No I don't have a professional degree, I came from a four year architecture program. The M.Arch 2 at sci-arc is their advance placement degree (at least thats how I viewed it and my friend explained it to me). My friend who is currently going there graduated from the same school as me and is in the M.Arch 2 program. The website says,

"A professional Master of Architecture program, accredited by the the National Architectural Accrediting Board (NAAB) and open to applicants with a minimum of a four year degree in Architecture, or its equivalent abroad. This program requires attendance for the fall and spring terms of the first year, and the fall, spring and summer terms of the final year. "

So i'm pretty sure its a professional degree.

m.arch 2 @ sci-arc is the equivalent to m.arch AP, or option 2, or whatever, at other schools. It's basically the m.arch with a year-1.5years less than normal because of the architecture experience. all the programs like to call it something different to be confusing, but yes FW, it is a prof degree.

on a side note: how annoying is it when people post 'other' on the grad cafe just so they can use it as a discussion board/forum to bitch about how they haven't received anything. grad cafe should disable the comment section.

@FuzzyWuzzy

Yeah... Your absolutely CORRECT!!

Well that all sounds great, I wish you the best of luck. SCI-Arc is my second choice, rejected from my first. Although I already have my MArch. I would greatly appreciate if you could let me know when you hear something from SCI-Arc.

Do you have other schools you got into that you will probably go to instead or is SCI-arc your primary choice?

Sci-Arc was my number 2 choice. I'm really wanted to go to UCLA but I haven't heard any news from them so far... So I'm thinking I was waitlisted or straight up denied. I am accepted into the school I graduated from but I would only go here as a last resort. I'll be sure to let you know when I hear any news.

does anyone heard from cooper union?

Who wants to start a "Berkeley told me they'd send an email by Friday, and now its the first Sunday of their Spring Break. What's Up?" support group? Judging by gradcafe, there's a sizable handful of us.

I'm pretty sure that spring break doesn't mean notifications won't be sent out. At least at the school I attend now, spring recess is just for students and faculty, and much of the faculty is still around anyways. Staff (the people who often send these notifications out), still work all week. Also, much of Berkeley's notifications have been sent out on weekend evenings and such (including my denial e-mail), which makes me think seeing them sent out during spring break isn't a stretch.

SWEEEEEEET

is anyone else annoyed that someone decided that gradcafe was an appropriate place to start a discussion?? it's to post results not have conversations!!

i applied to berkeley and am one of those people that haven't heard anything yet. i also didn't hear anything for a very very long time from UT and then was ultimately rejected so i wouldn't keep your hopes up. it's kind of a bummer but oh well...

i'm pretty unimpressed with both of these schools because they obviously are sidetracked by a bunch of factors and seem to just be admitting people whenever they feel like it, like rolling, are they even comparing the applicants side by side?

Anyone applied to Temple University? Care to share any opinions...

keopi, you're a flippin wet blanket. Just because your app fell on the nasty side of the fence in one, single, TEXAN situation doesn't mean that ours, or even your Berkeley app, will. I've got high hopes, and all of us still waiting should do the same.

lol @ nlw2 :)

but berkeley did say they were going to try to have things out by the 16th then the 20th.. maybe they meant they would try to have acceptances out by then..
the postings seem scarce for berkeley (compared to harvard or mit) but maybe its just becuase less people applied/are so proud of themselves they have to share it somewhere

@keopi - as expected, i received a rejection email with a letter from Sara McCarthy. Don't rush her...she might just send the wrong email to you. Anyway, just to manage your expectations, they already sent out all the acceptance / waitlist mails last week. Seems like they are trying their best to personalize all letters, even if it's a rejection one. I've got a non-$ offer to attend their summer program. It's pretty good I heard. And if it's your top choice sch, it'd be wise to consider spending 8-week at the sch this summer. It should put you ahead of the rest of the applicants. But at approx $5k, it's very costly though, esp if you are an international applicant.

In a rejection letter I read from Berkeley, it is stated that 400 applied to the M.Arch Option 3 (three year) program.

Also, the UCs are dealing with MASSIVE budget issues. the CED's prof degree fee just went from 0 to $6000. California is in some poop. (Hope for Jerry Brown!) Perhaps there was less administrative help sending out notifications this year. It may not be a good excuse, but with no money, lots of things go out the door.

Pythagoras, by non-$, do you mean free? That would be great!

Re: personalizing letters, my friend who did the summer program with me got a rejection letter in which they offered her a spot in the summer program.... Ech. F-ed up!!!

k, so that's it, I just sent in my acceptance form w/ cheque to UBC's M.Arch program.

