hey guys,

congrats to those of you who have been accepted and good luck to those who haven't heard. i'm in my first year of the 3-year MLA at Penn right now and can say that yes, you do get inundated with the aesthetic preferences of your critic--I had Anu Mathur last semester and it was all about triangulating, traversing, plotting, and sectioning, and now have one of Jim Corner's FO designers and all we hear about is Fresh Kills, OMA, and La Villette. But...I can say that everyone in my class is extremely smart to what might otherwise seem like brainwashing and, despite the presentations and suggested references, the critics really do encourage you to bring out your personal style. In fact at all of the reviews thus far the strongest designers are the ones whose individual design perceptions stand out, and the weakest are those who, for lack of a coherent concept, revert to imitations of whatever the critic showed on powerpoints throughout the semester.

So, probably more information than you wanted about Penn, since most seem to be focused on UW and RISD here, but all that's to say is Penn is a great place if you are willing to push yourself past the inevitable references to the gods of pretentious contemporary landscape. I haven't met anyone who isn't capable of this; moreover, I haven't met anyone who isn't glad they chose Penn. I know I've grown tremendously as a designer just in one and a half semesters so I'm looking forward to the next two years (but I'm looking forward to summer more! That's the other great thing about Penn--a 4 month summer break!)

reveillette- I was just wondering, how often do the MLA and MARCH students interact, both through work and socially? Is there a lot of mingling throughout the architecture school, or do MLA and MARCH students stick to themselves.

I definitely enjoyed visiting Penn -sans the interaction with Jim. Thought it was a great program and the students seemed to enjoy it a lot there. Going there would be a great experience obviously. In fact, before visiting RISD, I had Penn as my hands down #1 choice, but after meeting with Mikyoung Kim and Colgate Serle, RISD appealed to me on a much greater scale, personally.

Most schools tend to push their students so hard that there is rarely mixing between years, let alone other programs. Most happy hours tend to be cliquish, where you hang out with your friends. Being part of the student gov't was the best avenue for me to meet and really get to know kids from other departments. As a dual degree kid, I didn't get to know the arch kids till I had my first studio with them one year into my tenure at penn...

but if you are adventurous and wander through other studios regularly, eventually you will get to know more then your own department.

(good luck finding the historic presevationists and planners - they are rarely around in meyerson.)



Jwillefo - go where you feel comfortable and see the greatest potential for personal growth. No program is right for everybody and it's great that there is diversity in what's out there! Enjoy providence if you choose RISD.

From what people have been saying, I wish I had applied to RISD as well. The artistic bent of their program sounds very intriguing. One of the things that really got me interested in landscape architecture was land art. I wonder how much interaction the students really have with the other artistic disciplines, though.

UW is still a good option though, so if Jim Corner decides I'm not cut out for Penn, I might have an easier decision.

Does anyone have any guesses for when we'll hear from Penn? Will it be an email, letter, phone call? GSD just sent out their architecture notices did anyone hear from them for the MLA?

I wish this discussion had not made me more excited about Penn - now I'll be even more dissapointed if I don't get in. Although, I do think Temple's BSLA program is really interesting and might be a good fit for me....still, I'm really hoping for Penn.

Wow, the March students are already hearing from the GSD and Yale. I have yet to hear from UVA, Penn or GSD. I'm going assume UVA is out since they already sent out notices last week.

dci- good luck with Penn.

dci-
I've met some talented grads from ambler while working in philly. yes it's different, but any school is what you make of it! good luck!

hey if any of the people considering UW are in seattle and wanted to get together to discuss since there isn't an open house I would be up for grabbing a beer/coffee.

trying to scope out the hott classmates before you decide

jwillefo...... got my acceptance letter via post from GSD yesterday.... its going to be hard to decide between schools....

Congrats! That must be really exciting.

Has anybody here heard from Berkeley yet? It's a long story, repeated other places here - but the gist is I applied to the MLA program last year, got in, but decided at the last minute to postpone grad school to work another year here in New Orleans. I had to re-apply this year since I couldn't flat-out defer.

