that would be rad. i was accepted last year to the UW 3 year program but decided to head off to UCLA, which by the way dont!

lol what are these "inappropriate times" BigRed, that you think of this thread?

BigRed, i was recently introduced to steepandcheap.com and tramdock.com... while i don't check them nearly as compulsively as this discussion or gradcafe, they have proven to be a fairly big distraction too... you know, if you're looking for something else to obsessively watch after the grad school buzz dies down. :)

@ stuzzzzie _ can you elaborate on the comment about UCLA?

Just thought I'd add my stats/ list to give myself another distraction.

Applied to (somewhat ordered by pref)

NC State
Clemson
UNC Charlotte
Georgia Tech
Houston

BA in Art/Art History from Georgia State
3.6 GPA
1360 GRE
23 Years old

Portfolio at http://pepto.carbonmade.com/

Still no word yet on decisions, but this thread has been really helpful in relieving some stress. Portfolio comments are of course welcome if you feel so inclined - tried to show a breadth of interests with a simple layout.

I am with you all... this blog has taken over my life. Its really sad. I keep trying to get away from it, then alas, I am drawn back to it. I say to myself, "OK, just going to read this one post," but by the time the page opens and I scroll down I have a new message on gmail. "just one more refresh..." - and so on. Its a vicious cycle. I am going to attempt to not check this guy again til I go to bed.

big red - what are these inappropriate times? haha - i'm with you all the way. probably will be til I find out from all my schools.

Trying to stay positive about UO... I hope to see an email come in soon!

fasttrakstatus -

the school and department were great, but living in los angeles is not fun. if you dont have a car you are very limited. another major player in the whole leaving situation was california's economy and tuition rates going up. though i have to say again the department was fantastic.

i know someone who started sci-arc last fall and had their car stolen a month in.

someone posted an acceptance from UBC today on gradcafe

like many of you - i've been refreshing archinect, gradcafe, and my gmail every 5th minute of every day of this god awful week. however, i have reason to believe that tomorrow those of us who have yet to hear from columbia will get our admissions decisions. here's why:

1). the less scientific method: yale released their first decisions monday and columbia followed tuesday. ergo, since yale released their last series of decicions today, columbia will follow suit tomorrow. (i told you all it was a stretch).
2). this is based in historic research (ie: gradcafe archives): in the last two years, columbia released acceptances on a friday - ostensibly to give those applicants a great weekend - and informed their wait list and rejected applicants durring the week.

congratulations to all those already accepted, and here is to hoping for those of us who are still waiting!

Two quick questions for you knowledgeable archinectors. Anyone placed on a school's waitlist planning on actually waiting it out? Also, does anyone know the typical number of applicants they place on the list? I just want to have some sort of idea since I was placed on Michigan's today.

arch1type, I hope you're right. I, too have been refreshing the holy trinity of those websites every ten minutes or so.

I wonder how much archinect's/gradcafe's bandwidth usage has spiked during the last week...

ps. there was a note on gradcafe last year that at about 12:01 am the day that acceptances were released at the gsapp, the website was updated with admissions decisions. the email notification was sent out later that morning. if my postulation is correct, we will all know in just a few hours!
n.b. - getting news of your acceptance past midnight might be akin to accidentally taking dayquil right before bed. be forewarned.

Pepto:
From the graphics perspective, I really like your layout - It is very professional-looking,earthy, and the translucent cover page was very clever. It is probably the opposite of the stark blackness and space-ageness that characterizes mine. I am a sucker for high contrasts and the impact font.

While it's clear that you're good with working with your hands, it might have been nice to see *something* that was computer-generated. I didn't apply to any of the schools you applied to, so I don't know if the prevailing philosophy there is pro-computer.

all in all, really great work.

I hope you make all of those schools and there is no reason whatsoever for you to have to try again, BUT if that becomes necessary I would change the way you present your installations. While preliminary sketches are nice, I think the greatest impact would come from documenting the process of creation - show photographs of you and your partners creating the installation work while it is in progress. The photos of the ceramic heads were very, very effective.

This may sound sappy to you, but as for any competitive undergrad, it may be important for the admissions people to not just like your work, but to start liking *you*, and the best way to do that is to make your portfolio as personal as possible. The self-portrait really helps to do that.

so i was on break at work and i saw on this forum that everyone had gotten their UO acceptances and i was SO BUMMED! because i really thought i had a good shot there.
15 minutes later i got the email! here's my list.

