so , the chick at UT told me that she thought my app. would be reviewed in teh next two weeks...well that was two weeks ago..so this is about to be a very long , painful weekend.

I try to get out and it keeps pulling me back in.

I posted a l'il while back...congrats to all!

....though boo that I haven't heard from UT or UW, so I'm in the same boat as, like, half the board. I'm another non-arch background with a pretty deep community nonprofit background and so far I've only gotten a yes from ASU. I'm only lurking mostly since I'd rather not get fired from my job in case it turns out I need it.

Afrdzak, I envy the crap out of your portfolio (and for that matter, everyone's I've seen - where's all our calls????) - you're totes next playa!

Just got an amazing drawing in my class of BFA, lot of congratulations, and a review of a portfolio requested by the professor.

It is not the acceptance of Columbia University but still being nice.

Thanks C.Leigh!

After all that whining, I come home and I see a big translucent envelope with a white lab coat inside. I remembered someone else's post and I immediately recognized it. I literally tore it open to find the letter.

Michigan University likes me, they really like me!

But damn they're expensive!

congrats!

Congratulations man, and you called it in advance no less...

Oh and p.s., the extra expense goes into the white lab coat fund for next year's applications.

And if any of you folks are considering MichU, look up a guy named Perry Kulper, longtime professor at SCI-Arc, now at the MichU grad program. He's a brilliant guy and really one of the greats in architectural education.

Joined facebook... im the giant penguin.

by the way... regarding the UVa calls... My call was not Natalie G. so there must be multiple callers. So if you're waiting for a call perhaps your name is on the list of somebody who is taking their time? maybe? no? glimmer of hope?

an embarrasing retrospective note on the topic of essays... I wrote my undergrad app essay on Fallingwater. yes. Fallingwater. what kind of unimaginative idiot writes about Fallingwater? I will probably get old and turn into the guy that says "oh you want to be an architect? so you must like Frank Lloyd Wright?" and proceed to dole out FLW coffee table books like its my job.

for those wondering - my friend did get a letter from maryland, but unfortunately it was a rejection. the first one i've heard of.

congrats to the recent acceptances!

*first rejection i've heard of this time around.

how long could it SERIOUSLY take for mail to get from charlottesville va to philadelphia pa?

ugh

hey jazz, thanks for the encouragement .. dont buy it... but thanks :)

d_t, seriously. Im in northern va and it still hasnt come. ridiculous.

get this... i'm applying to usf (south florida). my coworker's an alum and still knows quite a few of the people.

so i had him call to see about when decisions might go out. i didn't want him to ask about me specifically, i just thought he might be able to get more accurate information.

you know what they told him??

late april/early may! what the fuck?

oh, i WILL be calling them later this month. there is no reason it should take 3 months for them to review my application. and if it does take them that long, their deadline should have been in december not february 1st.

the only reason this is really frustrating is because they're kind of an easy choice for me - in-state tuition, can still consult for my office, etc. and the only other school i've been accepted to starts in may...

just ridiculous. i think admissions gets joy out of playing with people's lives.

yeah, that's not right. but, i guess they have their reasons for doing so. you never know.

mail is taking forever. people elsewhere have gotten letters to wash U. I got am email but no letter in the mail and I live a mile from school

that's strange - I live in Pittsburgh and I got the letter BEFORE I got the email

I'm so confused about Parsons...They told me they were going out this week and it seems like people have already started recieving calls! I'm definitely getting an ulcer from this.

Well, I spoke to the guy at Parsons yesterday and he said they were going out in around 2 weeks?!
Maybe he's referring to the rejections :(

I am starting to think that 440v is really screwing up my chances. I talked with some schools about retaking it. honestly I didn't; study for the GRE and didn't take it that seriously/. i know I could have doen better. Everyone told me the GRE doesnit matter, so I just worked on the portfolio...

am i paranoid?

what'd ya get on the math section ... that's more important. I dont think it matters that much. You were right to focus more on the portfolio. It is what it is, and its out of your hands. At least you did poorly on the LEAST important piece of the app. Look at it that way

650Q

actually, i think the verbal is more important.

Columbia has a 430 Verbal cut-off. but other than that, they don't really consider GRE unless it's awful or awesome.

ff33, you're fine since you broke 1000 overall. A friend of mine in undergrad got a 900ish and still got into yale.

well, I have definitely lost sleep over this. I was going to take a prep course last year, but you know i don't have the money or time for it.....now i wish I had done something. I mean i work like 60 hours aweek, so the GR was never a big deal...I think I am just bummed , but things will roll in next week,..I hope

It would be interesting to see what people got on their GRE's compared to where they get in. I'm terrified of the GRE :-/

Does the GRE really effect your outcomes much? Would good GRE scores and GPA help make up for any issues with the portfolio? It seems everyone is saying that the portfolio is the first thing that they look at. So, would this mean that if they didn't like your portfolio they might never really look into your grades, essays, recs, and GRE scores.

any thoughts about U Michigan? I really dont know that much about it.