Anyway, last year they sent out acceptances almost a week earlier than it is now. I'm basically hoping I didn't blow it by turning it down last year.

On a further note, what does anybody know about the program itself? I've got a ticket to San Francisco in a few weeks anyway and I was going to check it out, but I'd like to hear any other impressions.

I have heard from friends who got denied by UCB, but nothing about acceptances. Word is they like students with science backgrounds.

Where are you working in New Orleans? Are you from there?

nolasara - I would reiterate the science bkgd thing that jwillefo mentioned about UC. I visited on a weekend back in the fall, so I didn't actually get to meet any profs. But, I got to talk to a few 2nd-year MLA students. Very nice. Most of them had taken lots of science courses, although they didn't necessarily study science as undergrads.

I was a little worried at first when I got the Arch/L.Arch buildling b/c there weren't that many things (projects, sketches, renderings) posted anywhere and very little sign of life, but once an arch student got me in to the land arch studio, it was nice to see where everyone worked and there were more people and projects around. All the students (years 1-3) are in the same basic area, but it's kinda nicer in the year 3 area, etc. Students were all very nice and more than willing to take a break from their work to chat about the program.

Hope that helps a bit, but it'll be better for you to see for yourself.

jwillefo - thanks, that makes me feel a little better. I'm not from N.O. originally but I've lived here about 8 and half years now. I came down here to go to architecture school at Tulane, and I stayed here and have been working at firms since - a smaller firm (25 people) in the Warehouse District for over three years now. Right around the time I had to give the schools I applied to a decision, my firm got a big contract to re-open the only remaining public hospital here, and I got offered the Project Architect position to work on the Trauma Center portion, along with a bunch of other rebuilding projects, so I thought the extra year would be good for me professionally. But I'm also excited to finally make the switch I wanted to last year. I also applied to U Oregon and LSU, only heard back from LSU so far (accepted).

revdillane - thanks, I haven't heard much of anything about Berkeley on this board or others, so any feedback is nice. I'm looking forward to going there in a few weeks, if I get in. If not, I'll just be drinking the pain away on the other side of the bay. (Kidding. Sort of.)

I applied to LSU as well, grew up in New Orleans, have been living in New York the last couple of years. Thinking about going back there to hang out with the family for a month before starting school.

It's don't know about you, but I applied to LSU sort of as a "safety" and also because I really don't want to be in debt the rest of my life, but it seems like their program is getting a lot of good press lately. I'm going to wait for my financial aid packages before I give them a serious look, though.

I applied to Penn last year and visited, and I echo your feelings. All the students seemed really nice and I talked with Anu and sat in on one of her studio's reviews, but I didn't think I really wanted the direction it felt like the school was moving in. I was looking for something more ecology and practice-based.

Do you ever think about moving back to N.O? I often do, after school is done.

LSU was/is my safety school as well, although it was hard for me to gage what schools were looking for, especially since i've worked as a paralegal for the last 4 to 5 years. RISD was kind enough to look past that though. LSU seems like a very program. Their undergrad program is ranked #1 by DI and grad ranked #4. They have several GSD people teaching there and after speaking to them, it seemed like they were trying to go in the same direction as Cornell and UVA. And for in-state price, that's a great deal.

As far as moving back to New Orleans after school; I've thought about it. Speaking to the head of the L.Arch department at LSU, he mentioned most students end up in Houston, Austin or Atlanta after school because that's where the work is. Very little going on with Louisiana firms, or so he said. But in reality, it's difficult for me to spend too much time in New Orleans. The New York lifestyle is more for my personality.

Jwillefo- if the New York lifestly is more your personality it seems like Penn or RISD would be better fits for you. Also, what do you mean about LSU heading in the same direction as Cornell and UVA, just wondering, im still halfway considering Cornell.

ms81 - Congrats! What other schools are you looking at? I just got my letter from Harvard, too (yay!). I got a significantly better deal financially from UMN, but I wonder if it's worth the investment to decline that and go to GSD. I'm going to check other threads, but anyone have thoughts? I'm also torn b/c I've been in contact for a while now with the folks at UMN, and they've been extremely helpful and informative. I'm going to visit next week, so I guess we'll see. Unfortunately I can't make the Harvard Open House, but if you go do post how it goes!

