mentioned, your age is a plus. At 27, I feel like I should either be in grad school or working a "real" job that will become my career, NOT taking another year off to apply to schools to follow some dream.

well, if it's any consolation Yale is considered a fairly conservative school and it's not much respected outside the US (I mean European starchitect firms). I quite like their publications though

asbucky: i'm surprised you didn't get into at least one or two fo those schools. Your porfolio is strong - you should probably compress it down to 20 pages. Use text overlay and cut down on the writing...the font is pretty big and doesn't look great how you have integrated it.

The last project (high-rise) is by far the best - i'd consider throwing it up front. i love the section on page 19 of the casino. also the section on page 7. page 33 and 36 are very sexy too. yeah. compress and cut down to the best stuff. the strongest stuff is getting lost between mediocrity.

i wish i was a good at the rendering.

also, reconsider the layout - the table of contents is probably the weakest page and it was the first thing i saw. but as i said, still surprised with your credential that there were no offers on the table.

hmm, thanks for the advice skycaptain...its interesting the things you've mentioned cause I would never look at my portfolio in that way. that makes me think I should run it by more people before sending it off next time. thanks.

jojo, I was unaware of yale's stature in the international scene. What us schools are well respected in europe?

asbuckeye-- i have yet to seen an archinecteur who has not gotten into a school of their choice the second time around. this site is extremely helpful and most everyone is willing to help, critique, and steer you in a positive direction. a year off will really be nice, especially at your age.

wittyusername -- as you know, i am very seriously considering the offer at CCA (California College of the Arts). i plan on stopping by sometime next week and then attending the open studios next weekend. i am really interested in seeing how architecture integrates into an art school since the last school i was at was much more technical.

i can also pretty much throw a stone from my porch and hit CCA. i love the Bay Area and am pretty certain this is where I want to live and work in the future. And, yeah not having to move yet again is very appealing.

Update

UCLA - YES
Syracuse - YES
Yale - No
Berkeley - No
Univ Wash - No
Rice - ?
Harvard - ?
Columbia - ?
SCIArc - ?

Getting rejected makes me feel like shit

well I'd have to say GSAPP and GSD which is strange, because they are quite different in all aspects. Columbia comes across as a concept-driven school whether GSD as kinda old-fashioned but still very respectable - I think it's the Harvard name effect...MIT comes close 3rd and surprisingly enough UCLA is on the list too. Quite seriously, having seen this from the other side Princeton and Yale are much an inside thing for US applicants, because obviously such small classes, as the ones they make up, indicate lack of diversity to the outside world - which to my personal experience is pretty much true regardless of work quality. Anyway, if you are set on those schools you should definitely stick to your choice regardless of what anybody else thinks, maybe reconsider your priorities based on which you made that choice of course. Good luck!

asbuck,
as I said before I really identify with your plight, and wish you a very good year...get that IDP figured out, travel, do some competitions, enjoy another year of freedom, .next year you will kick ass, I know it.

hey thanks for all the advice everyone..good luck at your respective m.arch programs next year!

anyone going to the Upenn & Columbia open houses next week? Not sure if its worth flying across the country but I really don't have any other way of determining which school I want to go to besides the fact that I love NYC. And the websites / student work / faculty seems pretty comparable to me. Hard choice. good thing Virgin America opened, its bumped down coast to coast rates a bit.

Tartar Treats,
I may go to the Columbia one. I haven't decided yet.

its a shame its in the middle of the week... so "convenient"

well, the ride for me is over at last. i got the the two thin envelopes i had been expecting (gsd and mit) so it is going to be cincinnati for me. i am excited, and oh so relieved to be done with the waiting, wondering, hoping, and speculating. anyone else headed out there to start in june? thoughts, plans, hopes?

i am thinking that i am going to go to upenn's open house, just because i want to see how they do things (it's but a short drive away), and then head up to cincy mid-april to talk to people and look for an apartment.

to re-cap for anyone interested:

umd - accepted
upenn - accepted
ucincinnati - accepted (and accepting)
mit - rejected
gsd - rejected

god, this has been a taxing bunch of months and last few weeks.

congrats to all that got into a school they want to go to. condolences and best wishes to those who didnt.

