aid is pretty common as far as i know.  i would probably recommend that you apply again and refocus your application, and also consider outside scholarships and fellowships and even overseas schools, on a Fulbright, etc...sometimes getting one good offer will allow you to leverage it at other schools and you can sit back and let them fight over you... :)

i don't know how schools look upon an applicant that has been accepted once and declined, though.  you may have to take that into consideration if the school you really want to attend has already accepted you this time around.

If you decline the acceptance based on financial issues, I don't think that is looked upon negatively.

Did you apply last-minute to the "With-financial-aid" deadline, or last minute to the final deadline? Ive noticed a lot of schools have an earlier deadline for students applying to the program with needing financial aid...?

Did you apply late as BenC said, because some schools dish out their scholarships early.

I don't think looking into external scholarships would help. If the school isn't giving you financial aid, no disrespect, but if you can't get a scholarship from a school, I doubt that your chances of wining a scholarship would be very high.

How many years of work do you have between undergrad and now? Maybe get in another year of work experience and reapply.  It will likely improve your scholarship chances. No scholarship and over 100k in loans (at 6.8% interest rate) sounds insane.

Thanks for the responses so far. The decision was made late compared to others considering grad. school, but all applications were on time.    That is partially why I was curious if this is typical.  It may be that only a select few who post here,  are awarded aid,  or that the majority of applicants do not receive aid, but never post.  If the former is true, then I assume my application was not strong enough, despite being accepted.  If the latter is true, then I can assume waiting another year or two will make no difference, and it may be better to go to school now while jobs are so scarce.

When TA or RA assistantships are awarded, do they typically go only to returning students, or do newly accepted students also receive  funded assistantships in architecture programs as they do in other programs?  I have not heard of many of these on this board. One of the schools does not assign assistantships until fall,  so I am assuming most of these go to returning students known by the professors.

 The only work experience is summer internships. Obviously any work experience helps save for grad. school, and potentially helps for admission, but  does work experience also influence the aid packages? 

The work experience, or lack of it, may be the major problem. About a dozen of my undergrad classmates, including myself, worked anywhere between 3-7 years before returning to grad school and some of us didn't go back for architecture. Some went for Real Estate, Planning, and Business. Of those I know about, we all received anywhere from 25-100% of tuition covered at great schools.

Schools are being swamped by kids going from undergrad straight into grad school, as well as unemployed people who are going back to hide from the recession. You're among the many competing with people who are -for a lack of better term- worth more...Your best bet is to work a couple of years and reapply. You may even decide to pursue something else more lucrative down the road. Otherwise, 100K+ at 6.8% interest is going to haunt you forever.

as a counterpoint to burningman:

i spent three years after my arch undergrad doing unremarkable work outside of architecture and thought it would be a glaring problem on my grad applications.  it wasn't.  i was eventually offered 100% tuition from princeton and 75% from gsd.  i'm sure great work experience helps but it's not a prerequisite.

there is a lot of scholarship money out there that simply goes unclaimed because no one applied.  of course these aren't your widely publicized scholarships--you'll have to really search--but it's worth the effort.  it's free money!

i love it when burningboy looks like an idiot,

just goes to show how little he knows when he is not posting data entry about sci-arc on archinect

not getting enough attention at DPZ i suppose

pppv spent three years working before going to grad school, which improved scholarship chances. Read Louise, and stop being such a Kuhnt.

think and reply

could both of you guys knock it off?