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2008 M.Arch applicants, commiserate here!

5634
andytee

@ _juut,

i got my MIT rejection in the mail, but just before i did, i emailed annette horne-williams asking if it had been mailed out yet, and she wrote back saying yes and that i did not get in. i got the mail before the email so that is what i posted about, but if you are still waiting, just email her (contact on dept website) and you should find out soon.

best of luck to you.

Mar 30, 08 11:26 pm  · 
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skycaptain

MIT or UPenn or Yale? boooo. haven't heard from gsd. annoying.

Mar 30, 08 11:53 pm  · 
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modernmonk

@skycaptain: tu as décidé, non? je pense...

Mar 31, 08 12:36 am  · 
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chaps

My results, in order of appearance:

Yale - Yes
Harvard - Yes
Princeton - No
UPenn - Waitlist
Columbia - Waitlist


I figured I wouldn't get into Harvard or Yale, but that I (maybe) had a shot at the other ones. Goes to show you never can tell...

Anyone going to the GSD/Yale open houses? I'll be there.

Mar 31, 08 1:01 am  · 
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lebanesey

Yup I'm going to the GSD open house. I'll be the girl with the curly black hair and freckles

Mar 31, 08 1:14 am  · 
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chaps

I'll be the blonde girl making awkward jokes.

Mar 31, 08 2:35 am  · 
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dietc0ke

i'll be at the gsd one. are you guys going to the nyc thing too?

Mar 31, 08 3:07 am  · 
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chaps

Thought about it... don't really know if it is worth nudging my flight, though. I am trying to get back home (down south) so I can attend a couple of my studios before I have to leave again to go to Yale's open house on the 10th (which happens to be my birthday... hopefully I will make some friends who will celebrate with me!).

Mar 31, 08 3:16 am  · 
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chaps

By the way, have you GSD guys received MULTIPLE calls from them? I certainly didn't think that Harvard needed to recruit this strongly, so I have been pleasantly surprised by their efforts. I used the opportunity to ask lots of pressing questions! :)

Hope to meet some of you soon...

Mar 31, 08 3:29 am  · 
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lebanesey

I haven't received calls as I live in Dubai, but I have definitely received multiple e-mails and juicy fedex packages! What pressing questions did you ask?

dietcoke, i am going to the NYC thing too. Are both of you in for MArch 1? I'll be on the MArch 1 AP course

Mar 31, 08 3:47 am  · 
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fivepass

gsd sucks

Mar 31, 08 4:13 am  · 
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lebanesey

why?

Mar 31, 08 4:15 am  · 
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boxy

i'd like to talk to you guys about yale and the gsd. i visited both schools recently and they are VASTLY different--sort of like microsoft and apple. didn't know because i came into this tabula rasa, but happy that the schools are not all the same. love to hear your thoughts...

Mar 31, 08 9:46 am  · 
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lebanesey

lol, which is microsoft and which is apple?

Mar 31, 08 9:54 am  · 
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chaps

Yeah, please go on DJ... I have been wondering what the big differences are.

PS I'm a mac girl, myself. ;)

Mar 31, 08 10:02 am  · 
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skycaptain

nothing from GSD yet. should i call??? :S i'm scared they will yell at me.

Mar 31, 08 10:29 am  · 
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skycaptain

change name: that's insane that you got a spot at Harvard and Yale and got waitlisted at UPenn and Columbia. I met a girl at Princeton that got rejected from Columbia too. I think it was because of that GRE cut off. but who knows. insane. lol.

Mar 31, 08 10:33 am  · 
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skycaptain

is anyone here? boooo

Mar 31, 08 10:42 am  · 
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pigeon

anyone on the waitlist at GSD? anyone have any info / think there is any chance / think i can still go to the open house?

thanks / congrats to you all that got in

Mar 31, 08 10:47 am  · 
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boxy

harvard is like a factory, super clean, serious, students look plain jane. barely any models anywhere, a few renderings, a ton of books. lots of talk about history and legacy, breeding some of the finest talent in the world. students seem to be happy there, very engaged in their work. the location is okay, although harvard square is just plain boring--very manufactured, bunch of chains. i come from nyc, so maybe every town is like this.

yale was like entering the house of one of those pot-smoking artist visionaries. ping pong tables, physical models strewn about the building, beer posters and loads of graphic design, dressed more like new yorkers. much more visual. you can tell the students are so smart and creative. new haven is an absolute dump. the architecture department is on its own little island, stuck between residential housing and gas stations. they're renovating a new (?) architecture building that's attached to the regular campus and if classes were held there, i'd feel like I was at least a part of the school. the campus itself is, of course, beautiful.

so imo, harvard=microsoft. yale=apple.

