<p>I am a senior in high school and am planning on majoring in architecture in college and I have been accepted into RISD and Pratt with merit scholarships and have been wait listed at School of Architecture at Syracuse. I have visited each of these colleges and really liked all of them but I would like more feedback on their architecture programs to make my decision, I am really stuck here and would appreciate some advice!</p>
RISD is the best overall with no doubt.
I’ve also been accepted into Pratt with scholarship and I’m also torn…
According to DesignIntelligence, Syracuse is ranked in the top 5 and RISD and Pratt in the top 10 for undergraduate architecture.
One consideration is that with RISD you would be doing the foundation program with all the other first year students regardless of their major, whereas I think Pratt’s school of architecture has it’s own foundation program. It’s located a couple blocks off the main campus as well, although that’s not a big deal (and Higgins is a really cool looking building).
Congratulations on being accepted to two fine programs so far!
Congrats!!! Good luck deciding.
The design intelligence undergrad listing is only for BARch programs. It doesn’t have the 4 year preprofessional programs ranked for UG such as UVA, MIT, Harvard, WUSTL, etc. These are listed under grad school rankings.
Here is the ranking from 2013. http://www.di.net/articles/big-shifts-in-design-school-rankings-for-2013/
My data is from the 2015 edition which also provides historical rankings going back 10 years. Worth the $39.99 IMHO (depending on how well you enjoy perusing various design school rankings LOL). Here is the detail for undergrad. only, presumably the 5 year B. Arch. (as you would need to compare apples to apples):
- Cornell
- Cal Poly - SLO
- Rice
- VA Poly
- Syracuse (last 5 year ranking 6, 3, 7, 2, 2)
- UT Austin
- RISD (last 5 year ranking 10, 7, 6, 11, 7)
- So. CA Inst.
- Pratt (last 5 year ranking 11, 11, 10, 9, 15)
- USC
- CMU
- Auburn
- Cooper Union
- RPI
- IIT
- Penn State
- U of OR 18 Cal Poly - Pomona
- Notre Dame
- U of AZ
And here are the current grad rankings:
- Harvard
- Columbia
- Yale
- MIT
- Cornell
- U of MI
- Rice
- Penn
- UVA
- Cal Berkeley
- WUSTL
- UT - Austin
- Princeton
- VA Poly
- UCLA
- Syracuse
- So. CA Inst.
- Clemson
- U Cinn
- GIT
Thanks, @Mamelot for the 2015 rankings. What happened to Kansas State? Last year their 5.0 year MArch was #8; this year it seems to have fallen off the chart. I wonder if that has something to do with the difficultly of rating the “undergraduate” MArch.
@momrath I’ve noticed some of the other design categories have undergraduate rankings that jump around a bit as well. I agree it’s more difficult to rank undergrad. programs which is why one should look at more than one source (generally schools or departments will move in and out of the top 5, or the top 10, or the top 15 or 20, and where it shows up exactly from year to year isn’t as important).