Hi all, I am a current senior at a college prep school applying exclusively to 5 year B Arch programs. I am applying test optional to schools, with 3.85 UW gpa. Idk what it is weighted because my school doesn’t calculate but would be a around 4.3/4 s I have a rigorous course load. I have done portfolio reviews with schools and received very complimentary feedback. I have also spoken to my teacher/mentor who went to Cornell for architecture, and he said it is very strong.
So i guess the purpose of this thread is to gain input regarding my chances at top architecture schools. I applied early decision to Rice and have already been accepted to the University of Oregon on a nice scholarship (not yet to school of architecture).
Here is my list:
Rice
Cornell
Carnegie Mellon
Notre Dame
Virginia Tech
Syracuse
Penn State
RPI
NJIT
Pratt (offer to play soccer)
Drexel
Oregon (accepted to general university)
Any input into the likelihood of my chances would be greatly appreciated.
yeah, luckily cornell is test blind for arch. And based on feedback my portfolio is very strong. I am not expecting anything from rice since they switched to test recommended but I have interacted with the school in many ways. I know they value demonstrated interest.
Really tough to chance you without knowing how/if your portfolio submission (by my understanding most of your schools require it) aligns with what those schools are looking for. Arch programs can be a bit of mystery as to who gets in and who doesn’t.
With your grades and going test optional, Rice, Cornell, CM and ND are going to be tough admits. My guess is you knew that already.
Cornell remains test blind for architecture this cycle so that won’t impact this student. Note for others that the university as a whole goes test required for next cycle.
Right - my intent was to bucket those schools together as being “Reachy” and challenging to get into. They have very low admit rates as a whole and my experience was that the Arch admit rates tend to be substantially lower than the general admit rates at most schools.
For students in the higher tiers of their high school class some of the schools that look like targets as a general admit become a reach when drilling down to B.Arch programs (Virginia Tech is easy to point to in this space since they publish the data). Last cycle 2,041 applicants to B.Arch, they accepted 584 (29% accept rate) and 127 enrolled. Versus a broader 55% acceptance rate.
Cornell’s starting class size is suggested to be 60 students.
I believe Carnegie Mellon’s is smaller than this (40?)
A Reddit post (if you believe Reddit - I tend not to) says Rice’s program is capped at 24.
Syracuse has one of the larger programs and I think they generally target 150 first year.
A google on Pratt suggests they target 15 starting first years.
Those numbers are specifically B.Arch - the “School of Architecture” will list much larger numbers because most will include School of Design, Landscape Architecture, Real Estate, etc as part of that School.
Not trying to be doom and gloom, they are competitive programs to get into and the OP might get into one of the very competitive ones and not into one of the less competitive ones and it will be a mystery as to why. Maybe the schools will be in awe of the portfolio and they will get accepted to all of them.