Anyone else?

naomi. heard the same from another friend who let sara know that they need to send different emails to those who applied and participated in the summer program yet weren't accepted. maybe that's causing a delay since they can't just send a standard "no thanks" email. definitely messed up!!! of the 400 option 3 applicants, i wonder how many they accepted. i heard that applications were about 1,000 this yeah, though i'm sure that's for option 1, 2 and 3. yikes! i feel really terrible for those in our summer program that didn't get in. i have no idea what makes the admissions committee choose certain applicants over others. has to be a combination of certain things, i suppose. i feel really lucky, because i don't think my stats are incredible by any means, pretty shity compared to many here. maybe my portfolio, statement and letters of rec somehow appealed to them. i agree though, i think that with budget cuts and the state of cali in financial ruins, i'm sure staff cuts were considerable, so there probably isn't a lot of support. i still haven't heard from ucla, risd and sci-arc. though the more i think about it, i'm ready to declare berkeley as the place i belong. i was hoping to stay in cali and among the schools i applied to, berkeley was definitely one of my top choices. still, my heart goes out to the folks from the summer who applied and didn't make it. really sucks! i will be tipping a 40 in their memory :) looking forward to seeing everyone at the open house. we have to remain friendly with the non [in]arch folks, though it'll be hard since we've all had an opportunity to bond for a couple of months.

question_ have people received rejection notifications from ucla or risd? i've heard nothing and just want to know for knowing's sake.

naomi. heard the same from another friend who let sara know that they need to send different emails to those who applied and participated in the summer program yet weren't accepted. maybe that's causing a delay since they can't just send a standard "no thanks" email. definitely messed up!!! of the 400 option 3 applicants, i wonder how many they accepted. i heard that applications were about 1,000 this yeah, though i'm sure that's for option 1, 2 and 3. yikes! i feel really terrible for those in our summer program that didn't get in. i have no idea what makes the admissions committee choose certain applicants over others. has to be a combination of certain things, i suppose. i feel really lucky, because i don't think my stats are incredible by any means, pretty shity compared to many here. maybe my portfolio, statement and letters of rec somehow appealed to them. i agree though, i think that with budget cuts and the state of cali in financial ruins, i'm sure staff cuts were considerable, so there probably isn't a lot of support. i still haven't heard from ucla, risd and sci-arc. though the more i think about it, i'm ready to declare berkeley as the place i belong. i was hoping to stay in cali and among the schools i applied to, berkeley was definitely one of my top choices. still, my heart goes out to the folks from the summer who applied and didn't make it. really sucks! i will be tipping a 40 in their memory :) looking forward to seeing everyone at the open house. we have to remain friendly with the non [in]arch folks, though it'll be hard since we've all had an opportunity to bond for a couple of months.

question_ have people received rejection notifications from ucla or risd? i've heard nothing and just want to know for knowing's sake.

bird - nothing here...still waiting on RISD, UCLA and SCI-arc.
ps. love the idea of tipping a 40...classic!

I think we are all patiently waiting for UCLA... no fun. Hopefully they possibly still have acceptances to hand out.

thanks, everyone. i wasn't sure what that meant and was starting to let paranoia kick in by thinking ucla lost my app. i dropped it off to their office and didn't mail it in, so i don't know. i have been checking the ucla grad website for status. i wonder how others have heard from ucla and whether they even update that website. if they don't update it, i can force patience and just wait since i'm likely to go with berkeley anyway :)

i want to start another thread for just results, decisions and stats. someone mentioned doing that sometime along this thread and it's a good idea. my stats are sure not to scare next year's applicants. wonder if i should do that anyway since berkeley is pretty much it. i suppose all results and decisions should be made before the final post. that would be a good resource for those to come... i wonder if something like that exists for last year's applicants.

THIS!

i really wish people would take this more seriously. i mean not as serious as a heart attack, but serious enough to not post phony results and a nasty ass dildo. it's just wrong!!! and really creepy. there should be a way for archinect and gradcafe to delete melany's posts. rude jude!

Word2Bird

When calling UCLA they mentioned that they did their acceptances in waves so their may still be hope. They don't utilize their grad website though, so we just have to wait for emails or snail mail.

