What I learned from Cooper Union: Advice to architecture apps

College Majors Architecture Major
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<p>(The self-promotional part) My name's Mark Kremer, I'm an artist and soon to be architect. I'm going to Pratt Institute for Architecture starting in Fall 2010. I have a website with all my work up: <a href="http://www.MarkKremer.com%5B/url%5D"&gt;www.MarkKremer.com&lt;/a> . </p>

<p>I had my heart set on getting into Cooper Union, but was denied admission and this is what I've learned, to hopefully help you get in.</p>

<p>THE SCHOOL:
The school itself is REALLY small. The admission rate of the school is somewhere around 4-5%, but the stats for architecture acceptance are much more depressing. For the Fall 2010 architecture program, they received around 1800 applications and admitted... 28. That's right, no typo, twenty-eight out of eighteen hundred were admitted... thats 1.5% (for some context, Harvard's is 7%). But back to the school. It's smack dab in the middle of the architecture capital of the world and is known for having really great professors. The program rarely ranks high in "Best Arch. Schools" but such a selective school is sure to look good on your resume. And you honestly can't beat the price. Pratt is around $55,000/year and I would give anything to pay $20k for CU.</p>

<p>THE HOMETEST:
I won't waste my time explaining what the hometest is, look that up on another discussion. Here is what I've picked up from what I did wrong, and from accepted hometests I've seen, what I should've done.</p>

<ol>
<li><p>GO CONCEPTUAL!!!! I'm serious, if they ask to draw a ball, cut out the rubber from a basketball and make it into a cube, they LOVE that ****. One of the prompts was to "Draw a structural intersection". I saw an accepted hometest where the girl drew birds sitting on a telephone pole. There is NO such thing as too conceptual for these people. Even if it doesn't make sense to you, they will find a way to relate it to the prompt (making you seem much more deep).</p></li>
<li><p>Use mixed media. I made the mistake of doing most of my prompts in graphite (some colored pencil). Use anything you can thing of. Crayons, markers, cut-outs from magazines, leaves, etc.</p></li>
<li><p>Do something no one else is doing. Imagine being the person looking through 1800 of these, what can you do to make the admissions committee take a second look at your hometest?</p></li>
<li><p>Take the writing section as seriously as the design prompts. Most people don't know that there are 3 pages of the hometest dedicated to writing prompts. I made the mistake of doing these at the last minute, but they weigh these just as heavily as the design ones.</p></li>
<li><p>Stay true to your style. I made the mistake of doing what I thought "they" wanted, rather than doing what I wanted. If you do this, when you get denied, you'll feel better that they just didn't like your style, which means it's just not the right place for you</p></li>
<li><p>When you get denied.... hate to break it to you, but 98.5% of you will. It really sucks, and took a while to set in. I kept thinking I would get a call saying "oops, our bad... you're in!". That call never came. But yeah, find the things you didn't like about the school (small student body, no dorms, no campus) and emphasize those. Sort of an "I wouldn't have liked it anyway" thing.</p></li>
<li><p>Good luck!!! I know it's pretty daunting, but getting accepted to THE hardest program in the nation is something worth trying for.</p></li>
</ol>

<p>That's about it. If anyone has questions, I guess you can just comment on this, or e-mail me from my website <a href="http://www.MarkKremer.com%5B/url%5D"&gt;www.MarkKremer.com&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

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<p>Another thing I forgot is that grades flat out DO NOT matter. As long as you have above a 3.0 and a decent SAT score, you will be fine.</p>

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<p>Good luck and congrats going to Pratt. I like the improvements made to the school over the last 20 years. But as you said, the cost is astronomical (was far less when I went there). I hope you don’t have to take out too much in the way of loans, as it is hard paying back a big student loan debt with the starting salary of a B.Arch graduate.</p>

<p>I work with one person who went to Cooper Union. She’s extremely intelligent. Never knew anyone else who went there.</p>

