I just sent a long email to another archinect member who didn't get a chance to attend the open house, I'd love to discuss it here though so I'll just post what I said in the email.

"The biggest thing they stressed was definitely an interdisciplinary approach to making architecture. They're really interested in affording students the opportunity to develop a diverse set of interests so the faculty seemed really mixed, from urbanists to technologists to theorist/historians to artists. It seemed like a wide range of ideas and the opportunity for students to have a lot of freedom within their education.

This seems to show up within the way they develop the curriculum. From my undergrad experience, I know that probably 80% of my focus was on studio (more towards finals), but MIT is really interested in changing this. Not that studio isn't one of the main priorities, but they were all saying that it's not necessarily the main thing. Apart from studios, students are encouraged to participate in workshops which are research and design projects that a smaller group of students (4-10) participate on with a faculty member and can last anywhere from a month to a whole year. So it allows you the ability to pursue long term interests with a faculty member who you respect or are interested in studying under, and then to use those interests to challenge and contrast with the agenda of your studio. Seems like a ton of work but really rewarding. They said typically this results in a harder time for students to fully develop their studio proposals but that the ability to diversify more than makes up for this and really becomes a great experience.

The school seemed to really try to foster the idea that it is a place for debate. Numerous times, professors told me that they love students coming into their studio and challenging their ideas, they want to encourage an environment that is constantly questioning things. They also hold public debates between their faculty members and between studio or student groups who have contrasting views, this seemed like a really fun thing to me.

As you probably know, the first three semesters would be an incredibly intensive process which includes three studios, four building technology classes, two design representation classes and perhaps a couple other classes which I can't remember right now. After that though we would be asked to determine a concentration and a course plan which would help us in the pursuit of that concentration. At that point most of our classes are electives and we're given the ability to participate in the workshops as well as take classes from other departments such as the fine arts department etc.

The entire faculty seemed really passionate, that was perhaps the thing which came across most clearly to me. They gave presentations on their work and their interest and I really came away impressed by their dedication, but I suppose you'll perhaps find that everywhere at that level of institute though. All of them seemed to be actively building outside of school which I think is a plus.

The students I talked to, and the ones in the question/answer session felt that RA positions were quite hard to come by and they said I probably shouldn't hold out much hope for getting one, but most of them had been TAs before but they also felt that with the intense workload of the first three semesters, it might be impossible to TA until second year. But who knows"

Overall, I was pretty impressed, and actually pleasantly surprised by MIT.

That said though, one of the things that concerned me was that (I think someone on here mentioned this as well) the studio work as well as the work in their student work book they mailed out seems a bit underdeveloped in many cases. I'm not sure how much weight to place on this though. I think part of this is due to the emphasis they place on projects outside the studio, and I certainly don't think that it necessarily means your projects won't be fully-developed, but I do find that aspect of MIT a bit disconcerting. My impression is also that MIT pushes pretty hard towards conceptual development of studio projects, and less towards the representational elements but as a prospective student it's difficult to tell if this is actually the case.

Wow, huge post. Sorry. I'd love to hear your thoughts.

citrus.grey:

I have exactly the same opinions. It seems MIT is actually one of the most forward thinking, if not the most forward thinking school at the moment with it's strong interdisciplinary framework. I think they are most suited to address the contemporary changing world.

I also found the faculty and students to be very friendly, helpful, intelligent, and accessible. Studio space seems decent too, 2 or sometimes more desks per student it seems.

Another big thing I noticed is that MIT as a whole is very researched oriented.

My only reservation is the same as yours, which is the student work seems somewhat weak. However, do you think this is just b/c it was from the year 2006? Some changes have been happening, new faculty such as Nader Tehrani have been added as well, so do you think in these coming years the student work will improve?

Maybe MIT is too much in flux now? However, it seems like it's changing toward a great direction, and it may be good to become a part of it.

One more question for you and others: which set of faculty presentations ("reverse reviews") did you attend? I was in Group 3, with John Fernandez, Mark Goulthorpe, and Sheila Kennedy, all which are very technology/computation oriented. I know Group 1 seemed architectural design, and Group 2 seemed to have more of an urban focus. How were the presentations you saw? I am not the most interested in computation, so I'm curious to see what the other faculty were about.

(Thanks for the long post by the way, very helpful.)

Quicksilver and citrus.grey,

I've been interested in MIT for a while for the same reasons your guys already mentioned. My biggest concern is the high cost of tuition and living in Boston.

What are you guys doing about the cost? Are decent financial aid packages available? You mentioned TA position is kind of out of the question.

_Or does everyone who is attending have unlimited financial resources?



urces?

MIT is pretty good about giving tuition grants. A lot of people get half or more of their tuition covered. I hear living in Boston isn't as expensive as some other cities.

I think citrus.grey said that RA positions are hard to get, but TA positions are easier to get.