Just found out this past Friday that I was accepted to the M Arch 3.5 year program at MIT! I.m pretty much speechless. I hadn.t heard of any acceptances being received in a while so this was a nice treat. Time to start planning a trip out east!

wit. very very exciting news! and even more exciting since many of us got rejection emails from mit last friday. my advice would be to pick mit and run. don't think about the $$$. that was my reach school and i was rejected. still, i think that was what was meant to happen and for the right reasons, so i'm good with where i'm at. still, that's really cool you're in and with such late notice. people start to think late in the game = no thanks.

are you male or female? care to share your portfolio? i'm really interested in seeing portfolios of any female mit admits... just curious about whether they're looking for really tech saavy folks.

actually thought "melany"'s posts were kinda funny in a dumb way. a nice break from the stressiness or incessant gloating of just about every other post. anyway, its just a dildo.

cew_ very true. where's my sense of humor? i should shut up. it's not so much a big deal here, but it sucks to be posting that mess on grad cafe. oh well, no biggie.

on another note... i don't think i every visited the "2009 M.Arch applicants" thread, but all the people waiting to get off yale's waiting list and others. oh, well no!

let's not do that to ourselves. don't do it to yourselves, ya'll. speaking of "stessiness" yikes! easier said than done, i know...

word2bird - i'm a female applicant, got into MIT for MArch, but i'm not even close to being a 'tech saavy'. the most computer stuff i have on my portfolio is photoshop and sketchup! when i went to their november open house and asked about prior knowledge on computer-related applications, they said they don't expect any of those (and it was smarchs computation prof who said that)

now.... not saying this is what will happen, but from the berkeley website:

"Applicants offered admission who have also been awarded one of the fellowships will be sent a letter of admission and award by April 1. Applicants offered admission only, or admission with financial support administered by the department, will be notified as the department makes its recommendations, usually by the end of April for the fall semester.

Applicants who are not offered admission will be notified by the departments as they make their decisions."

it could be foreeverrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

First time poster; three-month lurker here,

I resisted the urge to post 3 months ago in order to get my GRE study material together and would only post when I finished making all my vocab cards (3500 words worth) and tonight is the night that I completed the most time-consuming aspect of studying for the GRE. Smooth studying from here on. I plan to take the GRE before the end of April hopefully sooner depending on test dates availability.

Anyways, I've been following this thread for some time (read all posts/pages) and I'm glad I found this site through my visits to grad schools in North Cal (there only three around here). Before I forget my main point of this post:

http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/regents/regmeet/nov09/f2.pdf

^^^ This pdf is the UC Regents Approval of 2010-11 Prof. School Degree Fees. I really recommend those accepting into UC Berk or UCLA to read this pdf because they also include future fee increases.

If your too lazy, here are the main highlights of article:

Pg5. "Display2: 2010-11 Prof. Degree Fee..." chart ----> $8000 for UCLA & $6000 for UC Berk M.Arch programs

Pg8-9. Basically 3 year chart on Prof. Degree Fee increases per YEAR!

Pg10-11. Prospective Total Fees <---- Not sure if this means the tuition/fees or just the fees only; hopefully the former not later.

Pg13. Mentions current enrollment of M.Arch students @ UCLA (158 for M.Arch I; 12 for M.Arch II) & UC Berk (90 in M.Arch, 80 in M.Planning, & 40 M.Landscape = 210 total)

Pg.21-22. Suppose to compare total fee cost with other "public" but the used avg. of Columbia, Harvard, Princeton, and Yale (all private, not public) for UCLA. While for UC Berk doesn't list out who they compare themselves too,but mentions that "the program also routinely loses students to programs at Harvard and MIT." <--- ROFL; was it necessary to trash yourself that way UC Berk.

I hope this is helpful to some of you.

cococha_ care to share your portfolio? i'd love to see it. refer me to the page if you've already posted it. i've seen a few of the guys, really good stuff. one being a real life friend of mine, yunez. his port is on page 6, i believe and many have made reference to how great his portfolio is...so yes. it is amazing! we both vowed in the summer 2008 sci-arc making + meaning program that we would come up with amazing portfolios, and he really did!

i think another guy, with lots of drawings, nicholas, i think also got in to mit and his work is just really beautiful. hand drawings like i couldn't believe... detailed hand drawings slay me.

anyway, so you think you'll be choosing mit? they have the best program, in my book.

thegrimace_ thanks for the post and for outlining the key points. i didn't read through all 24 pages, but have been quite worried about schools in cali since we all know the governator sucks ass and totally screwed us over. i've been confused about what tuition is at ucla and berkeley, specifically berkeley as i am likely to enroll there in the fall. this does help because i now know that i have to add the "professional degree" fee to the standard graduate tuition rates published. according to the website, it would be $9,399.25/semester, so $18,798.50/year. this already includes the $6,000 professional degree fee.

still, i'm not sure how accurate the cost comparisons are as i am certain tuition at institutions such as columbia, harvard, yale, princeton, mit are much more than ucla and/or berkeley. possibly the comparison is accurate in terms of other state schools?

please correct me if i'm missing something. it is completely possible there is flaw in my understanding since i just skimmed through the document. i'll try to read through it with more focus while i'm at work tomorrow.

but thank you, really helpful stuff. i've been trying to figure out how much tuition really is at berkeley. i tremendously appreciate the post.

word2bird. Im a 23yo male. I haven.t uploaded a version of my folio yet, perhaps i should get on that...To comment on its contents though, I would say that it was neither overtly tech-y nor ye olde drawing-y. My main focus is on materials and component assemblies as the driving force behind design. Diagrams and drawings complemented real-world experimentation.