Mar 31, 08 10:52 am  · 
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b3tadine[sutures]

no irony in the fact that Gates dropped out of Hardvard?

hey pre-grads, i got some shop drawing redlines to transfer, any takers, i got to get back to poking you softies in the soft white underbellies...

Mar 31, 08 11:05 am  · 
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snarkitekt

haha, wow, that is exactly the opposite of my impression of the two schools. of course i'm dating one of those "plain jane" gsd students. surprised there weren't many models around when you visited, it's always seemed to me like a big part of the studio culture. very very few people there are drawing/drafting by hand after their first year though. i guess it all depends on who you talk to and what you're looking for. harvard square is definitely on the decline though, lots of local businesses have been pushed out in the last few years, making way for bertucci's/uno's/body shop/urban outfitters, etc. personally i think inman square is a lot more fun, and is walking distance from gsd, many better restaurants and bars.

yale is supposed to move back into their permanent building in the fall. it's a 1963 paul rudolph building being renovated by gwathmey siegel. the addition looks pretty heinous to me, but maybe it's just their renderings. regardless, architecture will be housed in the original building and art history will be in the addition. when i visited the studio spaces a few years ago they seemed really cramped, but hopefully that will be improved. ysoa students seem to feel a really strong affinity for the rudolph building and the ones i spoke to in november were already very anxious to move out of their temporary space. it's true that yale students are very tied in to the nyc scene, which was a negative for me. don't get me wrong, i love new york and hope to live there in a few years, but new haven....just ain't new york. and at an hour and forty five minutes away from the city, i found it a little off-putting that the school wants so badly to be a new york school that they haven't really invested in developing a culture of their own.

definitely worth it to try and visit both since different people will obviously come away with vastly different impressions.

Mar 31, 08 11:21 am  · 
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dietc0ke

@ Lebanessy... I am the MArch1 track. See you there!

Mar 31, 08 11:43 am  · 
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moca

FF33 and witty are you guys going to the UCLA open house?


has anyone heard from SCIARC?
someone said they mail a batch of decision last week..
did anyone receive that?

Mar 31, 08 11:55 am  · 
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MyFunnyName

hellloooooooo.... so where did Columbia post there results?

Mar 31, 08 11:58 am  · 
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MyFunnyName

their*

Mar 31, 08 11:59 am  · 
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ff33º

moca, I'll be there...:-) email me

Mar 31, 08 12:11 pm  · 
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moca

on your online account...on the bottom of the page in bold face.

Mar 31, 08 12:13 pm  · 
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moca

ff33..im actually not going..
too many deadlines at work.

but have fun! =)
where are you from?

Mar 31, 08 12:15 pm  · 
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MyFunnyName

hmmm no up yet i guess..... hope thats not a bad thing.

Mar 31, 08 12:20 pm  · 
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MyFunnyName

not*

geez.... not my day today

Mar 31, 08 12:20 pm  · 
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ff33º

moca
I emailed you.

Mar 31, 08 12:21 pm  · 
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jojo9

concerning the comparison of YSOA to GSD, I 'm quite surprised as well there were not many physical models around at the latter...

I was under the impression that GSD is all about physical (and a bit old-fashioned) models. And perhaps YSOA was more into theory since they have the Perpsecta thing and all. But looking at last year's student work on their website I really wonder where they are headed.

I mean most schools have their own direction/style/whatever you want to call it that comes across quite clear. From what I gather is that GSAPP is all about concept, UPenn on the digital side, GSD about ModernismRevisited and Princeton...well, Princeton is too small a school to have a style of its own but probably somewhere between GSD and GSAPP. YSOA seems to be on a transitional phase and it has been striking me as a surprise for a couple of years to hear from people who got in Yale, because their work were not alike at all and completely irrelevant to anything that I see coming out of there.

Which brings me to the admissions issue again. Why would it be a surprise that somebody got in GSD+YSOA but not GSAPP or UPenn? I know that GSD supposedly receives hundreds of applications to make a class of about 50 people so obviously they absolutely have to be selective. But we don't really know what this 300+ applications are like. Would some of the applicant stand the chance anyway if the class at this school was bigger? What I mean to say is that judging a school's selectivity (or even quality of any kind) based on acceptance rates alone seems well...wrong, at least that's how I see it.

