sub-70 in all, so I'm not safe. seems like a pretty arbitrary requirement. guess Rice is out of the picture.

TheVillan, do not be discouraged! honestly, I totally agree with you on the irrelevance of GRE scores to how good an architecture student/architect you will eventually be. Honestly, so long as you study hard enuf and have some test taking experience, strategies beforehand, you can ace the GRE almost effortlessly. BUT studying architecture is much more than that. Aptitude - sthg that the GRE cannot test - is just as important. I wld encourage you to just go for Rice, if the curriculum is a good fit with your aspirations. Tell Rice why they deserve to have you as their student !

Hello all. Longtime lurker, fairly new poster. I want to wish luck to the 2010 crop of M.Arch students- I will be in your shoes soon enough!

I have had a few questions that none of the architecture faculty at my university seem to want to answer. I am preparing myself to apply for M.Arch programs for fall of 2011, and am knee deep in the process of researching graduate programs.

I will be applying for a 3-year M.Arch program since I have a degree in engineering and not design. Therein lies my problem. Only one person in the architecture faculty at my school takes me seriously when I am seeking guidance, and he is not familiar with the current academic scene- conversely, the engineering faculty looks at me like I am crazy for wanting to study architectural design.

My main problem is that I have absolutely no idea what caliber of school I am fit to apply to. I don't know if I should waste my time applying for a few Ivies, or focus primarily on state schools.

I have also been somewhat in doubt as to which type of school I should apply to. I am confident in my technical background, but am unsure if I would have more success by continuing to study at a technically focused school or attend a school more known for design and theory in an effort to become more well rounded.

About me:

- Dual Bachelor and Master of Architectural Engineering (3.6 overall AE gpa, 3.7 Masters AE GPA, 3.85 Architectural design/theory GPA)
- Preliminary engineering licensure (EIT) obtained
- LEED GA possibly AP soon
- Predicting 750+ quantitative, 700+ verbal on GRE
- Respectable portfolio- not as good as a pure artist, but fairly strong across 4 or 5 types of media
- Worked internationally and domestically on charitable sustainable community design/ construction, domestically as both an engineering and architecture intern on NFL stadiums and hospitals

Ultimately I would like to enter into healthcare design- hopefully I could attend a school associated with a major university hospital.

Any feedback anyone is willing to give would be very, very much appreciated.

Hey, I'm kind of confused about rec letters.

We're supposed to, as applicants, waive our right to view the letters before our recommenders submit them, right? As if to display our trust/confidence?

I was talking with one of my friends the other day and he was of the firm opinion that this is 'grad school' and that 'you're supposed' to view them beforehand.

weird, I always thought the standard was to waive the right to see. I believe you should have enough confidence to assume at least a decent/fair evaluation. I even had a recommender ask me recently if he should tell one of the people he's recommending that its not going to be pretty (hope its not me!), and I dont think he should...an evaluation's an evaluation. Ask people you know who 'get you' and just hope for the best, seeing it aint going to change much.

everyone that is dealing with the application process need not to worry about GRE's! i went through all this last year and totally bombed the GRE's and still got excepted into every school i applied, UCLA, UW, Sci-Arc, RISD, & GSD. worry about the portfolio, rec. letters, and statement.

good luck!

wow, what a relief to hear that ! I think i bombed my GRE too, and I got a verbal that's way below the 600 cut-off for most schools.
what did you do with your portfolio? and which sch are you in right now?

I got my draft portfolio back from Blurb.com today... The print quality and binding seem pretty good overall. Somebody with better graphic design chops might be able to pick out some flaws, but it looks pretty good to me. If my final copies are of similar quality, I think I'll be in decent shape.

The biggest issues for me are that I'm still developing content for the last two spreads (reserved for my currently-in-progress thesis project), and the fact that I must have miscalculated the gutter size on my initial layout template, as the text and images are a bit too close to the gutter for comfort. I'll have to make some adjustments to the layout on each page before re-sending it for printing. Good thing I decided to order a draft print while I still have time to make those changes.

As for the thesis work, I was hoping to have some maginally realistic-looking 3D renderings of the project, but that's not looking realistic at this point. I'll most likely have to settle for some conceptual shaded/wireframe images, which might be more appealing to an admissions committee anyway.

Hey LIG what size did you use?

Hey LIG what size did you use? And how long does it take blurb to get it sent to you?

