<p>For those of you that believe in surveys, Architecture Magazine has just released a new architecture school survey which is online. It is the DI survey which they have expanded to include architecture deans and architecture students. Pretty interesting stuff in this issue.</p>
<p>The</a> First Annual Education Survey</p>
<p>rick</p>
<p>how is VA tech first??? and where in the world is cooper union?</p>
<p>how did rice drop from 2 to 11 in one year?</p>
<p>and how come yale and princeton are both ranked 13th for graduate school? sounds very shady to me.</p>
<p>how is VT first? more like, why is cornell second?</p>
<p>what they did is change the methodology- instead of just surveying select firms, now they added some architecture deans and students into the mix as well. Either academics value very different things than practitioners, or the deans they chose represented a different sector or geography that had not been represented before, or both. They had a limited scope before, and they are widening it. Such a change will naturally produce different results.</p>
<p>Woohoo! Go Hokies! OK, I am very biased. This is coming from a mom whose son is applying ED to CAUS at VT :) Seriously, from what we could see during our visit and from what my s has learned from all of his research, they have an extremely fine program up there. I just hope my kiddo can get in! Thanks for sharing Rick.</p>
<p>Maybe VATech is now #1 due to a little kindness, and the fact that Cornell has an Acting Dean. Just a thought.</p>
<p>cooper union is a small college in new york it is a highly competitive school</p>
<p>Like I have said before-- there aren't any "good" architecture rankings available --- maybe one day there will be--- but that day-is not today.</p>
<p>sashimi and laurstar, i am an architecture student at virginia tech and have to say im very insulted by your posts. yes, cornell is a solid program and is one of the best in the world, but i find you both being very naive to think that VT doesn't deserve the top spot on the design intelligence list. You must know very little about our program, and further, isn't there enough evidence in the fact that those rankings come from thousands of employers? They must know a little more about ranking schools based on how prepared the schools' graduates are than you, don't you think?</p>
<p>So Cornell is number 2 on the list, booo hooo! VT has suffered enough this past year, the last thing any of us need is stuck up ivy-leaguers thinking they are entitled to the top spot on the rankings just because of the name 'cornell'. It doesn't matter whether or not it takes higher SAT scores, etc to get into a school like cornell over VT...what matters is how prepared the graduates are for taking on real world challenges in the field. Be proud of your school for still being number 2 this year, instead of bringing down people who achieved higher than you. </p>
<p>I am not trying to insult cornell in any way...im not going to stoop down to your level and attack the program... im just calling you out on your blatant ignorance towards a program that is doing incredible things for the field of architecture. Think twice next time you make comments like that from ithaca NY all the way to a school in blacksburg VA</p>
<p>and fedmom, you are even more blind then the other two...kindness? are you kidding me? perhaps our program is just better, ever think that might be possible? employers are not going to rank a program due to 'kindness' for what happened last year. I am incredibly offended by you, do some research about our program next time you decide to make ridiculous comments like that</p>
<p>I am in no position to rank schools</p>
<p>But I think it's really funny that in your first post, you cite the fact that VTech has suffered as of late as a good reason for you to be number one, and then in your second post, acknowledge this as a ridiculous notion.</p>
<p>Just a thought.</p>
<p>hokiearchie99</p>
<p>you've misinterpreted a lot of what i said. i'm sorry if i offended you but i never said that VAtech was a bad school. i believe its architecture school is highly regarded as well. i was questioning the legitimacy of such a ranking when a lot of the architecture schools shifted significantly in rank in a single year. is it possible in just one year that schools like yale and princeton drop significantly in rank yet they still draw in the most endowment and the best visiting critics and professors? i think for any assessment to be accurate, i don't think any school can change their rank so quickly.... which is why i questioned why VAtech could have jumped 4 spots every year consecutively to now number 1. it's highly unlikely that any school, even cornell, can jump so significantly. </p>
<p>like i said, these rankings don't count for much anyways so take them with a grain of salt. there's no point fighting over them. architecture schools that rank high like to use them as marketing tools to draw in more high school applicants into their program and thus have a stronger student body. even arch schools know themselves that these rankings mean little anyways and are under the mercy of the way the survey works. </p>
<p>ultimately it's a school pride and ego thing that doesn't really count for much in the real world (except for maybe high schoolers who depend on rankings). employers will know you are a strong student when you have a good portfolio. that's what matters</p>
<p>boone, then let me clarify:</p>