Of course GSAPP has a bigger class - at least for the post-prof degrees that I was applying to it does - but my impression is that schools more and more tend to admit people whose work seem to be in accordance with the school's direction. For example, GSAPP's and UPenn's direction are closer to each other than to the one of GSD, I think most people would agree on that point.

Having said that, I know 4 people who got into YSOA this year but not GSAPP. I only find it strange because they were all post-prof applicants and I think Yale has a miniscule class for MArchII, whereas Columbia something like 70+. I was also wondering about the MArchII class size at PennDesignn, does anybody know anything about that?

Mar 31, 08 12:22 pm  · 
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skycaptain

both school (GSD + YSOA) build lots of models. and as per the notion of school direction/style, I think most schools just want what they see as the best students...on a side note, It's the last day of March and GSD has not gotten back to me? Did anyone phone? Am I the last one waiting here?

Mar 31, 08 12:53 pm  · 
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jojo9

exactly what I am saying, considering the fact that most people that apply to one Ivy will probably apply to the others the best students for GSD might not be the best for GSAPP or vice versa.

As for the admissions thing, if you are not outside the US and even with this year's inconsistency of GSD I find it a bit peculiar. Did you check with them, see if they received all your material in the first place? I recall getting some kind of email notification a couple of days after I send my portofolio to them. Oh, two emails actually; one of those embark-generated and a personal one from one of the administrators, which I found very nice considering the amount of work at their admission office...

Mar 31, 08 1:03 pm  · 
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BabbleBeautiful

Well ladies and gents, it looks like I'll be going to UMich starting June. I'll be submitting my letter of intent by the end of this week and get started on housing. Even though it wasn't initially my first choice, I'm extremely excited. Anyone else going?

Mar 31, 08 1:16 pm  · 
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BabbleBeautiful

you guys spent waaay too much time speculating the unecessary.

Mar 31, 08 1:17 pm  · 
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Andrew Teng

jojo: I second your explanation of why some ppl get accepted to one school and not another. Admission rates have nothing to do with whether someone will get accepted or not... but, of course it is more competitive at a low-admission rate school.

In my case, I feel that my design work is very conceptually oriented. I was afraid that some of the more "conservative" schools (granted, this is a slippery term), would not bite on my port and application. Apparently I was right. And so far Columbia is the only school that has accepted me so far.

SkyCaptain: I'm still waiting buddy! I'm in Canada too (hint: we know each other) and I didn't get my GSD rejection either.... damn. I was lurking around the mailroom for nothing.

Mar 31, 08 1:22 pm  · 
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jojo9

actually knowing why admissions committees reject or not your application is not so unnecessary. Kinda gives you a impression of what to expect. Just a speculation of mine of course :)

Mar 31, 08 1:29 pm  · 
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Andrew Teng

...it's a mechanism for convincing ourselves that we got into the right place! ;-)

Mar 31, 08 1:31 pm  · 
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jojo9

well, I actually had to choose among a couple of those besides the one I am going to so I hope I made the right decision...

Mar 31, 08 1:37 pm  · 
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j2h

Oh don't worry skycap...you know you want to go to MIT anyways :)

Mar 31, 08 1:44 pm  · 
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kramer2nd

ANY WORD ABOUT RICE OR SCI-ARC? WHEN ARE THEY GONNA SEND OUT ACCEPTANCES?

Mar 31, 08 2:20 pm  · 
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laurilan

yeah - and how about you people accepted to u cinn? how many of you are actually going?

Mar 31, 08 2:28 pm  · 
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rose4401

i was accepted to cincinnati, but I am not going

Mar 31, 08 2:29 pm  · 
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laurilan

non-arch background? i know you prob mentioned this a while back...

Mar 31, 08 2:32 pm  · 
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rose4401

yes, non-arch

Mar 31, 08 2:33 pm  · 
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skycaptain

j2h: lol. why do i want to go to MIT? haha. it's actually really funny because for the past year now I had this intuition that i would end up at MIT....i'm waitlisted at Yale but somehow i feel like that is a dead end.

Mar 31, 08 2:38 pm  · 
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Fraggle

laurilan are you going to u of cincy?

Mar 31, 08 2:53 pm  · 
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laurilan

haven't heard from them yet... not looking so good.

Mar 31, 08 2:54 pm  · 
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