cou2, UT Austin grades portfolios with a score out of 2. Maybe you could find out what the criteria is and adjust your portfolio based on that. Or get a professor to critique it. I have also heard that Letters of Recommendation are very important.

how many years do you think you'd have to have been out of school before your gpa is no longer an issue?

Yess!

Just got the letter from uw-seattle! So far:

gsapp - in
uw - in
sciarc - waiting...(still first choice)

cou2, I'll be right there with ya next year. Dont count out gsd just yet though. always a chance.

Riedell101, I am not sure if you will ever escape your gpa, because transcripts are a necessary part of your application package. A website said that letters of rec. can trump a low gpa. read more @
lowgpa

I'm guessing my letters of recommendation were pretty strong - I actually never saw them, but I know two of them definitely were. However, none of them were from people in the art or architecture field. While I think my essay was pretty straightforward and solid, it was probably boring and too long.

My portfolio could have probably have used some work. I didn't have it bound - I just put all the drawings and photos in an envelope and sent it off with a short note explaining what was in my portfolio. I'm assuming that format was a huge mistake. And I was also a little rushed with the portfolio... spent too much time on the GRE - won't have too worry about that next time.

cou2, i'll see you there!

way to go jostah!

thanks ryhane! i had really good recomendations, my gre was pretty decent i think (nothing spectacular though), and i am proud of my statement and portfolio, so the only conclusion i can come to is that my low gpa is sending the wrong idea about my potential.... i hope i won't be a part of the 2009 commiserate thread, but it's starting to look like it.....

I'm getting nervous because I'm getting the message that SCI-Arc is a lot harder to get into than I thought. Could my #1 choice be the first school to reject me!?

Av, what do you mean?

when are we supposed to hear from SCI-Arc?

A V, SciArc might really surprise you. They might be selective, but the selections are unpredictable. I have a very close friend who got into SciArc 2 years ago. He was wait listed at first, but eventually got in. He was not the greatest student, although he was an excellent classmate. His is portfolio was stellar and looked like it could have been done by a SciArc grad student! I guess what I am trying to say is, don't count yourself out until you have it in writing. Good luck.

FYI: to all Cornell applications, I called Cornell grad department and they are updating the applicants' Status Page as we speak. You can check your status by going to the Embark website.

afrdzak - did the person you talked to at VTech say if they had also mailed out a round of rejections?

If I remembe correctly, she said verbatim: "all letters from the 1st review phase has been sent out." This was part of her response to my question "Have all responses been sent out?"

Based on that, I'm going to have to say if you were declined during the 1st phase of review process you would have gotten a decline note. But since she responded specifically to my case, I can't say 100% if my assumptions are true.

Call them if you're dying to know.

yea, i know i should just call.... thanks for the info!

There's no admission status on Cornell's grad page.

anyone cool enough to call Yale yet and ask if they still have admission letters they've yet to send out?

thanks dietcoke! i think they may have lost it for awhile (or it got lost in the mail). one of the open house things they're doing requires a returned response by today's date, haha.

rafelito: there's an application status portion. I believe that it will be updated with admissions status as time permits her.

Nice job jostah!

afrdzak: Where is it??... can't find it in the web page

After logging into your Embard account: https://apply.embark.com/grad/cornell/23/ click on the "Track your status" link on the Home page. It's the last link.

thanx...

dead day for acceptances...

So you guys are able to see your Cornell application status via online?

nope, can't see my Cornell status ...

It is crazy ... I am waiting for Columbia, Cornell, Pratt, Parsons, RISD and SCI yet ... Loosing all the hopes.

So I am probably going to Syracuse.

rejection stinks, yale sounded so good but smells so bad now.

tartar treats i totally agree with you....
sigh

why does it seem like yale has just been rejecting and waitlsting ppl...
there are only two acceptances showing on gradcafe...=T

awww YBTH... syracuse is a good program!

btw, i still havent heard back from columbia.. which probably means i was rejected.. but whatever, i mean. it's march 24th. i'm kind of annoyed with this long delay in responses.

yeah, I think they sent out their acceptances weeks ago... so the gradcafe gave me a heads up that I was facing rejetion. Plus I think I jinxed myself by looking at their website last night and thinking how great that program in Berlin with Gehry would be to do. Ha, oh well.

didn't sci-arch lose their lease to their building or is that just the rumor on the streets of LA?