Hmm, well i am not going to pretend to know what you should do as far as where to go, but I wouldnt feel bad about turning down UMN, hey you have to do what you have to do! Most of the advice I have been given by my professors is go where the money is, I mean you can get just as far in your career as a GSD grad, with a portion of the debt. I mean sure at first a GSD degree MAY open a few doors wider, but in ten years your reputation is what people are going to look at. But then again, Harvard is Harvard. Congrats

Hi all... it's been great reading everyones thoughts and opinions on here. I can see that many of us have some of the same questions and decisions to make.

I've been accepted to RISD and -just found out- the GSD! very excited about both. I also applied to UC Berkeley and Penn but have not heard anything yet. I visited RISD and the GSD during open house in the fall and they both had a completely different feel to them as far as academic environments go. I come from an arts background, so RISD had a warm, fuzzy familiar feeling to it (actually reminded me a lot of my undergrad experience), whereas Harvard had a slightly intimidating, but inspiring and challenging feel. I also like the international groove that Harvard has. The group is also very important to me, so it will be helpful once i get a sense for the incoming class. I'm a bit concerned about the small size of RISD, and the 'bootcamp' nature of the first year of the GSD and all those stories i've heard-but then again, there's nothing worse than feeling understimulated or challenged. I'm going to attend both open houses in April before making my final decision - but so far i'm leaning towards the GSD.

Got the big package from the GSD. 2 for 2...

Congrats revdillane and jwillefo.....

I am still waiting to hear from RISD..... sigh!!!!

How would you rate GSD's MLA program? anyone?

Well, the GSD is rated #1 by D.I. What that really means, I don't know. I will say that last summer I spent six weeks there for their Career Discovery program. That was an amazing experience. But I've heard the GSD is nothing like that program, which was basically a summer camp for adults, fun none the less. They deffinitely have some very talented and intelligent students there. But like Wave On said it is VERY competative and stressful. Some people have said you basically get on a "conveyor belt" the minute you arrive. Sometimes big named professors show up rarely for their studios, leaving the TA's to teach the majority of the studio, not all but some. The crits can be very brutal as well. But they also have a lot of great crits come in. Plus the GSD has a ton of money, so it's common for them to send studios to Europe and Asia to do surveys. It's really what you make of it there. I think that if you're an Alpha male or female, the school can be an excellent place. Especially since the contacts there are endless. If you're really turned off by highly competative and overachieving people, then the GSD might not be the place for you. Of course, this is just from speaking to alumns from there. It's really best to go there and visit. Which I will be doing. So anyone going to the RISD and GSD open houses on the 5th and 6th, it will be good to finally meet y'all.

FYI-

GSD Inc. tends to have lots of studios with real clients that fund the travel to exotic lands. The downside is the push to be practical... there are lots of books publishing various studios to learn more about there process.

Penn tends to have one or two subsidized studios, (are these crumbs left over from the GSD?) including a long running joint LA/Arch Beijing studio every spring. If you're feeling poor, there is also typically one local or no travel option. The good thing is that the studios tend to range from cutting edge theory (ie Reiser/Umamota to Jim Corner) to academic (Berrizbeitia's obsession with Burle Marx) to very grounded professionally (anything with Olin) and everything inbetween.

First year will be a bootcamp anywhere, if you can't handle the pressure, then better think again about becoming an LA or Architect...

A comparison between the first studio at penn and gsd (from my observations in 2001): Penn pushes the students into unfamilar/very rugged terrain setting the first project in the Wissahickon gorge (my year was on an old coal mine), while GSD starts with the familiar (a neighborhood park). They both scale up, starting small with a garden or path and scale up to the urban by the end of first year.

Penn then uses the 3rd semester (first of the second year) to get all the professional tricks of the trade out of the way, e.i. grading, planting, road alignments, the use of colored pencils, et cetera. so most kids aren't fit for working in an office over the first summer break, so most get some horticultural/landscaping type work.

My impressions of alumni from the GSD tends to reinforce the hyper competative side of their experience.

