2023 Professional Track Process

To be permitted to enroll in the Professional Track of the Architecture major, students must apply for admission through the Professional Track Review Process. This process involves a Faculty Committee review. All applications will be ranked according to total score.  

DEADLINE: 

• If completing Arch 281 in Winter Term: Wednesday March 23rd, 4:00PM PDT 

• If completing Arch 281 in Spring Term: Wednesday June 15th, 4:00PM PDT 

• Late submissions will not be accepted! Students may not defer late submissions to a future review.

When to Apply:

• Students should not begin working on the application until they are registered in ARCH 281 and have spoken to their class instructor or ARCH Faculty Advisor.

• Students should not submit an application until they have completed ARCH 281.

Architecture's Professional Track Portfolio Review has four requirements that all must be submitted by the deadline:

1. Major GPA (as it appears on a student's DARS) of 3.00 or better.

2. Completion of the following 9 degree-required ARCH classes with a B- or higher in every course (40% of the total score):

Specifically, 40% for grades is based upon the GPA total for the 9 courses, not simply that the courses were completed  with a B- or better (that is the minimum requirement)

ARCH 100, ARCH 101 ARCH 120, ARCH 121, ARCH 230, ARCH 231, ARCH 232, ARCH 280, and ARCH 281

3. Essay (20% of the total score).

The Essay is your opportunity to present your passion for and expertise in architecture, reflecting your academic journey across your time at PSU. You may reference work from other courses beyond the studios.

Edit all text for clarity of expression, grammar and spelling. Do not submit an Essay with typographic errors and garbled prose. There are resources available at PSU to assist students with writing, such as The Writing Center.

Essay Requirements: 

• A minimum of 400 words is recommended, and should not exceed 1,000 words.

• The essay should respond to the following prompt:  

Discuss projects from at least two different studios and reflect how these projects, and the media you used to develop them, expanded your understanding of architecture.

4. Portfolio (40% of the total score).

A portfolio of work is extremely important for the evaluation of a student’s qualifications, strengths and weaknesses. It is helpful to the individual as a record of work accomplished, for future applications to employment opportunities and to graduate school. Your portfolio should demonstrate an interest and awareness of how architectural ideas can be described, analyzed and transformed through the making of architectural space. Few things demonstrate the potential of an architectural student (or any professional architect or designer) as well as the apparent care with which a portfolio is assembled and presented.

Portfolio scoring:

• Craft – The portfolio demonstrates thoughtful organization, layout, image quality, and supporting text.  (10%)

• Range of Explorations  -  The portfolio represents a range of media explored and provides work from the design process as well as finished work. (10%)

• Quality of the work represented – The work demonstrates an appropriate level of design thinking and development. (10%)

• Improvement of Skills – The portfolio demonstrates an increase in design and communication skills over time and provides evidence of preparedness to succeed at 300 level work. (10%)

Portfolio Specifications: 

• The portfolio should be a maximum of 20 sheets.  

• The size of the portfolio should be no less than 8 X10 inches and no greater than 10 X 12 inches.  

• Both portrait and landscape formats are permissible. 

• The portfolio must include work from each of the studios taken.  

• The portfolio must be submitted as a single PDF.

How to Submit Application:

Your essay and portfolio must be sent to a Google Form provided to you by the School of Architecture while you are enrolled in Arch 281.  Submissions must be sent from your pdx.edu email address.  Submissions must be received prior to the deadline.

Review Timeline:

• Submissions from Winter Term will be combined and evaluated with the submissions from Spring Term at the end of Spring Term by a committee of full-time faculty. 

• After the ranking occurs at the end of Spring Term all students will be notified if they were accepted or not through their pdx.edu email. 

If Admitted: 

Students accepted to the Professional Track (PT) in 2023 will have seats saved for them in ARCH 360 and 380 in Fall 2023. Until the PT 2023 process is complete, students will be unable to register for these classes. More information regarding registration will be provided in the acceptance notifications.

If Not Admitted:

The School of Architecture has limits on budget and space which means that only a certain number of 300 Architecture sections are available.  Often, failure to qualify for the Professional Track does not mean that a student lacks skills or ability–  On the contrary–it just means that limits on available spaces meant that difficult denials had to be made. 

Students who are not admitted qualify for a Minor Degree in Architecture which can be a potent addition to another undergraduate degree at Portland State University. Students should meet with a COTA advisor to explore alternative majors that build on the coursework completed to date. For those students still wishing to explore an architecture degree, another option is to get an undergraduate degree in something other than architecture and then pursue the 3 Year Masters of Architecture.  This results in the same professional degree and training required for licensure. 

Students who wish to reapply to the Professional Track: 

Seek advice from an advisor about completing additional design and graphic studio work, rewriting the essay, and /or retaking a course(s) to improve their standing prior to resubmission for the following year.