I just graduated from high school and i’m going to start my freshman year at Kennesaw State University as an architecture major this fall. Aside from good grades, what are some ways I can make my transfer application stand out to the admissions committee? What are some extra-curricular activities in college that can help my application look more appealing?
Hello! I’m currently an architecture student at Kansas State University. While I myself am still an undergraduate, many of our graduate students that choose to pursue PhDs get accepted into Ivy League schools or T20s. I am looking to do the same when I complete my master’s, so here is some advice I can give you that I have received from my upperclassmen mentors:
Join every architecture-related club you can manage. Every student I personally knew that applied to elite schools was a member of the AIAS (almost every architecture school has a chapter), mentoring programs, our school’s architectural journal, plot club, women in design, black designer’s guild, you name it. Every club under the college of architecture, they were part of.
Enter design competitions - preferably, WIN them! This is probably the most distinguishing factor of most of these students. All of the students I knew personally had won some major design competitions, either within our school or the national scale. Other colleges will remember the winners of huge design competitions.
Network yourself. If you get the change to talk to designers from your dream school at design expos/competitions/events, do so. Make a LinkedIn and Twitter specifically for your purposes as a student.
Other than that, you need to have a KILLER portfolio above anything. Grades don’t matter quite like they do for other majors - maintain a 3.5 or above, ideally. But, elite schools typically just care about your portfolio. If they don’t like your portfolio they will toss your application without looking at your grades or extracurriculars.