Scratch my non-attendance of the RISD and GSD open houses - I am going to both. It will be great to meet some of my potential future classmates.

congrats jwillefo!

wave on - when you say RISD's "small" how small are we talking? Did you feel like there wouldn't be any good cross-fertilization of ideas b/c there were so few students? Or just the space is small? I guess I will find out in a few weeks, but I dying to know!

I must admit that I'm a also little nervous about the boot camp idea (maybe it's more the swift kick in the arse from Sallie Mae), but it certainly does sound stimulating. I wonder how up-front the students will be when we visit.

Has anyone else applied to UMN? It's not on the DI report, but I really think it has some potential. UMN has just folded all their design disciplines into a single unified College of Design, and I am curious to hear if anyone has thoughts on how this might affect the MLA program there...

I was really thinking of applying to UMN. I hear it's a great town. When I was a kid I used to go to camp up there and loved it. Also, one of the people that inspired me to go into LA is Shane Coen, who is a visiting critic there. His firm is in Minneapolis. In the end I went with the East coast and my home state La.

RISD's program is small, 12 to 15 per class. But so is UVA and other schools. I think there is a lot of cross-fertilization there. All the studios are open to each other. Also, your first semester you're taking foundation classes with M.Arch and B. Arch students. Some people are turned off by the idea of having classes with undergrads, but I believe that's an ego thing. Plus, RISD undergrads work their asses off. It's so hard to get in undergrad there.

Anyway, time to celebrate. A toast to everyone! Get your partying on now, because you'll be living in your studio for the next two/three years.

rev- by small i mean there are only a handful of faculty (4-5?), the studio space is smaller than GSD's - also it's shared i believe with undergrads or at least some of the beginning studio classes are. i didn't find the studio space at RISD to be very stimulating , but then again this was my outsider's impression -I don't know how much work is done on one's one outside of studio?? I'm not sure about the difference in class size, but in general, the GSD seemed to have a more vibrant community and studio space, more faculty, etc. i think this would also translate into that cross-fertilization of ideas you were mentioning. that is my hunch anyways.

as for the bootcamp idea- i know all programs will be intensive, especially in the 1st year, but i keep wondering about the words i heard one GSD alum say about perhaps the harshness of their 1st yr experience - that it 'doesn't have to be that way'. RISD, according to the director of the program there, has a more "family-like" atmosphere. They're smaller in that sense and tight-knit. The example given was that if you're struggling, they will stop and make sure you get back on track. I guess other larger schools are too big for that sort of personalized attention? Not sure, just speculating here.

I don't know enough about U of MN to be fully qualified to comment, but...

I'm mentoring a capstone student (for their manditory thesis) this semester. It seems that there is a wider variety of capabilities and talent in the range of student's projects then the consistant excellence I experienced doing a thesis at Penn.
The program is small (15 students/year) and so doesn't offer any choices in studios - one is offered each semester, so there is little opportunity to pursue individual interests until your capstone project.

The students seems to have a strong grasp of ecology and general design principles, but not in the latest theories or cutting edge design processes, like the immersion in landscape urbanism and emergant ecologies that I got at Penn. As with many state universities, there is an unstated dedication to primarily serving the local region and preparing professionals to join existing practices. In contrast PENN and the GSD bridge between the local and the global.

nolasara, I just received my acceptance letter from LSU. What a funny letter. I don't think it was even signed.

tkiller - thanks for the info. Did your mentee go on the Port Cities semester abroad (Lisbon, Barcelona, Venice)? It's one of the really exciting aspects of the program as far as I can see, and so I'm curious how that fits in with the dedication to the local region of which you speak. I am certainly interested in studying the bridge between the local to the global - it's one of my primary areas of interest...

jwillefo - In researching firms in MN earlier, Coen + Partners certainly seemed to stand out (at least from their website), so I'm curious about some of the things you learned from him.

wave on - i agree all programs will be intense, and I'm sure we're all looking for that so that we can become spectacular designers. thanks for your impressions of RISD and GSD. It definitely helps me formulate more questions to ask when I go visit.