UO - accepted
UT - limbo
UBC - ?
Berkeley - ?
UW - ?

all i needed was to get into one school! the rest is just gravy :)

MizzleFizzle,

I am definitely going to wait out on UVa. You have nothing to lose and everything to gain by doing so. I think in most cases you wont get nearly as much money but my friend 2 years ago ended up getting off the waiting list for Harvard and was offered more financial aid than any of the other schools he was accepted to. I think the higher a school's average yield (percentage of applicants who say yes to an admissions bid), the less people people that are placed on the waitlist.

So for example, I am willing to bet that there are fewer students proportionally waitlisted to princeton (super high-ass 75% yield) than yale...
Not a fact, just mathematical speculation.

Either way, its a vicious fight. Maybe i'm wrong. Maybe person for person they waitlist a backup for every stereotype they want to fill, making a 6'-3" Redhedded hipster #1 and back up 6'-3" reheaded hipster #2, and so on. Probably not, but who really the hell knows. I am going to call UVa in a bit to see if they can tell me where I stand on the waitlist.

Thoughts?

btw, totally broke my no archinect before bedtime vow haha

What do you guys think of UofO? Still hope for an acceptance yet??!

arch1type, you're absolutely right, I saw the gradcafe posting too. I'm guessing that GSAPP inputs all of the acceptances into the applyyourself system and it just ticks over when it's 12:01pm EST. Also, save for a few people in 2008, nobody got an absolute acceptance after the second week of Friday in March, but there were some waitlists here and there.

So that means... 80 minutes to decision time?

ADavid-

Thanks for the help. I guess I just wasn't sure if it was a soft no or an almost yes. It's a great school, I did my undergrad at a fellow Big Ten* school so I feel really comfortable there, I just wasn't sure if I should wait it out or keep it moving.

I also made a rule last night to not look at archinect until Monday with hopefully more news, I made it until 8am. This is place is like crack, heroine, acid, and meth rolled into one. I just can't say no.

this whole grad school application process has been unreal. probably unlike a lot of people on this thread, i only decided to apply to m.arch programs around thanksgiving. somehow, i got the gre out of the way and shaped my portfolio up in time for application deadlines. however, in the midst of this, i got a job across the country from where i was living at one of my favorite firms. during the craziness of all the holidays and moving (not to mention, also getting married), i only managed to get two applications in. but i'm definitely glad i did.

yale - in
gsd - no word

i'm anxious to see how much $ yale will offer. has anyone else heard? now waiting for a gsd response is driving me crazy. but.... i'm excited about the prospect of yale. and it's exciting to think that i'll be studying with some of you other yale accepteees who have done incredible work. i do wish i had gotten my upenn app in in time...

for the curious:
http://issuu.com/scenery/docs/jroberts_marchport

(the title may be considered lame; i am aware of this and apologize)

btw: m.arch I, 25 years old, architecture background.

i'm going to follow the trend and post some of my work also....

here are some of my projects that were included in my portfolio:
http://alexsorell.carbonmade.com/

Stats:

B.S. in Arch from UIUC
m/23

UIC: in
IIT: in
UMICH: waitlisted
GSAPP: out
UCLA: waiting
SCI-Arc: waiting
UIUC: waiting

Good luck to all hope some good news in the coming days/week!

I've already refreshed my Columbia app ten times. Maybe their clocks are off by a minute? i'm officially not well.

ok any word from gsapp??????
i got none..

WTF.......
all of my friend got accepted. every one of them have lest GPA shittier portfolio, less publication and my recommendation is from dean at pratt and dean at RPI and principle from Perkins. where the fuck is my acceptance letter?

ok -- when did your friends that got accepted hear?

ok -- when did your friends that got accepted hear?

no word from gsapp. maybe we're wrong. maybe it's midnight PST. maybe it's not.

yeah okokokok, did your friends hear from gsapp or from somewhere else?

scenery - congrats and great stuff : ) i have to take my hat off you. You are quite the maverick who applied to only 2 ivies and still managed to get a place in yale despite your commitments. Thats an achievement ! I can never do what you have done...anyhow, thanks for the inspiration.

good luck to those waiting for news from gsapp !

