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Daughter visited Princeton yesterday to inquire about one of their programs. We had scheduled to talk to the director of the program to learn more about it (daughter's a jr, by the way). But instead of just asking a few quick questions about the program, the director asked lots of questions about d, and it lasted basically an hour and a half. I guess this would constitute her first interview?? (She was really surprised, and left info with the director. She'll be more prepared next time). My question is, should she email to say thanks or anything like that? Do you usually respond with a note after an interview? Thanx for any advice!

By Emeraldkity4 (Emeraldkity4) on Friday, April 18, 2003 - 01:02 pm: Edit

You could go ahead and send the email, is the program very competitive?
However a caveat, I do not know this from personal experience, but from reading these boards and usenet groups, programs run by Princeton and others for high school students do not necessarily have any correlation to students that they admit for degree purposes.
However the program in itself can be good experience for your daughter, just realize that even if she attended every summer throughout high school it wouldn't even guarentee her a place on the waitlist, such a crap shoot is Ivy admissions

By Rosarosaef (Rosarosaef) on Friday, April 18, 2003 - 01:02 pm: Edit

an hour and a half? yes, i'd say email. it's a quick & cheap & easy advertisement for herself. (snail-mail hard-copy thank you's are a bit much unless she wants to make a speech... and that's unadvisable at this point.) just make it SHORT and positive... perhaps recalling something of interest in the interview that intensified her interest in princeton. there's no downside to doing this and it gets her name before the director one more time before he/she moves on to the next. but do it quickly... like, today.

By Soozievt (Soozievt) on Friday, April 18, 2003 - 05:04 pm: Edit

I have a junior daughter as well and we have done many college visits this year. I would not say she has attended any "interviews" but we have set up appointments with professors or department chairs in the major she is interested in. I would not classify these as interviews. Rather she was trying to find out more about their program. These little meetings have lasted at least an hour as well. After every college visit, she has written thank yous to whoever she met with, including these faculty members who agreed to meet with her. Same with when she has met up with a student from our area who showed her around, or a sport team captain she arranged to meet with, etc. She always sends a note of thanks. I have no idea if any of it would ever have bearing on admissions. Her reason to send it is truly to thank them for their time and information and to let them know how beneficial it was and of her continued interest in the school. I have no idea if these faculty members or department heads have anything to do with admissions. Just sharing what we have done as followup, but it was not for admissions' sake. It was more out of etiquette.

What field is your daughter interested in? Mine is interested in Architecture. In fact, Princeton is also one of the schools she hopes to apply to. We can all compare notes next year!~ lol
Susan

By L_Wonder (L_Wonder) on Friday, April 18, 2003 - 10:57 pm: Edit

Soozievt- I don't think that Princeton has an undergraduate Architecture program. I believe that Cornell has the only accredited undergraduate program in the Ivys (the 5-yr B.Arch). The Princeton graduate program is tops, though.

By Soozievt (Soozievt) on Saturday, April 19, 2003 - 11:04 am: Edit

To L Wonder.....I actually have learned alot about architecture degrees since we embarked on this journey and therefore, I will clarify some of this for you. Btw, we have been to Cornell as well. There are three avenues to becoming a certified architect. One is to go to a five year BArch program, such as the one at Cornell. After that is the interning, etc. that then leads to certification. These programs would require a high school student to make a firm committment to architecture when applying to college. For instance, at Cornell, the student applies to the school of architecture and has to know she wants to major in that. It requires a portfolio for acceptance at Cornell actually as well. The program is spelled out, kinda similar to engineering where alot of your courses are in that field and it is like a certified professional degree.

The second option is to major in a preprofessional undergraduate dept. of architecture. This major is not unlike most college majors. The student is not committing 100% to that major as a senior in high school. The requirements for the major are similar to other majors. After that degree, the student then can go to graduate school in architecture for 2 - 3 years to get a MArch, followed by interning and licensure. Some undergraduate departments such as at Yale, Penn and Princeton, have a senior year intensive that you can apply for that then can overlap with the first year of the graduate degree program.

The third option is for a student to major in anything she likes as an undergraduate and then apply to graduate schools in architecture and go for approx. 3-4 years to get the MArch degree, etc, leading eventually to licensure.

My daughter did look into Cornell...visited, liked it initially. But she has since decided that she does not want to do the five year professional BArch degree. She is strongly considering the architecture major but cannot feel certain at the age of 16 that she wants to make a 100% committment to it til she has truly tried it. She also would rather an undergraduate program that is more varied in liberal arts where she majors in architecture, as opposed to having a huge majority of her undergraduate coursework taken in a professional program. Cause of this recent decision, she has ruled Cornell and Carnegie Mellon off her college list.

Princeton does INDEED have an undergraduate major in architecture, just not the BArch professional five year degree like Cornell's. It has the major or preprofessional degree that I mentioned above. Since those are the programs my daughter is opting for, she currently is seriously considering applying to these schools which we have visited that have preprofessional undergraduate architecture majors: Princeton, Yale, Penn, Brown, Tufts, Connecticut College, and Lehigh. She is now considering visiting two more schools and possibly adding them: Smith and MIT.

So, you are correct that Princeton does not have the certified five year BArch degree program but it does indeed have undergraduate architecture majors in their architecture school. She has visited it.

You may have meant this all along...but thought I would clarify.
Susan

By L_Wonder (L_Wonder) on Saturday, April 19, 2003 - 07:42 pm: Edit

Thats cool-I actually graduated from Cornell's B.Arch program last year and I am heading off to Harvard GSD in the fall. I was under the impression that you were only looking at accredited architecture programs. I didn't do alot of research before applying to schools as a freshman. Sometimes I wish I would have done a 4-year program; I would have gotten a more well rounded experience.But, overall I am happy with the education I recieved. Good luck with your college search!