If you want the inside scope on the twin-city firms, drop me a note... C+P is one of the leaders, but there are several others that I'd rather work for. Mpls isn't NY, Boston, SF, or Philly with their overabundance of amazing practices, but it holds it's own. Cost of living is better then anything you'll find on the coasts.

I haven't seen my mentee's transcript - I'll ask next week when she gets back from her site visit.

revdillane, I've never met Shane, but read an article about him a little over a year ago. Found his work very impressive, so I did more research on Coen's projects. This was at the same time I was coming to the realization that I didn't want to go to law school anymore. After reading more about Coen partners and their projects I decided going into litigation wasn't for me. A year later I've been accepted to 3 out of 4 schools so far, just got waitlisted at UVA. Couldn't be happier.

One less litigator and one more landscape architect in the world can't be a bad thing...

Hoping to hear soon from Penn one way or the other. The website says decisions are sent out the third week of March, next week being the third full week in the month...

I have heard that the new england area is saturated with LAs, anyone heard similar? Just wondering about job outlook in that area once I get out of school.

the North East is saturated (and so is the Bay area) with LA's, but there seems to be lots of work opportunities, since half the country goes shopping for 'scaping talent in philly, ny, boston & SF. Lots of opportunities for a fresh new grad with talent - the harder part may be starting your own practice if you remain around there...

The waiting is finally over, wait-listed by Penn today. Phew. Now who to pick???

Jim responds to well crafted pleas from wait-listed applicants. It is in your interest to get in touch with him if you feel that Penn is your best match...

good luck!

Thanks. I was thinking the same. But I am happy with choosing between RISD and Harvard. Especially since I've already received a nice sized grant from Harvard. I'm not even sure I could get any aid from Penn now.

Either way I'm excited about going to school next year and all the time and money spent on my applications was worth it.

Congrats jwillefo!

Hey- please apply to have a school blog- 'scapers need more representation here on archinect!

Hey I love to do a blog for archinect. Just hope I'll have the time.

Congrats jwillefo, so who is winning for you right now, RISD or Harvard? its looking like ill probably be at RISD, but I wish they would hurry on up with the financial packets.

A week ago I was strongly thinking RISD, but now, it's up in the air. It's hard to pass up the money from Harvard if RISD doesn't match. The last 5 or so days I've really been thinking about the two a lot. We'll see. I want to wait for the open houses. Should be fun. I think I have a friend who will definitely be going there as well next year. See you on the 5th Outside?

Definetly, are you staying for the roundtable at 6:30?

I was also wait listed at penn, so finally the list is complete, now the hard part...deciding.

I'm pushing for the roundtable Outside, but I'm visiting with a friend who's driving and we're staying in Boston that night, so I'm gonna have to try to influence her to stay. The GSD open house starts at 9am the next day, so we'll see.

Toxic, so what schools are you deciding between?

Still haven't heard from Penn, but I did get into Harvard with a very nice sized grant. Of course, I heard from GSD 3 days after everyone else. The post just doesn't move too fast down here in the South.

I don't know if I'll make it up to Boston for the open house from Atlanta...I'm already going to be hard pressed to come up with the cash for Harvard's tuition deposit.

congrats, jwillefo! No LSU for you then, I suppose.=)

I'm curious if anyone else here already has a B.Arch. or M.Arch. If so, are you planning to take a complete career switch or looking for a way to combine the two? I feel very strongly I want to go into an MLA program, but afterwards I'm not sure where it will lead me. I def. want to teach which is why I'm getting the second degree in the first place, but would like to practice as well - not sure in what capacity, though.

Nolasara, LSU isn't completely out of the picture. I just don't know enough about the program and no have the time to visit. Plus, I can't stand Baton Rouge. Not a big fan of Boston either, though. When are people going to realize the world revolves around New York and that all the top MLA programs should be here? (just kidding there)

Although it does look like I'll be spending some time in NOLA this summer. I was offered a job at Matthes Brier (sp?).

Btw, is anyone into playing tennis?

Treekiller, I'm well aware that 98% of my time will be spent in the studio, but is there ever time to recreate? Maybe get in a game or two of tennis during the week?