<p>Jeff
B.Arch, Pratt, 1989</p>

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<p>You’re definitely right about the hometest being the most important part. They absolutely LOVE conceptual work. For that “draw an intersection part”, all I did was draw part of a scaffold with marker. Really, ridiculously simple, but apparently that’s what they’re looking for I supposed. It really amazes me that I got in now - that acceptance rate is staggering. I’m still really torn between Cooper Union and Rice. Both are just wonderful, excellent schools that I could see myself doing well in. In the end though, I chose Rice. Cooper requires you to leave the dorms after 1 year, and I’d either rack up about $100,000 in student loans or juggle 2 or 3 jobs just to cover living expenses. So, that’s really the only reason I’m not going. </p>

<p>I’d still say to anyone who got accepted to go, and to anyone interested in applying, don’t be discouraged by a low acceptance rate. Cooper Union is really more interested in your innate creativity and thinking skills. </p>

<p>But, congratulations on getting into Pratt! That’s another wonderful school!</p>

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<p>It’s funny, when you look at the stats you’d think you’d have to be a genius to get into Cooper. BUT… I’ve worked with a fair number of Cooper grads and they are smart, disciplined, and driven but I wouldn’t say a single one of them was a genius. Maybe they were a genius while they were in school.</p>

<p>Sure gotta envy their lack of student loans though!</p>

<hr>

<p>Edit: The ones who can live at home, I guess, having read Paradox above!</p>

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<p>@Marsden: All too true. Living in New York is expensive, and you’d be hard pressed to find a cheap apartment in a somewhat safe area. Even so, a full ride scholarship ($175,000) is tempting. About $20,000 a year is still a lot better than some other colleges. Rice just happened to cover tuition + room and board. They’re both great and really small programs, but Rice is more feasible for me. It still wasn’t a bad choice to have to make. ;)</p>

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<p>I forgot to mention that you could find a room with friends/classmates, but that could also be a difficult situation depending on the person.</p>

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<p>mark 10: Hey mark. do you know cooper picked how many applicants on their arch waiting list this year? I’ve heard from some other posts that this is the first year they use waiting list , is that right?</p>

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<p>After two years in Calpoly my S applied to CU as transfer and got in-so,there is always hope.</p>

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<p>hiliun - I really have no idea. I got flat out denied, and didn’t know they even had a waiting list.</p>

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<p>hahaha would’ve been real helpful to know this stuff before I applied. :P</p>

<p>Some other advice - if you’re applying to Cooper Union because of the full-tuition offer, Syracuse Architecture has a full-tuition scholarship they give to ~10 admitted applicants (for some reason they don’t publicize this…) and USC gives a lot of half-tuition/full-tuition scholarships as well(If you’re a national merit finalist you get the half tuition by default). You can always look to state schools as well; if you live in california, SLO and Pomona are two very affordable options, and I’m sure there are similar options in many other states.</p>

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<p>mark10: well thank you anyway. susan, the admission officer, told me they may mail out the final decision letter this week.</p>

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<p>yeah they have a waitlist this year. i was waitlisted an accepted, and as far as i know, so was one other person. so 1.5% isn’t an accurate acceptance rate.</p>

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<p>@janinew
Wow… someone’s got an ego. I apologize to anyone who was hurt or confused by the 1.5% acceptance rate that I have so wrongly told all the viewers of this forum.</p>

<p>I would like to make a correction and, again, sincerely apologize.<br>
The CORRECT acceptance rate for the architecture program is 1.67%</p>

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<p>ArchersParadox
hey did you get a free ride to Rice? i’m really interested… Im just a junior but Im also interested in both Rice and CU, and what would you say about the difficulty level of getting a free ride cause frankly, I can’t go to Rice unless I have a scholarship. Can you tell me more please? about your gpa or sat or your artwork. thank you so much</p>

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<p>@mnvo11: I didn’t get a full ride, but what I did receive was quite close to it. There are a few merit scholarships you get, but Rice has a pretty large endowment that enables them to give students pretty good financial aid. It depends largely on your FASFA and CSS Profile, but they do meet a large portion of your need. If you have any other specific questions, don’t hesitate asking. :)</p>

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<p>Ahhh i’ve got problems understanding the requirements…><…</p>

<p>can’t i cut my work and paste on the sheet because the paper isn’t good enough to paint or sth?</p>

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<p>Great post. Thank you, Mark.</p>

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<p>This was very very helpful. Thank you</p>

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<p>Thanks!Mark!!</p>