<p>I was also one of the accepted students this year! This might give you more of an idea on how Cooper weighs certain elements in their applications; I had a 3.2 GPA (unweighted) and a 1700 SAT. Based on pure numbers there was no way i could have gotten into Cooper as all my stats are bellow the average of the accepted students each year. That being said, i strongly suggest you keep you grades going, but you NEED to focus on hand drawing and art (in any form e.g. writing, film, painting). </p>
<p>Cooper is not interested in your ability to create architecture (as a high-school student with little to no real background in architecture) or your ability to use programs (that i myself have never used), but your ability to create something creative that is unique and moving. This skill is shown through your hometest. Even though each question can be answered very architecturally most people that get into Cooper have more of an artistic approach towards the hometest questions but distantly relates back to the architectural aspect of it. If you are not very good at art i strongly suggest going to a pre-college program at an art school (like RISD) because it will help you build a portfolio (which most prestigious colleges require, for architecture). Simply having the ideas isnt good enough, you must be able to make them reality. </p>
<p>That being said, i would also assume extracurriculars that are clearly related to architecture/art/engineering will help you get an acceptance at cooper. To give you an idea of what i did, I went to RISD Pre-college junior summer (which helped me alot with my artistic skills because, like you, i had none prior to that), I had two internships; one with an architect and one with a cinematographer, I also played lacrosse, had many galleries for my photography and won some awards for it aswell. </p>
<p>All in all, if you are interested in architecture i suggest you research more about what aspect of architecture you like, and based upon that you should pick a school, dont just pick it because it is ‘good’. For example, RISD is very design based while Cooper shows more emphasis on sustainability while showing extremely value on design. Not that one emphasis is better than the other… Sure you can look at rankings, but in the end college is what you make of it, and if you dont fit well in the environment that each college tailors for its students then you wont get anything out of it. Choose wisely!</p>