<p>I'm going to be graduating this year in high school and I'm searching for potential College which I could get into. To be honest, I'm not very well prepare for college yet. I'm still looking up and deciding my future. Architecture and Art are my two interests. </p>
<p>Gpa: 4.0
SAT: 1640 (630 M, 520 R, 490 W)
I'm going to retake sat in this coming week. (Yea, I know it is kinda late)
I have taken few Fine Art/Applied Art classes and Architecture classes. So I would say I have a pretty decent, not that great, but still decent profilo. </p>
<p>So what is it like to be studying architecture in college? How is it out there in real life? What are some potential College I should be looking for? What should I know about or prepare for applying.</p>
<p>I live in the east coast. preferably in NJ, NY. And since I don't really want my parents to afford that much money for me to go to college. I had consider going to a community college such as Brookdale CC in NJ. They have this two years program that let me take the credits and study in another school.</p>
<p>I had consider NJIT but I hear the campus and their location isn’t that great. Not that great in the sense that there aren’t much to do on the campus and safety issue in Newark. Or that I’m just a little bit paranoid. </p>
<p>I’m also looking up Pratt Institute right now and seems to be rather expensive since it is a private school.</p>
<p>Unique, Does your high school have a college counselor? It seems that you could use some advice, fast.</p>
<p>First, is your GPA 4.0 out of 4.0? If yes, that’s great. Do you know your class rank? Does your school weight grades?</p>
<p>Your SAT scores are somewhat disproportionate to your GPA (assuming that it’s 4.0 out of 4.0). Let’s see how your redo goes. Perhaps you should try the ACT. </p>
<p>Second, your family may qualify for need based financial aid. Ask your parents to use an online calculator to determine how much you may be eligible for.</p>
<p>Third, some architecture schools have work/study (co-op) programs that allow you to defray some of the cost and get experience at the same time. You could look at Northeastern and Cincinnati. There are others but start with those.</p>
<p>Fourth, there are lots of different roads to becoming an architect. The fastest is to go directly into a B.Arch program. Alternately you can get an undergraduate B.A. or B.S. degree in architecture, art or anything else and then continue for a M.Arch. This takes longer but is quite common, especially if you’re not 100% sure that you want to study architecture.</p>
<p>Lastly, if you are from a racial or ethnic minority, a low income family or are the first member of your family to go to college you will get a boost in admissions.</p>
<p>Well, I only know that it is definitely not out of 4.0. My school don’t really tell me much about this stuff. But accord to my handbook. the highest gpa for regular course is 4.6/A+ and for honors/placement is 5.6/A+. I will assume that weighted gpa means including honors/placement grades. If so my unweighted would probably be 3.87 out of 4.6. And if converted to a 4.0 scale, it should be around 3.4.</p>
<p>To be honest, I’m not one of those honor student that gets A+ and do their best in every possible way. Since english wasn’t my first language and I had a very poor foundation of english, that might contributes to why I get low scores on SAT. But I know that it isn’t an excuse to get such a low scores. </p>
<p>As for roads, I’m also interested in civil engineer and computer science. So if I get a B.S. in one of those, I would also need to spend extra 2years to get a M.arch?</p>
<p>What I’m worry right now are job employment in the future, my family financial situation right now and college campus’s condition. </p>
<p>And finally, I have noticed free tuition for joining national guard. [Money</a> for College | Benefits | NATIONAL GUARD](<a href=“http://www.nationalguard.com/benefits/money-for-college]Money”>Army National Guard)
A spokesman recently came to our school and gave the school a brief talk about it. Still have to look more into this.</p>
<p>unique, Let me ask the GPA question another way: What were your actual grades in a typical semester? How many A’s, B’s, C’s?</p>
<p>I wouldn’t worry too much about your SAT scores. Colleges – even the most selective – understand that people for whom English is a second language do not score as highly as native speakers. </p>
<p>You need to be aware that colleges – again, even the most selective – actively recruit students from diverse backgrounds. Money is available for high achieving, hard working students who come from minority groups or low income families. Don’t be discouraged by the cost until you’ve checked it out.</p>
<p>What I’d recommend is that you pick two or three likely schools and spend some time reviewing their financial aid information on their websites. The financial aid advisors would be happy to talk to you and your parents. If that’s not going to happen, they I’d suggest that you ask your high school counselor for advice.</p>
<p>I have nothing against joining the National Guard, but believe that you have other options as well so don’t make a decision until you’ve learned more.</p>
<p>It’s not uncommon for architects have undergraduate degrees in computer science or engineering, but in general unless you have a B.Arch or a BS/BA in architectural studies, the M.Arch program will be more like 3 years than 2.</p>
<p>My son is a freshman at university of Buffalo in the Arch program. Just be prepared that when you start an Arch program it is very intense. He spends 48 hours at a time in the studio and then has to find time for his other work. He said the program started out with 120 students and is down to about 60 and the first semester is not even over. He is still in but I am not sure how much longer he can take it. He loves Architecture and has always wanted to be an Architect. I do not know why they make the program so intense and time consuming but you need to go in knowing that it will consume all your time.</p>
<p>pha516 - we have been visiting an umber of programs and that seems to be what happens freshman year - they kill you first semester and then it gets better as people drop. Most of the upper classman are not putting in the hours the frehman do…We have found that different schools have different studio cultures, some are cult-like while others are more colalborative. But they all have one thing in common - weed out the freshman.</p>
<p>momofboston and pha516, the reason why freshmen tend to spend a lot more time in the studio is because it’s your FIRST year of architecture school, so you have to learn how to do things. now in my 4th year, i am definitely a lot faster and more efficient in what i have to do. also, at least when i was a freshmen at cornell, everything was hand done, so we had to be in studio in order to work at our desks to draft. second year on, the work transfered to the computer, so i was able to take my work elsewhere with me and get out of studio. your son just has to remember that although each year wont get easier, he will get better so he should just be patient.</p>
<p>I agree and disagree with what has been said so far. From our family’s experience, although the student is “better” and learns how to do things more efficiently, MUCH more is expected as the years progress. The projects are more involved and the workload is heavier. More is demanded in terms of the student’s expectations (for themselves) and the prof’s expectations for the students. This third year has been the roughest yet for our arch major in terms of hours spent in studio.</p>
<p>third year for us was impossible. we had a comprehensive studio first semester [designing everything that has to do with a building: plumbing, electric, mechanical, detail drawings, wall details] and then the second semester we had to juggle designing a 300,000 square foot mixed use building with our big structures project. </p>
<p>so yes, kandksmom, you are correct. while there are times that i do work at home, i do live at studio as well…mainly because i dont want to associate home with work and i hate to miss out when fun things happen</p>