AP Schools

Art teachers and architecture admissions

Architecture school applications are a distinct category, with their own portfolio requirements and their own assessment criteria. A central quality admissions panels look for is introspection. The more clearly a student understands their own interests and motivations, the stronger their portfolio and written work will be. Most students, without this understanding, produce work that sits at the edges of this territory rather than at its centre.

Many art teachers who are asked to guide architecture school applicants encounter this process for the first time. The result tends to follow a predictable pattern: students produce portfolios that sit too close to fine art or too close to technical drawing, when architecture schools are looking for something more personal, more spatial, and more specific to each student’s individual creative interests. And crucially – loose relationships to architectural ideas. And all of this should be found equally across the portfolio work and written work (personal statements, application essays).

What you will receive

A 90-minute session.

We will meet online*, just the two of us or with anyone else from your art department who would like to join. Ideally, at least one member of the art department should be on the call, preferably the head. I will walk through AP Core with you, highlight the most pressing points, give context from my experience of what works in practice, and we will spend as much of the time as you like on questions. The session will be recorded and sent to your institutional email afterwards.

*In-person meetings may be arranged depending on availability.

AP Core.

AP Core is my written and structured resource for architecture school applicants. It is the same material I send to every student we work with privately. It is accessed via a private link and updated frequently. It covers what architecture school involves, how applications are assessed, what portfolios and personal statements need to demonstrate, how to approach interviews, and how to plan the year leading up to deadlines. Central to it is the argument that introspection — a student’s ability to understand and articulate their own interests — is the single most important quality in a successful application. It also contains practical exercises and templates developed over several years of working with applicants. Access lasts six months.

A follow-up call.

Within six months of our first session, I will make myself available for a further 60-minute call. This is for any questions that may have come up after you have had time to work through the materials and speak with your students.

A CPD certificate of completion.

After the first 90-minute session, you will be asked to complete a short reflection exercise. As you will have access to AP Core at this point, you will be able to use it to help you. This is designed to help you consolidate and apply what you have taken from the program. The certificate is issued on completion and can be logged for your CPD record.

• Initial session: 1.5hrs
• Reflection exercise using AP Core: 0.5hrs
• Follow-up call within six months: 1hr
• CPD certificate issued at this point.
• Total CPD: 3hrs
• If six months pass and no follow-up call is made, your total CPD certificate will come to 2hrs instead of 3hrs.

Schools and colleges

AP Schools applies to schools and colleges across the UK and US. At secondary level, this includes both state and independent schools in both countries. At undergraduate level, this includes US liberal arts colleges whose students often go on to apply to MArch programs elsewhere as non-architecture background applicants.