Another lurker drawn out by the addictive power of the discussion... applying for post-professional programs in my case. So far:

GSAPP AAD- in
Princeton M.Arch II- out

Scenery, I'm curious has the newly found dream job led to any last-minute soul-searching regarding going back to school vs staying and working for a while? I'm in a similar position with a decent job at an interesting firm... for me the time has come for something new , but I wonder what your thoughts are...

sweetpotato,

Thanks for the comments. Very insightful, and far more constructive than anyone could dream of getting from an anonymous message board. It's very much appreciated

Its been almost a week since I heard from my last school so I'm starting to get twitchy again...

ASU - "ASU Deny Letter" was the subject line
U of Cincinnati- silence Anybody hear anything?
U of Minnesota- " " " "
SAIC- Accepted no financial info yet
WUSTL- silence thus far, still holding onto a grain of hope

Everytime I come back to this thread there are two more pages to read through, congrats to everyone who has been accepted and good luck to those still waiting.

I have a question - Why do people like Scenery, who clearly have a BA of some sort in architecture, and have a portfolio full of architecture projects still apply to M.Arch I (Which is supposed to be for applicants without a BA in architecture) ? Isn't there some kind of advanced track in such a case? M Arch II?

No offense to Scenery (really!), who seems to have a lot on his plate already(Congratulations on your acceptance to yale!), but how are Liberal Arts majors, with their paintings, ceramics, sculptures and hand drawings, applying for M.Arch 1 at the top schools supposed to compete against an excellent, professional portfolio like Scenery's. I see no hand drawing whatsoever, and no addition of sculpture, painting etc.

As I mentioned before, Pepto's portfolio is an excellent example of a real M.Arch 1 portfolio, and I would hate to think that he or I or any one else who applied for 3-3.5 year programs at excellent schools were competing against others on a seriously advanced track.

correction: I have located one hand drawing.

potential points of interest:

- nickname = bird
- 28 years old, female, filipino, chubby :D
- bachelor's in economics with a minor in music history from ucla, graduated in 2004. currently working as a project manager at a commercial interiors company in downtown los angeles for almost 5 years.
- gpa: 3.125
- gre: 1080, 590 math and 490 verbal :/

i think that about sums me up as relevant to applying to m. arch programs...

application status_
- mit: no response, assuming rejected
- u of mich: accepted to 3g program, $5K/year merit based scholarship (still kinda thinking tuition is too much though with my status being out-of-state)
- cca: accepted, still haven't received snail mail letter though

still waiting to hear from_
- ucla
- sci-arc
- risd
- berkeley

i appreciate that u of mich sent me a shirt, which fits because as previously mentioned, i'm a chubster. they also sent a 2gig thumb drive, cute! i appreciate the $5K, but geez, tuition is $44K/year. fucking hell!!! i probably should have thought about the money stuff long and hard before applying...why must i always allow my hear to lead me? since i've gotten in to more than 1 school thus far, i'm likely to end up wherever's cheapest.

my portfolio is square and so am i... previously posted, but just in case, you can peep this
http://issuu.com/its.bird/docs/bird_m.arch_portfolio

out of curiosity, how many folks here are either a person of color or female or both? i'm thinking it's pretty low, huh? i wonder if there's a way to get information like that from schools. hmmm...

seriously though, this has been a most humbling experience. what a dream come true. over and out.

sweetpotato, i agree. i've seen some portfolios here that i would've thought would be suitable for march ii. nonetheless, apparently some schools accept two distinct groups of applicants of which they have a quota for both: one group with significant architecture experience (e.g. BArch, maybe a little work experience), and the other with minimal but that can demonstrate a sufficient capability in translating their current set of skills over to architecture. most schools, i suspect, expect at least a few design studios and/or a summer architecture course so they can confirm that (i) you've gotten some of the basic design theory and knowledge down that they expect you to have and (ii) you have more evidence that you are interested enough in architecture to pursue it for 3 years.

sweetpotato, i agree. i've seen some portfolios here that i would've thought would be suitable for march ii. nonetheless, apparently some schools accept two distinct groups of applicants of which they have a quota for both: one group with significant architecture experience (e.g. BArch, maybe a little work experience), and the other with minimal but that can demonstrate a sufficient capability in translating their current set of skills over to architecture. most schools, i suspect, expect at least a few design studios and/or a summer architecture course so they can (i) confirm that you've gotten some of the basic design theory and knowledge down that they expect you to have and (ii) you have more evidence that you are interested enough in architecture to pursue it for 3 years.

