<p>Accepted in Architecture for all schools, but having trouble deciding. So far, the evaluations look like this:</p>
<p>Cornell: Good all round ("Ivy"), international reputation; pretty large --easy to feel lost?; party school reputation?</p>
<p>Syracuse: Good for a couple of specialties, but not impressive else --does this mean that elective courses will not be very good? Sleazy town. Got $ without asking.</p>
<p>Rice: Good all round, small and intimate program, Preceptorship year is like a co-op --good bridge between study and real world; study abroad limited to one location (Paris); maybe small faculty and class limits exposure to different opinions?</p>
<p>UVA: Good all round, large, lots of in-state (not our state) students, not a BArch, but better opportunity to take electives</p>
<p>UCinn: Good design school, low SAT's else, lots of in-state students</p>
<p>UMD: Cheap (in state plus $) but large, maybe average quality outside of Arch?</p>
<p>Any opinons on specific schools or decision methodology in general would be appreciated. Thanks --less than a week to decide!</p>
<p>cornell's international reputation will draw in good faculty and critics but we first have to get a dean!</p>
<p>cornell is relatively big for an ivy but since the architecture school is small (60 per class) you'll be in a tight knit community within a larger school. it's a good balance. students don't really party here except during the weekends to put off all the stress. arch students have their own parties funded by the money they raised from dragon day. we don't party that much since we have so much work but when we do it's great</p>
<p>maybe the rice dean will fill in cornell's dean position haha</p>
<p>lack of dean is pretty bad because deans with good connections bring in good professors and critics. schools try to find a new dean as soon as possible. currently cornell is very aggressive in finding a new dean as soon as possible. hopefully we'll get one by the coming semester</p>
<p>i've only taken econ 101, psych 101, and FWS. they're pretty good.. they are large classes and much standardized so it's unlike the architecture classes where you get a lot of attention. electives are nice because you don't get to think about architecture for once </p>
<p>architecture studios can be very cooperative because sometimes you work in teams. everyone is supportive of each other and there is no competition to cut each other down, though everyone works hard to have the best project. </p>
<p>i'll go to rome in a year. there has been a lot of great reviews from the program</p>
<p>i'm always in studio so im not very exposed to the frat scene. it can be noisy during weekends but they're not that big of a deal. frats can be a good way of networking people (they could be your potential future clients)</p>
<p>we do work on the solar decathalon but that's only if you join that particular studio. solar decathalon is in collaboration with other schools as well so it's not just the studio in control of the project</p>
<p>Sashimi: I thought the same thing. It's funny how people in academia are "recycled" Harvard Grad Arch "bought" Cornell's dean. </p>
<p>FatherTuition: On another note... my daughter is just finishing her first year at Cornell. She became very active in the school. I supported her decision to join a sorority and get involved in the school. It's extremely healthy to get out of the studio and she happens to be a very social person. She is taking a science course as an elective this semester and just loves it. She does spend an enormous amount of time in studio. It is a lot of work. She has found the students to be very supportive of each other. I know she had a ball building the Dragon and participating in the activities associated with it.</p>
<p>professors connected to the dean also tend to follow the dean wherever he or she goes so a lot of the profs who came to teach at cornell are going to teach at harvard now that he is at harvard</p>
<p>It was explained to me by a couple of faculty members that Deans typically serve in four year terms and after two terms they leave and become the dean elsewhere. This is not a hard and fast rule, but fairly typical of the pattern you see at schools. Lars has been at Rice for quite a while now, so it would not be a shock if he choose to step down or find another position.</p>
<p>Where I would be concerned is where the Dean has been a disaster and is asked to step down after a year or two. That can really put a school into turmoil. There was one a few years ago at a Texas school who was asked to step down six months into the job, and it took the school a year or two to recover.</p>
<p>For what it's worth my daughter had acceptances at Cornell, Rice, and UVA for architecture. UVA was her top choice, liked the program, loved the area (I liked Rice). Ended up not studying architecture and going somewhere else, but will probably go back for graduate school.</p>
<p>I heard from a prof. at Rice that Dean Lerup is leaving after next year, but will probably remain affiliated in some way. He's been there for a while, and wants to finish some research and writing projects.</p>
<p>FYI, S decided to accept Rice. It came down to a toss-up between Rice and Cornell. I passed him the helpful comments from this thread, but he got some good warm fuzzies from Rice during Owl Days, so that was that. I'm sure he'll do fine, and I'm pretty excited for him about the whole deal. Wish I were going too.</p>