"SCI-ARC" ... no H

cou2 and asbuckeye07, i'll be there! may be we should start creating a new thread for 09'! or a group in Facebook.

I may be in the '09 commiserate thread as well I have been rejected by three out of the five schools that I applied to I am still waiting for Parsons.

I did however get an acceptance from Tulane so I will have to go down there and check out the school and see if they are offering what I want. So if Tulane doesn't seem right for me I will definitely be re-applying and this time I will spend more than a month on my portfolio damn December 14th CD deadlines.

i want to know from all of you M.Arch 1 candidates...

why did you decide on architecture after graduating with a different degree? I'm trying to figure out if 3.5 years more of school is really what i need.

cuz i discovered the joys of lego during my undergrad years.

..

well i tried to transfer in my 3rd year to waterloo. rejected. so i got into my 'backup' of commerce (which ironically is very competitive at ubc) and while i hated it - it was quite useful to know the business side of things. i went to cornell summer program and had heart set on architecture.

DJ, That's funny that you say that. I was just feeling sorta the same way today, kind of getting cold feet with this career change thing now that the application process is almost* over. (still waiting...) Maybe the possibility of settling at a second choice school made me wonder if it'll all be worth it.

I decided to apply to arch. schools bc I being in my studio all night by myself drove me crazy. I have a BFA, love making my own work, and my dayjob turned into a pretty interesting career. But I really needed to put an end to my Batman lifestyle. I had a long interest in architecture as a discipline and thought that it would be a smart way have just one job, continue the creative work and work collaboratively....

got a rejection from YSOA.

Postmarked the 18th.

c'mon GSD!!!!!

my DHL package from MIT arrived at my door but sadly my bell didn't work.

i've rearranged a delivery to my office tmr.

quiksilver: Yale puts on a great Open House. They can be very persuasive and they should be because they have a great program. I am more concerned with faculty more than anything. I think Robert Stern is a great dean at Yale and I am a huge Eisenman fan. I am also reading Eeva Pelkonen's work right now - she has some great ideas about architecture and it's relation to the human experience. On the other hand, I am a huge fan of Eric Howeler and Meejin Yoon. I would like nothing more than to have either of them in studio. Eric was my first studio prof. in Berlin back in 2005 and pretty much convinced me where I wanted to head in life. Christy Anderson is also teaching theory and MIT right now and she is one of my favorite professors of all time. Astonishingly, I think I prefer the studio space at MIT over Yale...it's more intimate but still offers a good working space. I was at GSD for their summer program and although I didn't hate it, I wasn't a huge fan of Gund Hall. It felt too much like a giant factory. All aside, I would say overall MIT and Yale are different in that they both take advantage of what they are best at. For example at MIT, the school took prospective students on a tour of other grad departments that were open to integration with MIT architecture students. I visited labs where students were working on computer engineering and various types of robotics...Yale could never offer this kind of thing. On the other hand, I feel like Yale has a strong list of publications that continue to develop out of their architecture school. They are also rejoining the art school or art history school (i am not sure) when they move back into the Rudolph building. There is so much to consider but it seems like you know more than most. Academia aside, I would prefer to live in Cambridge over New Haven....not that architecture students have much time outside the studio anyways to go out. I'm going to Yale's Open House in two weeks. At this stage in the game, it may really just come down to who offers more money.
We are finally getting mail in Canada today. Hopefully I'll have some more answers today.

anyone driving down to the MIT or Yale Open House from Toronto? Carpool?

got a double whammy last night, rejections from cornell and yale. fantastic. just waiting for gsd so i can complete the 0 for 4

yup, gsd will round out an 0 for 4 season for me as well.

ok guys i need your opinion do you think i have any chance at getting a nice acceptance envelope from any more schools on my list.... ive so far only heard from and gotten accepted to PENN. Still waiting on....

columbia
RISD
cincinnati
berkeley

thanks

Just waiting for a thin envelope from the GSD.

rejected from YALE yesterday that makes me 3 for 5

still waiting on Sci Arc and GSD

Cornell-accepted
UBC-accepted
Cincinatti-accepted
RISD-rejected
YALE-rejected