I used 8x10 standard portrait, 32 pages. I uploaded the files and placed the order on the 16th, with 2nd day shipping. It arrived via FedEx today.

is anyone else applying to UCLA?

can someone confirm that we are indeed supposed to write two essays, one for UCLA in general and one for the Architecture school?

The topics for each seem quite similar and on the general UCLA application it says "If you have submitted a statement of purpose as part of a separate application to a professional school you need not write an additional statement here."

However within architecture it says "In addition to filling out Part C of the AGA, applicants should submit a detached written statement of purpose."

My stupid computer can't view UCLA's website with the HTML off, so I am having a hard time figuring all this shit out.

....arg....maybe I'll give them a call tomorrow...anyone have any ideas?

Just finished my personal statement... I think that was harder than my portfolio. I'd been suffering a severe case of writer's block over the past couple months, but I think I finally put something together that strikes the right balance between telling them how great I am, how great they are, and begging forgiveness for my past academic transgressions.

hey there's no difference in printing quality between printing with indesign and printing with photoshop right?

also, how long does it usually take for a book to print? a few days? a week? it better be no more than a few days because i need to do test prints first.

Columbia applicants: I noticed there's no required CV for the application. are you guys including one anyways? seems like a pretty key part to exclude. on the other hand, I'd be worried they'd think I was ctrl-C'ing my applications.

also

Is anyone else applying to Maryland getting an email or two a day reminding you to fill out the ASF? whats the rush? deadline still a couple weeks away.

also, it just dawned on me as im sending my first portfolios to the printer: I have 5 projects total. 3 academic, and 2 professional (i'm an arch-background by the way), with a smattering of independent photography throughout. do you guys think that's too little? I've seen similar ports with 8-14 projects. mine's about the same page count, just 4-6 pages per project as opposed to 2.

andimdone- i am planning on applying to UCLA, but with all the stuff going on with their budget I'm getting nervous... will the calibre of the program be different?

Living in gin- SO jealous you are done with the personal statement... I keep starting from scratch. I feel like I'm encapsulating my soul in the thing... so annoying.

Gin - Congrats. That sounds a lot like my SoP too. Hope we're both right. With Blurb, did you use their text feature for any text in your port or did you design your pages completely, including text, in another program and then upload them like a photo?

Villain - I also got the UMD ASF reminder emails. That's just their auto system, nothing to worry about. I did have to send a few emails to get them to confirm they had my transcript though. If you have a similar issue I can forward you some addresses for getting that straightened out.

My process was a bit convoluted... I designed my pages in AutoCAD, made them into PDF's, imported those PDF's into the Blurb template in InDesign, and made a new PDF from that. Sounds messy as hell, but I'm actually pretty happy with the results... Not that I necessarily recommend anybody try to emulate my process. The smartest thing to do would be to download the template files and do everything in InDesign from the start.

^ why is indesign recommended over photoshop? i find photoshop gives a lot more ease in laying out the layout

using Photoshop for layout purposes seems to me like making a new form work for every concrete column in a project. or building a wooden house with a coping saw. or some other ridiculous construction analogy. I would know, I used illustrator to layout before, until I found indesign. I suppose PS would work if you had less than 20 pages, they were all full bleed, one image, with no text.

why no text?

photoshop is best for creating/manipulating an image file. indesign, like its predecessor pagemaker, is for combining all those images into one cohesive document. in fact, its entire objective is to put a document together. while there is a slight learning curve, i've found that options are endless and i've really grown to love that program. it's streamlined, straightforward, and saves your entire document as a pdf (convenient, say, for zapping it to an online or local printing company).

i did my undergrad portfolio (70 pages) in photoshop almost seven years ago. i have no idea why i didn't use pagemaker; maybe it was already on its way out? i'm not sure, but it was a complete p.i.t.a...
printing the book myself - two copies - also likely affected my whole portfolio experience. i guess i could have combined all those psd's
---> pdf's into one document in acrobat and taken it to a print shop...but why go that route now if there's an entire program to do the work for you?

another thought...

in photoshop, you cannot even see your entire book -- no matter how many pages -- in a continual stream. you have to flip back and forth between all these windows/files and i think you lose a sense of whether or not it flows, whether the transitions do what you hope, whether it reads as a complete and cohesive project. the whole operation is just...clunky.

Everyone's portfolios seem huge to me. Mine is 10 pages. (I am applying for the MARCH I track, which probably makes a difference.)

Of the four schools I'm applying to, one doesn't even require a portfolio for my track (it's optional, so I still submitted mine), one has a 15 page limit, one doesn't have a limit but suggests using a portfolio/folder that contains 10 pages, and one doesn't address how many pages it should be.