<p>You need to understand the difference between the people on this thread who are making negative statements vs. employers who are creating the rankings. My first post was directed at the people in this thread who were questioning the legitimacy of VT's high ranking...my point there was that these people should not be speaking badly about a school that has gone through so much suffering...it had nothing to do with employers feeling bad for us</p>
<p>The purpose of my second post was to say that employers are not ranking our school high out of sympathy, but due to the integrity of the program. </p>
<p>Therefore I am not contradicting myself like it may seem, rather I am directing two different statements at two different groups of people.</p>
<p>news flash: you just contradicted yourself again
"my point there was that these people should not be speaking badly about a school that has gone through so much suffering"
"...not ranking our school high out of sympathy, but due to the integrity of the program"</p>
<p>its just unlikely that a school can go from 4 ->1 overnight without significantly changing their program. it does have a good program, the reason why i applied there too. if you read my original post, i DID NOT bash the program in anyway, shape, or form. stop putting words into my mouth, especially blaming me for being naive and ignorant. i know abotu the tragedies of the vt shootings...i have so many friends that are there now and last year. but that said, it is likely that during the rankings, the people on the committee had those events on the back of their mind, influencing their decision. </p>
<p>i repeat, i never, nor did fedmom, said that vt had a bad program. no one did. stop trying to make it seem like we are the bad ones here</p>
<p>Sashimi:</p>
<p>The bottom line is all these programs are great. Cornell, VT, RISD, Syracuse, etc all are sending out well prepared graduates for the field, and I agree that the portfolio is what is most important, more so than even grades. A firm won't care if you have a 4.0 if you can't generate quality work for them.</p>
<p>I understand your point about how it may seem weird that schools are moving around on the list so much. I don't have an explanation for the graduate schools, but VT's program has been changing dramatically recently, which may account for the jumps in its ranking. This may also be due to changes in the field itself, since employers certainly are looking for different skills in graduates now. It still is important to note that when a statement like that comes from a Cornell student such as yourself, it has the same effect of a statement that truly doesn't accept the change in rankings, so try to understand how it sounds to a VT student on the other side...</p>
<p>laurstar07, I will address your points as you made them.</p>
<p>1) You say I contradicted myself...if you would read my post again more clearly you would realize that I am speaking to TWO DIFFERENT groups of people...you just paralleled two statements I made that are not directed towards the same people, therefore they are not contradictory. Sympathy from you and the other people on this post is NOT the same as sympathy from those that are creating the rankings.</p>
<p>2) "its just unlikely that a school can go from 4 ->1 overnight without significantly changing their program"...read my last post to Sashimi, if you care to know about how much VT has changed their program over the past years, feel free to ask...otherwise, stop assuming that it is not right that VT jumped from 4 to 1 (and by the way, it was not overnight, it was over an entire year!)</p>
<p>3) "i DID NOT bash the program in anyway, shape, or form"...hmm, let's look at what you said originally..."how is VT first? more like, why is cornell second?"...yes, so you didn't DIRECTLY bash our program, but your statement still IMPLIES that Cornell deserves the top spot and that any other school taking that spot is a ridiculous thought.</p>
<p>4) "it is likely that during the rankings, the people on the committee had those events on the back of their mind, influencing their decision." I completely disagree...first of all, you don't know what those creating the rankings had 'in the back of their mind'...secondly, I can guarantee you that they do not take into account a tragedy at a school of 25,000+ students when evaluating the work of graduates from one college within the university...why would they do that? It has absolutely nothing to do with how graduates perform in architectural firms. </p>
<p>5) "stop trying to make it seem like we are the bad ones here"...I am NOT trying to make anyone seem bad, all I am doing is calling you out on what you said because it comes off as negative towards those of us at VT that are equally as qualified for these rankings as you are at Cornell.</p>
<p>with the changes that you described, only time will tell if vt can sustain that ranking. whether you want to know it or not, vt got a lot of attention in the past year. maybe the tragedy brought attention onto the school and thus the program and they were showing support. going from 4 -> 10 -> 7 -> 4 -> 1 in the past couple of years....lets see what happens next year</p>
<p>Oh come on who really effing cares who is #1 and who is #10 on a list like this? As if someone doing well at any of those schools isn't going to land a good job. BS like this is what makes me hate this site sometimes.</p>
<p>"my point there was that these people should not be speaking badly about a school that has gone through so much suffering...it had nothing to do with employers feeling bad for us"</p>
<p>why can't you criticize? just because virginia tech was victim to such a horrible, horrible, and disgusting attack doesn't mean people can't criticize or "speak badly" about it. doesn't make any sense.</p>