got a 1500+ and received zero scholarship money from them...not sure if thats what they are looking for.

I attended their open house, and had a breakdown of the the cost of attendance and financial aid. They have need based grants ranging from 1500-4500, no merit scholarships. They do have a diversity scholarship, but that's only available to those who come from a under-represented ethnicities or low social-economic background. Cost of attendance for tuition, fees, living expenses, and misc. is about $60,000 a year.

One student suggested becoming an RA (residential advisor) for one of the undergraduate dorms to help offset the cost of attendance, free room and board. Also, look into possible teaching assistanceship, they give you a moderate stipend and reduce tuition. I'm not sure if Penn offers that though.

I'm in the same situation, I want to go there too. Even if I get accepted, without some sort of substantial aid, there would be no way I could afford it, even with loans.

I'm currently at Penn, and also initially freaked about the price of tuition. I agree with Xacto, I do not think a high GRE score will make any difference. As far as scholarships go, most everyone I know receives around 4000 dollars in need based grants...aside from the "diversity scholarships," which is an entire topic unto itself, you pretty much have to figure out the money on your own. 60,000 a year is a bit of an overestimate, but pretty close. I'm able to save money from having a roommate, work-study, which is readily available with flexible hours, and other tight-money tactics (philly is cheap). Lost In Stress makes a good point about becoming a TA and/or an RA.

Also, I suggest looking into where you get the loan money from. Being Jewish, I was able to receive over $15,000 in interest free loans from the Hebrew Free Loan Association, and they added a $2,000 grant as well. Penn also offers money once enrolled in the program through in-house competitions and so forth.

I did not want the money issue hold me back and so far I love the program. Good luck.

ok marik, lets get down to brass tax. how do i become a jew?

Just a side-note, are you guys talking about the 3-year professional M.Arch program at Penn?

CFSO1952 .. I am applying to the M.Arch Program but I was asking in general about the graduate program for Penn Design.

Marik...... about the diversity scholarship.. what do you mean an entire topic onto itself?

Just submitted all my materials today!!!! 4 day with only a grand total of 4 hours of sleep.

You won't get a scholarship so you may as well dispense with any idea of getting one anywhere. It's not because of your GPA or GRE scores, it's because you just won't get one.

Why don't they make these universities cheaper, otherwise the world will be filled with already-rich architects. That sounds whack.

10, from what I've read, a lot of schools really do spend almost all of their income on operational costs. I'm pretty sure I read that Penn, financially is very close to income=spending. You hear about places like Harvard with insane endowments, but a lot of it isn't liquid, and they lost a lot in these recent down turns. Further more, some endowments are very specific. A certain donor may leave money to a certain use. Maybe someone gave $1mil. But I know sometimes people will leave it for say...graduation landscaping. I know at Harvard, there was an endowment to provide cookies and fruit everyday to the geology department at 4pm. And that's what it was for, they couldn't use it for anything else.

I went to Penn and got a juicy $4500 a year. Awesome. That's pretty standard there though. I know a handful of people that got more, but $4500 is what they claim is the max.

that is amazing.

in canada my masters degree was about a quarter as expensive as penn, including living expenses. i didn't have a loan and paid in cash. if i wanted to do that in the states i guess i would have had to take another 3 years or more between degrees just to pay for school.

hard to believe my da bought a 2nd house with his student loan back in the 60's, cuz he didn't need the money. things are not the same anymore, but still not as bad as the usa. AND we have free healthcare on top of that.

just doesn't make any sense to me that the most powerful nation on this planet still thinks education isn't important...

Re Harvard, it is the college that has the insane endowment, not the various graduate schools. The whole thing about lower income students going for free is also just for the college.

I have heard that the GSD has the second smallest endowment at the university--right after the divinity school.

Presumably this is because GSD grads don't make much money and don't give it to the school.

Estyle, absolutely. I know that. Just making a possibly lesser known point about endowments. You see Harvard has $36bil or what have you and you hear lots of comments along the lines of "We should be able to go for free." I was just pointing out, that aside from it being school specific, there are also lots of other criteria that determine where the cash goes.

Additionally, I can imagine that while arch schools don't get many contributions from alumni, they have some of the highest operating costs making that poorness factor even greater. I think about Penn. We had 3 laser cutters, CNC mill, wood shop, computer labs that were updated regularly, lots of site-licensed software, studio critics shipped in from NYC 3 times a week. All that stuff adds up pretty quick. At least science depts tend to get funding from NASA or something, anthropology may run museums and so on. Even as an architecture dude, I still read far more science and sociology books than architecture books. I can't tell you the last architecture book I read. So, there is another revenue stream that is in favor of (social) sciences, languages and other departments like that. Now I don't know how much goes back in, but you get it. It's a complex emergent system of complexity.

When I was working in a museum, people that were not affiliated with the university would donate literally, millions of dollars worth of minerals to the museum. We would get boxes and boxes of amazing stuff from rich mineral collectors as tax write-offs. We had a piece of gold worth $21mil, hematite (basically rust) worth $50,000 and tons and tons of other stuff. By the way, this was not at Penn.

regardless, gsd is still wealthy as architecture schools go.

"The market value of the school's endowment for the fiscal year 2006 to 2007 was approximately $426 million"

I understand if you are really in love with the architecture program at UPenn...but have you seriously considered state school? Much cheaper and many great programs available. is it really worth it going into massive debt for your degree? I go to an instate school and most of my professors were educated at Harvard-so I feel like I get an "ivy league" education! But in state only costs me $9000 a year for tuition. Plus I work on campus, and have been a TA, which pays well. And at my school, if you are out-of-state and a TA you only have to pay in-state tuition. (doesn't apply to me though since I am in-state).
You might look into state school since money is obviously an issue. In the end, school is what you make of it regardless of where you go.

god, AA at $26,000 for a 12 month program or $35,000 for 16 month MArch is a bargin i guess!

Penn does offer merit scholarships. Im on a full ride @ Penn...

yale's arch. school is THE best funded out of any ivies

@newport

really? or perhaps you are kidding?

I thought Princeton was the people's choice for scholarships.

I don't think your GRE means anything, I think is more about your porfolio. I am not sure if UPENN give out scholarships or grants... look it up in their website to see if they do.

Go to McGill. Its as good as any school in the states but is like 1/4 the price. And it has a great international reputation and brings in good critics and lecturers. Not to montion Montreal is one of the top 3 cities in North America!

THY what year are you in... are you undergrad or grad?

i am @ penn currently. Dunno if this varies from department to dept...but i got around 13k p.a in scholarship + TA income in my final year. so while it wasnt as comfortable as i would have liked...it was ok.
i do think the amount of scholarship is dependent on GRE and GPA

oops, i didn't mean in terms of handing out $, meant their resources.

Guys I have started up a facebook group for MArchII students attending/attended PennDesign. It would be a nice place to meet your peers and discuss about housing/professors/course/campus/philly/electives...

Please join:

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=78780290676&ref=mf