I meant I'm applying to the 3 year MARCH track; I don't think it's called MARCH I at most schools (I keep mixing that up though because I swear I've seen it referred to as MARCH I and MARCH III).

ess, you have a point. I am a fan of Photoshop myself, as it just seems easier and more versatile in creating a layout, but it does lack the ability to view your pages in a continuous stream, like inDesign offers. However, you can get the best of both worlds if you just import your PSDs into an inDesign file.

banannie, your portfolio is tiny! I'm also applying for MArch I and mine's over 50 pages. From my knowledge MArch I = 3/3.5yr MArch track and I think most adcomms won't care which term you use.

ess, i m facing a similar situation here...my portfolio has about 10pages, for application to MArch I (3yr track). I am not sure if the adcomms will spend time on a portfolio that's 1.5inch thick. (No, I am not directing this point at any particular poster here). If it's an outstanding portfolio, the 1st few pages would typically be an adequate representation. If the adcomms need to flip through 60-70% of a portfolio (that's 1.5inch thick) before they can come to a decision on the quality of the applicant, I think there's something amiss...with either the portfolio or the applicant. Of course, for a thin portfolio, the number of works represented may not be sufficient for the adcomms to have a thorough understanding of the potential of the applicant.Just my 2cts. Honestly, be confident in yourself and if you think your portfolio is good enough to get you into a program of your choice, go ahead and submit.

And yes, you are right, different schs named their programs differently. Some prefer to go with MArch III, while others call it MArch I. Some simply term it MArch. It gets terribly confusing when we are applying to a few schools.

banannie and ffqh, 10 pages is pretty fucking small. Are you sure you don't mean 10 sheets (which would then be 20 pages)? Are you putting multiple works on each page to get enough works on there? If so, you should consider spacing it out a bit more.

I wonder if it is better to be applying to MARCH directly after undergrad, or do older applicants have the advantage? I have been doing my best to get work and internships associated with architecture since I was a freshman in college, but I'm worried that it will be difficult to compete with others who have taken a "gap" year and had more time to get all of their stuff together. I am applying to 8 schools, and I am soooo stressed out right now. It's so hard to get all of these things done while taking finals and writing papers! I hope the admissions boards take this into account...

I'm applying to some top tier schools and was told by my advisers that I had pretty good shot at getting into at least one of them, but my verbal GRE was only a 570...not bad, but not as good as I'd hoped. My math was fine: 740. I'm worried that an arbitrary cutoff system at Harvard, Columbia, Princeton etc,. will affect me badly. Does anyone know if that is really true? Should I retake the exam for the schools that have later deadlines and hope that I do better?

Also: is anyone else applying to RISD?

mambo, thanks for the advice. and nope, it's 10 sheets with single side printing i.e. 10 pages of images,artworks. I hope to bump it up, but to what size? I am not sure if there's such a thing as an ideal portfolio size. This is something which I have been wondering all this while and was even tempted to start a discussion thread on this and this alone. It's scary when the portfolios I saw on this forum are 30 - 70 pages thick.

I know Yale doesnt specify the no. of pages- it requires portfolio to be no thicker than one and one-half inches. But that's HUGE ! Coming from a non-arch non-design background, I don't have that many pieces either.

I will be applying to MArch I (obviously) and I know portfolio IS a big deciding factor for the adcomms. Perhaps I should reconsider my application to Yale. It's been a struggle. what do you think?

ffqh...your comment above was directed to banannie's post (re: 10 page portfolio).

remember that regardless of your book's length, it's quality of work over quantity. you can have a 150 page book and it be full of 150 pages of crap...which probably won't end in your favor. if you're applying for an m.arch I with a non-arch background, i imagine it being tough to pull together enough content to fill many pages. the key is demonstrating your potential, your ability to solve problems, see things in a different way, think/make creatively, make connections, how you've pursued this interest in architecture thus far, despite not being on the track yet, etc.

also, the 1.5" book is...wow. my portfolio is 150 pages and .35" . this means that a 1.5" book is roughly 642 pages.

yeah dont worry about the 10 pages. if it's ten pages of "gold" that beats 50 pages of crap any day of the week.

Of course, 50 pages of gold is better than 10 pages of gold.

but do you really think he had 50 pages of gold and just choose to withhold 40?

