Oh lord, I can't even count the number of times we've gotten into dead end arguments, but they usually end with, "I thought you wanted to be a graphic designer. I just don't understand when you became interested in architecture." Feels sort of like all the, "but I thought purple was your favorite color" arguments growing up.

hahaha. yeah well... my bro is in science, just applied for a Ph.D, and is getting, like, full ride + living expenses + work study $$ for a postgraduate degree. he's getting about the same amount of money I got as my yearly salary at my first full-time office job out of undergrad. so everyone in my family thinks you'd have to be crazy to pay to go to school, since he is, instead, getting paid by the school. of course he says stuff like 'well i have to TA or do research' and I'm like ... they dont pay TA's/lab assistant that much.

I got the UMich acceptance today. I am hoping it is legit, because having grown up in Cambridge, Ann Arbor sounds like an improvement as far as climate is concerned, no?

masters students usually pay, phds almost never (stipends, living expenses, etc. are normal. if you pay for a phd, they probably don't want you very much and you are essentially subsidizing the other students). that's pretty much the way it is. if you get full tuition for masters, you are extremely lucky (unless in-state school tuition). supplemental loans are par for the course. I expect to incur some debt. If I didn't, I'd be thrilled.

10 - I'm not sure my umich law schooling boyfriend would think so! He's already giving me a hard time about the prospect of my mini cooper being in the snow.

Hey what would be consider a ridiculously high EFC? I think mine is pretty bad .. ~20,000. Not that I can contribute that much when I have to quit my job and move to a city with no contact and my savings is pretty empty.

Congrats 10! Sorry, I have no idea about the climate in either of those areas.

Ocotillo-yes I was aware of that distinction, only cause my bro told me he applied to Ph.D instead of Masters for the $$, claiming he can always bail early and take a Masters if he finds the Ph.D too lengthy and rigorous. Of course, then my family think I should apply for a Ph.D in architecture, so I can get a free ride too, but its not really the same thing...

GiantClam-

I got laid off at the end of Jan, I think the worst part is not having anything to keep my mind busy. Ever since I heard that UIC sent their acceptances I've been waiting by the window to see if the mail man has come yet lol - Ok maybe not that bad but still...

--no UIC letter yet boo hoo

Yes, Fraggle, its is harder to be distracted with more time to myself. I have sort of started scheduling my days up to keep occupied; have been going to more social things, going to the gym more, planning more elaborate and time consuming dinner & have been baking a lot, and started planning outdoor sketching dates w/ another of my architecture friends whose in the same boat. Otherwise I'll spend too much time, um, on here. Ha.

And on that note, time to run errands, go to yoga, and clean the house up before my friend comes to visit tonight.

Good luck to everyone and congrats to those who recently received good news.

If it makes you feel any better GiantClam, I so wish my days sounded more like your days! ;)

i hope that future architects like ourselves keep up with this "free" spirit that you have as i find some architects taking themselves way too seriously!

In a quite wonderful little twist, I've learned that perry kulper and monica ponce de leon will be lecturing at UT in the coming couple of weeks!

For all of you still waiting to hear from the University of Washington in Seattle (which includes myself), I was able to acquire some information from one of the professors that I know. He said:

"The admissions is a two part process. The first round accepts a few but the majority go to a second round which is in process now. You probably won't hear anything until sometime in March."

Received UCLA acceptance letter via e-mail 2 days ago (2/24/09). Early probably. Now to wait on the 6 other schools. Nail-biting ensues.

to those who I emailed my portfolio to, send me yours! that was part of the deal :)

As someone who has received early notification (U of O) and not (U of Wash), the early/late acceptance waves make no sense to me. Why would hearing back earlier be a plus? I'm going to wait until I hear back from all my schools before making a decision anyway. Do some people accept the offer from the first school they hear from? Does it indicate that you might get more funding if you're accepted earlier? It's just weird to me.

I think letting people know early helps relief the stress and people can move on instead of being stuck in the waiting hole ... at least it would help me.

So - just out of curiosity, are the people who heard back (from any of the school) applied for the 3+ program, ie. first professional degree? Has there been any acceptance from 2+ or 1+ program?

thanks jimmyarch!

Luckily, March starts pretty soon.

3+ for me. You might check that m.arch II commiserate thread but for all I know of may be quiet. You could also sift through thegradcafe.com.

Hmm 'it may be quiet.' thanks iPhone auto-correct. Funny how it's vigilant about correct apple product capitalization.

hello all. congrats to those who have been accepted already. lurking just wasn't cutting it anymore and I felt the need to participate. and anyway I had a quick question to all those who applied to MIT. have you received the promised email confirmation yet? acknowledging the receipt of all your application materials? cause I am beginning to wonder now that we are on the brink of march if they are really still sorting through the mailed materials... and I have not gotten an email yet. should I email them? thoughts?

fliptec, just out of curiosity, are you in-state or out of state? just curious because i know they leave only 3% of their enrollment body to out of staters.

Loop,
I got MIT's email on February 9th. They did say they had 10,000 pieces of mail to sort through, so I guess it is a possibility that they are still going through. But I might email them at this point if you have not heard anything. It seems like they should have gotten them all filed by now.

Loop, Entasis: same for me at MIT...no news since their "10,000" email.