sweetpotato, i agree. i've seen some portfolios here that i would've thought would be suitable only for march ii. nonetheless, apparently some schools accept two distinct groups of applicants of which they have a quota for both: one group with significant architecture experience (e.g. BArch, maybe a little work experience), and the other with minimal but that can demonstrate a sufficient capability in translating their current set of skills over to architecture. most schools, i suspect, expect at least a few design studios and/or a summer architecture course so they can (i) confirm that you've gotten some of the basic design theory and knowledge down that they expect you to have and (ii) see more evidence that you are interested enough in architecture to pursue it for 3 years.

I just turned 22, so I am of course feeling VERY intimidated.

Jizzy and Sweetpotato - you both seem to be confused regarding the M.Arch I and II.

The M.Arch II is for anyone who already holds an NCARB accredited professional degree allowing them to practice architecture, i.e. a Bachelor of Architecture (or a foreign equivalent).

The M.Arch I is for everyone else who wants to be able to get a stamp, including people with significant architecture experience such as everyone with a Bachelor of Arts in Architecture (or a B.S., or in Environmental Design or whatever they call the degree, so long as it is not a B.Arch.).

Some school provide advanced standing for students with experience depending on how rigorous they judge your background (Penn, GSD) and some do not and instead put everyone no matter experience in the same class (Yale).

I hope that clears things up.

sweetpotato, from what I know, most schools don't directly offer a distinct track for people with pre-professional arch degrees (BA in arch, etc). One can apply for advanced placement if the option is there, but it usually means a more narrowly competitive pool also; that is partly why I just chose M.Arch I this year. If admissions think you should be bumped up a notch to advanced placement, they would offer it to you when you do get in. Or you might try negotiating with them to at least cut some basic classes - at least, I'm hoping to get some time off.

bird, I am female, 24 and grew up in an island state in Southeast Asia; guess I represent the asian chick demographic!

Razvan, I'm looking at flight bookings right now. :) Looking forward to checking out New Haven mobs and Jersey accents, and maybe meeting you there!

Is anyone going to the MIT open house? I wouldn't be able to make that one, and I think the best part about attending will be meeting potential classmates to gauge your 'fit' for the class. Will anyone still be there the day after, on the 9th?

According to the GSD faculty calendar posted on page 12 (http://www.gsd.harvard.edu/calendar/fac_cal.pdf), Harvard is having their spring break starting today. I really hope they sent out notifications before they hit the beaches.

Let me fix that post up a little:
According to the faculty calendar posted on page 12, the GSD is having their spring break starting tomorrow. I really hope they send out notifications before they hit the beaches.

still no word from gsapp.. hope to hear something from some one today..comeon!

me, again: 24, project manager, bs arch grad, 3.72 gpa, 1200 gre

michigan - IN + $$
gsapp - no word
mit - no call (assumed rejection)
UT - no word
ucla -
gsd -
berkeley -
cornell -
rice -
upenn -
sciarc -
maryland -

I applied for advanced standing / 2 year track / MArch II / first profession background in architecture when available.
I'd prefer to only spend 2 years in grad school paying boatloads of cash in tuition.

word2bird - female of color here!

Anyone heard from gsapp msuad program?

pythagoras - hey, thanks for the kind words.

blanco teko - good question. for me, the dream job is rather a one year internship. so, even if i had not gotten into a grad school i wanted to attend (which i assumed i would not) i knew i would only be leaving the gig a few months earlier than i would have to anyways. if there was an option for extension, i certainly would have considered it. but in my case, there isn't. "something new" is also appealing for me, but i have considered working for longer before heading back to school. turns out that school is more fun than professional work, though. congrats, on gsapp!

sweetpotato - kungapa has answered your question correctly. i applied for advance standing when possible. as far as i saw, that is only offered to yale acceptees very occasionally. not holding my breath. and for the record, there are plenty of hand drawings in my 'folio--even a few watercolors.

i definitely don't envy those of you without arch. backgrounds who are vying for these positions. but it seems important to keep in mind that application committees understand this fine detail and judge accordingly.

For anyone else still waiting to hear, I don't think Clemson believes in waitlists....

Just spoke to a very nice lady in the office who said the first round of admissions have been mailed and the committee won't make any more decisions until after April 15.

in at gsapp...