Anyone else have opinions about MIT from what they have seen?

quiksilver, regarding your thoughts on the student work, I had a discussion with professor Goulthorpe about that, and he said it basically comes down to the two things you already mentioned, the first being that MIT was a radically different place in 2006 before the implementation of the core curriculum and the new faculty members; and also that MIT is a research based program, so they stress the conceptual elements far more than the final product of the studio. I'm still trying to decide whether I believe him or not.

For the faculty presentations, I was in the second group with Larry Sass, Alexander D'Hooghe, and Yung Ho Chang. Sass mostly discussed a project of his in which he was using digital technology to pre-fabricate houses for New Orleans. He seemed to really be passionate about the program, he graduated MIT M.Arch around a decade ago and had been working there in one way or another ever since. D'Hooghe gave a nice outline of the research he and a group of students were doing on monumental urbanism, and then showed us some of the recent projects and competitions his firm was working on. Chang finished up by contrasting with D'Hooghe a bit, and discussing his interest in non-monumental architecture. He showed a number of more humble (or perhaps just smaller) buildings that his firm had designed in China and presented them in what seems to be his usual charming way.

I suppose I'm a bit like you in that computation just isn't really my thing, and I was a bit worried about ending up in a program that provided me with little alternative. But I think if you take a look at the studio agendas in the packet they handed out, there seems to be plenty of diversity in the studio options and most don't sound limiting at all in terms of design methods. And your choice of concentration certainly gives you a lot of freedom with your electives in that regard.

I agree with you that MIT is changing rapidly. Professor Tehrani told me that we're really the first class that will see the full benefits of the changes they've been making, because by the time we get out of the core sequence we'll have access to some mysterious new instructors who they eluded to several times during the day (kind of seemed strange to me by the end) but never mentioned by name. But he claimed that our thesis projects will be unlike anything the school has seen so far. But again I'm sure there's an element of truth there, but naturally all of the faculty members were doing their best to sell us on these things.

I had to make a meeting, so I hung around and talked to some people in the studios and then took off around 2, so I missed the official studio tour and the question and answer sessions as well.

I spoke to a recent grad during the open house who said that he felt the education the current students are getting, and the quality of the student work since they started the new core program, was MUCH better now than only two years ago. In fact he seemed more than a little upset not to have gone through the new system. I'm sure it will continue to improve, considering this was the first year of the new core.

I think in many ways it would be a great time to start the program, when there is a lot of excitement about the changes and they've had a year or so to figure out what works and what doesn't.

I also thought the opportunities to do the interdisciplinary workshops at MIT would be incredible, and hard to match anywhere else.

I think I'm having the same questions everyone is about the strength of the design training/studio at MIT. The idea of integrating the content/projects in the Building Technology, Theory, and Representation classes with the studio did seem to make a lot of sense, but maybe in the end it results in less pure studio time?

The GSD seemed so studio-focused in comparison, with all other classes much less important, and 4 instead of 3 semesters of core. The downside of this is you only get to choose 2 of your studios at the GSD compared to 3 at MIT. MIT, maybe partly as a result of this, seemed to offer students more travel opportunities than Harvard.

I also found the presentational styles (not talking content or quality, just layout and 'look') of the MIT studio work during the open house crits to be much more varied (for good and bad), while the GSD projects all exuded a polished sameness (for good and bad).

Sorry to turn it into a GSD vs. MIT showdown.

I would be a level I (in MIT lingo), not sure about everyone else who is commenting here.

Yeah, I'd be going into level I as well.

I think you bring up a good point ahouseaplace. The interesting thing about the workshops is that they are an entirely voluntary pursuit. So there's certainly nothing to stop you from steering clear of those commitments at times in order to maintain a pure studio experience, and I assume there are plenty of people who do just that. I really got the sense that the whole experience, especially after core, is really open to being manipulated by the student, as opposed to being prescribed by the administration.

I didn't apply to the GSD, but as for MIT, walking around the studios, I definitely noticed a pretty wide range of working techniques, from hardcore computation to acrylic paintings and most everything in between, plus loads of models, both hand-made and digitally produced. I thought this was a nice change of pace from a couple other schools I've visited where it's hard to tell where one student's pinup stops and another begins.

i will be going to MArch I at 77 Mass Av too ...

i didn't visit the open house and I'm delighted to see all your thoughts

My visit to the school almost a year ago gave me a nice impression of the studio space and that MIT isn't much on the fashion trend as many other leading schools in the States and London. These are critical concerns why I prefer MIT over gsapp. I also love to see how MIT embraces a strong idea of where the whole school is orienting towards.

as i know some passionate MIT faculty have seized their opportunities to visit schools around the world (including my college) to give critics and disuss with the classes (without the presence of their school faculty) to hear their comments on their curriculum and studio environment. I had a rigorous discussion and truly enjoyed it.