The next challenge is figuring out how the open house tour is going to work. MIT and Pratt both have theirs on the 8th. I.ve liked Pratt since I had a chance to visit a few years back. At that time though, I wasn.t looking at it through the eyes of a potential student, so another visit would be helpful. Some might think its a no-brainer to head out to MIT but I can.t ignore the generous amount of money that Pratt is offering to me [in addition to the school of course]. Anybody else running into a situation like this? Any thoughts on attending an open house vs. scheduling a visit?

First time poster - I intermittently check this forum, so in response to the call for people who were accepted to post their portfolios, I was accepted to Harvard, Princeton, Yale, and Columbia for M.Arch I, and Ill share mine, its on ISSUU here: http://issuu.com/jesseseegers/docs/100115portfolio

I dont want to present this as gloating in any sense, simply to be helpful to future applicants, as I think I might be an example of how to follow as few "directions" as possible - I have no hand drawn sketches, it is 145 pages, and adheres to almost none of the things that people have said you "should" do. Please, any comments are welcome.

I will be at the open houses for all four schools, so if anyone wants to meet up, send me a message.

Anyone excited for UPenn to post results?... 3 hours.

I am! I'll probably be getting my first rejection from them, but it'll be nice to hear from another school!

jesseseegers - nice portfolio
working for c-lab must have been fun, were you interning there?

i'll be at the gsd open house - see you there
are you a M.Arch ap candidate?

wit.
my man
i know how you feel
but you have to do
is make them fight for your heart
with bats made of money

@ word2bird - I am glad to see someone so concerned about the cost of attending M.Arch program. And strangely, it has to be someone who has gotten a full ride in Berkeley! Anyway, i like the way you are critically analyzing the pros vs cons of an education at Berkeley ! Im sure you will do very well as an architect in the corporate world. Have you, by any chance, studied accounting or worked in some finance-related positions before?

Surprised to know that yunez and you are pals in real life ! You guys have been so inspirational on this thread, thanks so much.

I was just looking through yunez portfolio again, and it just took my breath away for the umpteeth time! Would you know if he did all those awesome models in the sci-arc M+M class? or were they done on his own time after the summer program? I am just curious how he came up with those ideas and models. Way too cool. Tough work, but it's now all worth it : )

@ li dandan, lorempisum - love your portfolios too. GL and may you get a happy surprise later ! :) the final count down begins....!!!!

What is the overall perception of the M.Arch at Boston Architectural College? Any opinions? I noticed they had a Distance M.Arch, which seems like an interesting option as well? Does anyone know anything about this program and care to share?

@jesseseegers-congratulations on a sick portfolio. You deserve spots at all those schools. Lots of really interesting stuff there.

wow, jesseseegers. that's amazing. where do you want to go to school?

will be at the GSD open house, and this time stay for "beer and dogs" friday afternoon.

Parties in Boston friday night?

@praxis - C-Lab was fun, I had a lot of unique opportunities and lots of responsibility. I am not AP, my undergraduate classes are too weird and arty to fit into most school's requirements...

jesseseegers -

yup, a bunch of us are definitely going to the beer and dogs
and definitely out after

looking forward to it!

Hello Everyone,

I've been looking at this discussion group since we all began to apply in December. I've been a little worried because I chose to apply to only two schools, since I have a 5 year professional degree and pretty clear on what I want to get my master degree in and the kind of school I want to go to. I applied to MIT SMarchS and Harvard's MAUD, I also applied to MArch II at both schools in case I did not get into the urban design programs, I would still get a chance to be somewhat exposed to them. I feel like I shot myself in the foot and only heard from MIT SMarchS on Thursday of last week, thankfully with an acceptance and a pretty generous offer. Seeing that people applied to up to 12 schools and pretty much heard back from most of them makes me worry a lot. I'm thankful and happy that I got into MIT, but feeling like I have nothing else to choose from makes me kind of anxious. Anyone else waiting to hear back from GSD??I have friends that were accepted into GSD very late in March of last year (March 30th) so I still have some hope. Here are some stats, will post my portfolio in a bit:

5 yr. BA 3.9 GPA
1260 GRE (don't really remember the split)
24 yrs. old
Female
International Student w U.S. degree

Congratulations to all that have heard back!

waitlist @ penn.. bah! on the plus side: dwindles down my options.

in at Penn!