Last year someone posed an interesting question so I'm reposting it here...would love to hear from everyone:
"What are you guys looking to get from your M.Arch I degrees?"

Just got an e-mail from Pratt,

They say they are missing:
2 letters of recommendation
my statement of purpose
my portfolio
my transcript.

The weird thing is, I have delivery confirmations for all of the items listed according to USPS and everything was confirmed, on time. It's all there somewhere, but apparently, for another year Pratt is still wack.

imsleepy-
the same thing happened to me with one of my schools. if you have any written confirmation/documentation of these deliveries, you should print them and send them with a short and polite letter describing your situation.

it's rough, because we don't want to bother the admissions offices about our application status, but sometimes if we don't, things slip through the cracks.

as someone who used to work in university admissions and as an applicant, i know how it goes for both sides - stressful.

hi imsleepy, i had the same problem. did you send it directly to the architecture admissions dept.? or the general grad school admissions dept.? they had me send it to the graduate admissions and took them 2 weeks to pass it over to the arch. dept. and during the 2 weeks, my app status was incomplete, i had 15 heart attacks during that period. thank god i'm fully recovered.

2 students in my class at Kent State got into IIT this morning and to those of you who also got accepted congratulations!!!

Not that any of you have applied to KSU for M.ARCH but on the off chance any of you have....it is going to be a LONG time before anything is decided my guess end of MARCH or Middle of April at BEST. Just thought i would pass along the info

I got the "early decision" acceptance email from U of Oregon on Thursday (3+/"Option 3" program). Hobopajamas, looks like you and I are 2 for 2 so far!

I can't believe it--I really thought it would be rejections across the board for me!

Still not a peep from UW or UTA - I guess that means I fall into the big "maybe" group of applications. Does anyone have info on what's happening with 3+ admissions at Georgia Tech?

so I too got the Penn email this morning... anyone else hate how they word things? or maybe we're just to the point where we look waaay too far into whatever they say... but when I read that email which at one point stated, "Included in the acceptance packet..." I thought for a split second it actually meant something! Is there really any reason to use the word acceptance??

Anyway, to answer some questions... I applied to the 2+ programs (have my b.design from UF) and have only heard from Michigan so far. Applied to UIC and haven't heard a word, but I got in there last year so I'm not too worried about it... yet

i can't believe tomorrow is finally march.. the craziness begins!! congrats to everyone hearing back, considering that most schools have reported almost twice the normal number of applications, i'd say we're doing pretty well!

I know what you mean kaysc, I was reading way too much into the Penn email too. A simple email saying "you're still under review", "submit fin aid documents", and "notices will be mailed out on March 23rd" would have been enough. Oh well, until March 23 it is.

newport2009, I am in state.

I e-mailed Pratt, stating I had confirmation of delivery of the listed items and confirmed all items were sent to the correct address. I gave them the name of who signed for the package, she responded saying they would conduct a thorough search on Monday.

I suppose that's all I can ask for. I'm sure it is all there, just in multiple files or something.

newport, I had everything sent to the graduate school so I imagine I am having the same issue you had. I sent my stuff in 6 weeks ago though...

hi imsleepy, jeez, 6 weeks ago is a long time ago - sorry to hear that yeah, it seems like schools take their sweet ol' time transferrng app pkgs to appropriate depts. hopefully pratt's delay is due to the surge, not incompetence!

Hmm... now im starting to worry if my Pratt app's incomplete too... but since i didn't get the email you guys had, i guess im good...?

Gaah its really killing me. =/

fliptec, you're so lucky you're in-state for ucla! jaymo24, hm, maybe you should check directly w/the arch. admissions office to make sure? sounds like they got some overfill of applications they have to go through, you def. want to make sure you're right in there :)

Jaymo, myself and some others on here recently received an 'application complete' email from Pratt. If you didn't then I'd email them. The email I received was from '[email protected]' if that helps. Also FYI I'm m.arch 1 if that makes a difference.

Sorry jaymo I checked back & I think you got the same email as me. I wouldn't worry!

fliptec-

which program @ ucla? m.arch I or m.arch II?

thanks

hey newport2009 and giantclam, thanks for the concern. haha. yup i did get the "app complete" email last weekend. so i guess we're good, eh? i was just worried that they might send again another email that says incomplete. lol. anyways im for m.Arch2. oh well.. the waiting is killing me. :P

Two more people accepted to UT Austin via grad cafe. :(

For those who are hoping for financial aid this year, the NYTimes reports that most schools are giving more aid due to the economic downturn in an attempt to stabilize or increase enrollment. The idea is similar to reduced fares on airlines, where even a discounted seat is better than an empty seat.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/28/education/28college.html?em

show me the money!

f2, thanks for the GREAT news, i needed one!

That is grrreeeat!

How will the points in this article translate to graduate architecture?

that's great!

wow, it's march already ... schools! please contact me!!!

That is an encouraging article, and good to hear.

This was also in the NYT recently. There are going to be fundamental changes to the Loan business for the 2010 school year. Hopefully, with benefits for all.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/27/business/27student.html

joentasis, this info is days late but still thought i'd pipe up - you should definitely go to the furniture design program in denmark, either in conjunction w/u.oregon or otherwise. i went during my last year of undergrad and it was fantastic. you can actually apply directly to their program, even if you're not attending one of their affiliated universities.