I don't have much to add, just wanted to thank everyone for the somewhat useful info they've provided here.

I've not applied this year, but perhaps in the coming year or three...

But I'm interested in the work done in the MediaLAB at MIT. The possibility of studying architecture while actively engaging other disciplines seems to be a very exciting prospect. Did it seem as though the students of different programs within the University work together, or are all these interdisciplinary changes and conceptual approaches strictly within the architecture school?

just curious how many students attended the open house
are they all prospective MArch admitted students?

i mean students = we applicants

I wanted to echo the comments about concern for the level/development of student work. I was at the open house as well and that was the only concern I had with the entire program. I believe most of the work we saw during the afternoon reviews was Level I core studio work, and perhaps this provides part of the explanation for quality of work/presentation as I can imagine the core studios focus more on building a conceptual framework over representation. Unlike a couple of you guys mentioned, I am highly interested in learning more about computation. I really enjoyed the presentation by Larry Sass and would like to pursue such elements further. I know some other programs place a higher emphasis on computation than perhaps M.I.T. does, but I am hoping that I can develop a greater understand for computational studies by attending M.I.T.

Another interesting thing I noticed about the program was a fundamental concern for culture and how architecture interacts and affects various cultures. I believe the program pushes away from monumental/universal architecture and embraces specific regional concerns and styles. For better or worse, I believe the program has a more humanitarian view of architecture, which is to say that M.I.T. promotes architecture that reflects and promotes culture over re-defining or interpreting cultures. Does anyone agree/disagree?

I completely agree j2h, in fact the main reason I applied to MIT was their emphasis (or at least the perception of an emphasis) on the ethical dimensions of architecture. Virtually every presentation and studio syllabus I saw was, in one way or another, wrestling with the idea of architecture's contribution or relationship to culture, and its ability to act as a transformative element.

This is fascinating to me, because I think it reflects a kind of grounding in the work that isn't necessarily present in the agendas of many schools where the work is driven primarily through self-referential values.

In that sense I think their work in the field of computation goes beyond much of the other work I’ve seen around the country in that it's actively looking to contribute to contemporary need (Larry Sass was the perfect example of this with his project for New Orleans.)

Look at me; I’m like a propaganda machine.

I think it was 40 or so at the open house. They divided us into 3 groups of maybe 12 or 14 for presentations by faculty members.

I was in the group with Fernandez, Goulthorpe and Kennedy as well. I'm wondering who you all were at the open house.

I thought that at MIT, the ethical/cultural component was more developed than at most other schools. Most of the option/vertical studios touched on these issues in some way, and I think the faculty are really interested in this. I was particularly interested in the group that traveled to Thailand this semester to work at a World Heritage site at the invitation of the Thai government.

Other schools (at least the ones I visited) seemed either uninterested in this dimension or were relying on students to push the school in this direction.

Hey guys, thanks so much for all of the great opinions. I have just returned from seeing MIT, UCLA and Yale (what a tiring trip!), and now have a better perspective of MIT in comparison to these others.

I am going to retract my initial comment about MIT's student work looking weak. After seeing Yale, I found the level of development of the student work to look about the same. This may simply be because all schools are only in mid-semester right now, and therefore they don't have much of a final product yet. Also, I'm realizing that MIT's work seems more experimental and research based, whereas schools like UCLA seem to be mostly about form/sexiness, and schools like Yale seem more traditional in their approach to architecture, i.e. site + program = building.

And like many on this thread have said, MIT does have a strong social and environmental conscious - even the the professors who are interested in computation are using it toward social and environmental goals (rather than form/sexiness).

It also seems that MIT has great faculty at the moment. Tehrani is one of the new people I'm really interested in. They all seem accessible and friendly, and passionate about education.

Finally, one of the biggest selling points for me is MIT's "CETU" approach to architecture, or "Culture, Environment, Technology, Urbanism". Architecture there is seen as a practice which addresses all of these aspects, and sees them as deeply interconnected. MIT is the only school I've seen so far which is truly interdisciplinary, whereas other schools treat architecture and its related fields with a traditional hierarchical approach. In these ways I feel like MIT is perhaps the most innovative program at the moment.

So, citrus.grey, it looks like you're not the only propaganda machine on this thread now, haha!

So, who's going to MIT?

I’ll be there this fall, and I’m very very excited, I don’t think I can wait through the summer. Did you accept as well?

Yup! Can't wait either!

I'll be there!

Hello all MIT acceptees,

First of all, congrats! Hard work has paid off!
As for me, I will be applying to schools in December and MIT is on the top of my list. Currently, I am studying for the GREs.
I am trying to get a better sense of where I stand among all those who apply. I feel that I have good projects from my studio but not sure about my GPA and the GRE looks scary. If I may ask, I was wondering what your GRE and gpa was (and portfolio if possible).

thanks