I dont think those courses are really worth the money/time vs. the small benefit you'd get by having an amazing score. Im under the impression that the GRE is more a formality than anything. at the princeton open house they even said they dont factor it in unless its extremely poor (which 1000 is not) or good.

it's big

I only got 460V on my GRE. (710Q)
Honestly, if some school refuses me based on that, I wouldn't want to study there anyway.

ff33, I really worry about it. When I visited Yale I spoke to a woman in admissions about it and she said that they look "very favorably" upon scores of 600 or higher in each section but that it's a very minor part of the application. She said the portfolio was much more important, and that there was no minimum score for the GRE.

cou, I think for non-archs portfolio is less, and other things (gpa, gre, etc.) are bigger. vice versa for arch backgrounds

chop .. exactly

I put alot of time in my portfolio, like many here...

looking back, it seems in 2006 I spent a month of full time hours on it...and then last year , like 80 hours at least. It was easy to blow off GRE study

if you study for the GRE it's not that big a deal

for verbal all you can do is get some flash cards and do your best - no matter what you study there will be crazy words on there - i actually found that doing a crossword puzzle every day for a month or so before the exam helped - gets the language parts of your brain kind of primed and ready

math - definitely study - there are alot of things you probably haven't done since high school on that section

the writing part is pretty important, i'd say - if you aren't good at writing under pressure, find some way to practice that also - plus you write it on the keyboard and there's no spell check or grammar check, so brush up on all those

for MArch or MLA it's probably not so so critical to your acceptance or rejection, but it could get you into consideration for certain grants or scholarships, etc - at least i suspect that's the case

I found studying for the GRE to be easy but really boring - just lots of practice. I really didn't know that it wasn't that important so I put a good amount of time into it. At least if I decide to do this (go through hell) again next year won't have to worry about it again... I can spend more time on my portfolio and essay.

oh, and I only got 3.5 on in the writing section.
pretty poor.

i dont know how they grade those things ... I KILLED my topic and only got a 4.5 .. BS, BS

yeah, i tried not to devote more than 15-20 hours overall studying for GRE in the two weeks before i took it - but that time was definitely well spent, there was a ton of stuff on there that i wouldn't have known otherwise. i'd second asbuck's assessment of expensive test prep courses. i just got a GRE prep book from the library and tried to at least skim each chapter, study the crap out vocab, and do practice problems for quant. took one electronic practice test the night before and did really well, then sort of flubbed the quantitative on the real exam because i lost track of time and did much lower but still ok.

in the end it's probably only worth 5, maybe 10% of your application overall, so even if it's really appalling low (which none of those quoted here have been), that's not going to outweigh a truly stellar portfolio, references, essays, grades, bribe, etc......

if you want to do well then you'll study. i had a full-time job, taking physics at night and working on portfolio all at the same time. it's all about time management.

yeah thats all fine, but I wonder if it is too late now. until next year...god I hope there is not a commiserate next year for me

I think I'm at the stage where I'm second-guessing everything now. Next week I'll know if I'm right. But at the moment, I too am thinking "maybe I should have..."

etc.

I took a free GRE prep course at UNH in October - they offer it to current students and graduates. I don't know if many other schools do this. I think it helped quite a bit, but I did study a lot on my own. It all about doing practice tests, memorizing vocab, and getting real fast with the math problems. I wouldn't pay for a class though.

Here is a question, how many people do you think actually post here vs teh total amount accepted?

i.e. you UVA fols,..there is like a 1/2 dozen or so on here who actually got calls, but the school took like 40


(i dont see too many sciARC applicants)

*thats is folks, not fools...oops

i remember some statistic earlier about % of people on this website who are memebers vs non-members...people who are members only make up like 2% of the daily views or something.

ugh, my phone just rang and i about jumped out of my skin - and it was just the vet calling to confirm my dog's appointment. is it mid-march yet?

so do denial letters just say "thanks but no thanks" or do they offer commentary on your application package?

as in this is why we think you're not a good candidate for us, etc?


btw, love the handle, snarkitekt.

I hope the same thing, but at this point the reality is there's nothing else we can do. Our applications are in, and you shouldn't trouble yourself with all the "what if" thoughts.

The only thing we can do now is check our email/mailboxes excessively, clutch our cell phones, and be really snappy and bitchy to our friends when they ask if we have heard anything yet :)

does anybody know how many people the GSD admits?