But I guess 10 pages is fine if you're just including a piece on each page and if each piece only justifies one page (e.g. a drawing, not a large project). But if you're creating an actual book, that would have a cover, contents pages, filler pages to space things out, etc., then 10 pages could easily turn into 20. However, as I suggested, for MArch I, this isn't necessary, and quality counts much more than quantity. If what you have on those 10 pages is gold, it will beat 100 pages of pictures of my grandma's worm-infested feces and vomit (with her sitting in the background sucking my dick and fisting my ass) any day.

Also, if you include bigger projects, it might justify at least 2 pages, but if you don't have any bigger projects, then it's fine.

ffqh- my impressions about portfolios is that they care about PROCESS. if you can come up with some sketches showing how you arrived at what you're submitting, I think that will go a long way. They want to know if you can think in stages and how your brain works, not just the final product.

To others-
do your portfolios have THEMES or NAMES? I can't figure out if they're pretentious or if they have a positive lasting impact...

Do you order to print your portfolio on both sides of sheet or just on 1 side ( and leave the other side white)?

Hey guys, do mind taking a look at my portfolio? I've posted this elsewhere, but I thought i'd try the main thread too.

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=9LMDM5AB

I'm a visual arts, BFA, major, so I don't really have architecture projects to submit, although much of my work has architectural elements.

@ Jazzefina, I'm printing mine double-sided, I think the layout is much nicer, plus it keeps the number of sheets down, which I think they like.

For things like my drawing section...is process really required? I'm sure my prep drawings would become redundant and turn them off.

sorry discord, could not open your portfolio on my mac.

anyone applying to UCLA: whats the deal with these three areas of concentration? Design, Critical Studies, and Technology. Is this something we have to select as MArch applicants as some area of concentration, or just general areas of concentration for the school to focus on? Its not very explicit in their site or their pamphlets about what they are.

long time lurker here... also part of the 2010 pool (M.ArchII)...

andimdone and thevillan, i am also applying to UCLA. out of all the schools I am applying to, their instructions and protocol is the most difficult to comprehend (penn is a close second). i think the majority of the problem is their website which is convoluted and very difficult to navigate/read.

i plan on submitting one essay. i also cant find their portfolio requirements which is problematic since their deadline is the 15th.

ive emailed questions to UCLA admissions and gotten no response. with the UC budget woes going on, maybe the admissions office is too busy? or non-existent?

anyone know where to find their portfolio requirements? maybe its right in front of me and my eyes are too glazed over from their HTML baloney to see it...

yes their website is pretty bad. I think my favorite website so far is MIT's.

Their portfolio reqs. are pretty straight forward: nothing digital (the portfolio that is), nothing larger than 11x17, and I think that's it.

discordant - looks good. I would maybe be more mindful about the justifications of the process images on pgs 9-10. I'm not sure you need them. Or maybe use just the pivotal process images.

ucla'ers -

(M.Arch Applicants Only) - A portfolio is required as a central part of the application to the professional Architecture and Urban Design degree programs. Content is not restricted to any particular subject area, but the material should be in the form of a cohesive presentation and should be representative of your previous experience and creative abilities. It may include both graphic and written material. Images should be in the form of prints, not slides. We recommend that the portfolio not exceed an 11–by–17 inch format, and that any loose pages be marked plainly with your name. If applicants wish to have the portfolio returned they must include a self-addressed, stamped envelope. Because of the large volume of material received, we cannot guarantee the safe return of all submitted work. Although every effort is made to protect these submissions, applicants are urged to keep duplicate copies of all of the work contained in their portfolios. UCLA and the Department of Architecture and Urban Design are not responsible for the loss or damage of this material.

source: http://www.arts.ucla.edu/admissions/urban.php

re: ucla's portfolio requirements.

here is a link containing info on size/contents/etc.:
http://www.arts.ucla.edu/admissions/urban.php

here is the information sheet for the dept. of architecture. i can only assume you send it to this address (also because this address matches that on all those print-and-send supplementary application forms), but don't take my word for it:

http://www.gdnet.ucla.edu/gasaa/deptinfo/deptinfo.asp?code=0084&academicyear=20102011&searchDeptButton=Display

agh...sorry for the repeat; i just noticed the previous posting.

I haven't started any of my portfolios or essays. Am I going to be screwed??

yes, yes are. Unless you're just amazing at whipping stuff out last second.

Thanks for the advice zga. That's definitely a good point I was wondering about it before, but now I'm sure I'll take a lot of that stuff out.

thanks m2p and ess. i should be good... requirements are pretty basic... i feel like dec 01 started the beginning of the end of this process (it's crunch time!)