Tartar: I'm going to the GSAPP open house. Just to give you a bit of a push, being in NYC offers abundant internship possibilities, especially at the international level. Also, - for me this is particularly important - the city can be both an outlet for studio frustration as well as a source of inspiration.

I'm expecting GSD and MIT rejections too, but even if I got into Princeton (my top choice), I would have wondered what it would have been like living and studying in NYC.... so hopefully those rejections are a blessing in disguise!

so in anticipation of my harvard rejection tmr. i need to start narrowing down my top choices....MIT or UPenn....any thoughts? (I'm really trying to just save myself the few hundred bucks that is would cost to go down to both Open Houses. booo.

asmall: why ucincinnati over upenn?

lol. i'm staring to learn towards mit over yale come to think of it...just reading my admissions info here and they offer their march's teaching positions that pay for the entire tuition plus almost 20K for the two semesters. insane. i'd love to chat with ppl who got the same package from MIT. I'm curious to know what kind of scholarships ppl got.

buckeye - grab me on the facebook. youll find me in the group without much trouble, id reckon. like to catch up with you for the next application round.

i know what you mean with the frustration. i have still only heard from austin. waiting on uoft, columbia, rice, vtech and parsons. im not holding out too much hope for anything but tech. parsons wont even return my emails asking if they received all my app materials! i think i aimed too high.

anyway, though i came from non-arch, we sound pretty similar. 3.74gpa, 1370 gre (i think), good non-arch refs, lots of varied professional experience and what i thought to be a decent novice portfolio. nothing compared to yours, of course. but i have a feeling ill see you around here next year.

taking time off after undergrad has a whole gaggle of merits, though. you might eventually view it as a blessing in disguise. take some time to have an adventure or two in the meantime.

@skycaptain: omg... you can actually make money while you're going to school???

yeah i think the idea of international recognition is definitely an asset. But to me I would like to meet the students, personally in undergrad I feel like I learned a large percentage working with my peers (friends and if you got stuck, there would be people that would help generate ideas to pass a roadblock and vice versa)... If you're surrounded by inspirational people you will be pushed further, it seems both schools, and for the most part many of the schools people have been talking about allow for diversity in thought process and creation.

And I asked some professors what they thought about judging a school on its digital emphasis or not, (because my background has always been a hybrid of digital, hand, and model) - their response is that its a non-issue, if they push digital work you will learn a ton and that will only better your other strengths, so finding a "fit" seems difficult, it seems to me like I want to find a school that doesn't "fit" so I can learn from those differences that breaks the comfort zone mentality.

just thinking out loud. i know a lot of people are sick of the constant debate, its overplayed but if you're sick of it thats probably because you don't have to deal with it, so i apologize and congratulations with your decisions.

see you at the open houses!

My roommate just sent me an email.

I got rejected via postal from RISD & Cornell.

Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Syracuse / Accepted + Scholarship
RISD / Rejected
Cornell / Rejected
Columbia / ? No hopes
Pratt / Documents with delay ... Probably rejected
Parsons / ?
SCI-Arc / ?

Whats going on with SCI-Arc? When are they sending notifications?

If I have not heard anything back at this point, does that mean...

Come on SCI-Arc!

Rejected:
Berkeley (Thanks guys. As an east bay native, this one stings.)
UCLA
Yale

In:
Texas Austin
Washington (Seattle)
Oregon
British Columbia
U New Mexico
U Tennessee, Knoxville

Waiting:
Sci-Arc (but what was all of that financial aid stuff a week ago?)

Someone please tell me if there is a big difference between Austin/Washington and Tennessee, where I'll probably end up. Would it be professional suicide to go to TN? I might have to for family reasons.

I know it's pathetic that I can't make up my own mind. Help me, Internet.

So I was just wondering when Parsons will be sending out rejections or are they just going to ignore the rejects in hopes that we forget that we even applied there. Are they done with accepting people?

I guess the good news is I did get accepted to a school and I plan on taking a trip to New Orleans to check out Tulane and see if it is really what I want from a grad school.

Skycaptain, send me an email if you want to chat about MIT, I'm under the impression that everyone receives just about the same financial offer, but the ability to teach or be an RA looks like it could be a great opportunity.