Three years ago, a high school senior sent me her portfolio the week before applications were due. She had a 4.0 GPA, strong test scores, and genuine passion for design. Her art teacher told her the portfolio was excellent. Her parents thought it looked professional.
It would have been rejected by every architecture school she applied to.
The problem was not her artistic ability. She could draw beautifully—detailed pencil portraits, watercolor landscapes, figure studies that showed real technical skill. Her presentation was clean and organized. On the surface, everything looked right.
But architecture schools were going to look at her portfolio and ask different questions.
Can she think spatially? Does she understand how design solves problems? Is she curious about the built environment? Her portfolio answered none of these questions. It showed she could render what she saw, but not that she could imagine what could be.
We spent an hour on a video call. I told her which projects to keep (the ones that hinted at spatial thinking), which sketches buried in her sketchbook actually mattered, and how to reorganize everything to show not just skill, but the kind of thinking architects do.
She got into four out of six schools she applied to, including her top choice.
I have spent the last fifteen years reviewing portfolios. As a practicing architect who teaches design studios, I review student work constantly. I have interviewed students for architecture school admission process. I have also hired recent graduates and experienced architects.
I know what makes evaluators stop and look closer, and I know what makes them move on to the next application. More importantly, I can tell you exactly how to bridge the gap between what you have and what schools want to see.
Schools Want Design Thinking, Not Just Artistic Skill
Architecture schools know most applicants have not taken architecture courses. They expect that. Artistic skills absolutely help—drawing, painting, making things with your hands all matter.
But the portfolios that get accepted show something beyond technical skill. They show curiosity about space, experimentation with form, evidence of design thinking.
A portfolio full of perfect renderings with no evidence of those qualities will always lose to a messier portfolio that shows how someone thinks about design problems.
This is the gap most students miss. They collect their best artwork—the pieces that got praise in art class, the drawings their parents hung on the wall—and assume that excellence in execution equals a strong portfolio. It does not. A beautiful pencil portrait shows you can observe and render. It does not show you can think about how people move through space, or how light changes a room, or how a structure serves its users.
The students who get in understand this distinction. Their portfolios might include that pencil portrait, but they also include the sketch of their bedroom reimagined, the model they built to test how shadows fall, the diagram exploring how their school’s courtyard could function differently.
These projects are not more skilled. They are more relevant.
If you do not know what design thinking looks like, you cannot show it in your portfolio. And if your portfolio does not show it, you are competing at a significant disadvantage against applicants who do.
Teachers and Parents Cannot Give Architecture-Specific Feedback
I made every portfolio mistake when I applied to Cornell. My math teacher encouraged me to apply because I was good at math and could draw. That was enough for me to decide on my future profession.
I collected all my art class work and tried to show a wide range of artistic capability—pencil drawings of friends, watercolor still lifes, some indescribable sculptures with esoteric titles like “afternoon melody.” Looking back, my captions showed more creativity than the actual work.
My approach was to include everything and hope for the best. I got lucky and got accepted. But applying to architecture school has changed drastically since then. The competition is fiercer, and the expectations are clearer.
Here is what I have learned from years of reviewing portfolios: high school teachers are not equipped to give advice on architecture portfolios. They can tell you if your painting technique is good. They cannot tell you if your work demonstrates spatial reasoning. Your art teacher is not trying to mislead you. They simply do not know what architecture admission committees are looking for because they have never sat on one.
Your parents cannot help either, even if they want to. They can tell you if something looks professional. They cannot tell you if it answers the questions admission committees are actually asking.
The students I meet who are well connected—those with parents or relatives in architecture profession—have a significant advantage. They get feedback from people who know what works. They hear early on that the watercolor landscape is fine but the sketch exploring their neighborhood’s street layout is what matters.
They learn which projects to feature and which to cut. This is not about talent. It is about access to informed guidance.
If you do not have that access, you are building your portfolio without a map. You might get there eventually, but you will waste time on wrong turns, and you might miss the deadline entirely.
The Portfolio Counts for 60% of Your Admission Decision
I recently read that portfolios account for 60% of architecture school admission criteria. Read that again. More than half of your application outcome depends on this one component.
GPA and test scores matter, but they get you in the door. The portfolio is what gets you accepted. Treating it as just another requirement is the wrong approach. It deserves the majority of your time and attention.
I have worked with students who spent a full year preparing their portfolios. Not just working on projects, but actively seeking feedback and making revisions based on that feedback.
One student told me something I still remember: “It is not just about getting in, but I also want to know what I will be doing after school.” She understood that preparing her portfolio was also preparing for her career. She wanted to know if her interests aligned with what architects actually do.
With that attitude, she was not going to take chances. She found me online because she wanted honest feedback from someone who had been on the other side of the evaluation table.
That is the difference between students who get into their top choice schools and those who do not. The successful ones treat the portfolio as their main work, not an afterthought. They get expert feedback early, not the week before the deadline. They revise based on what actually matters to admission committees, not what sounds good to people who have never reviewed an architecture application.
If you submit your portfolio without that kind of informed feedback, you are guessing. And the stakes are too high to guess.
Final Thoughts
That high school senior I mentioned at the start did not need to become an architect overnight. She just needed someone who knew what admission committees look for. She had the ability and the passion. She simply needed direction on how to show those qualities in a way that mattered.
I have been exactly where you are. I have also been on the other side of the table, reviewing many portfolios and knowing within minutes which ones demonstrate the thinking we want to see. I know what works and what does not. I can look at your portfolio and tell you which projects strengthen your application and which ones are taking up space. I can show you how to reorganize your work to tell a clearer story about how you think.
If you are applying to architecture school and want honest feedback before you submit, I can help. Not because I will do the work for you, but because I can show you what your work is actually communicating and how to make it say what you need it to say.
That student got into four out of six schools. You could have sent her portfolio to a dozen art teachers and they all would have told her it looked great. Only someone who has reviewed portfolios for architecture admissions would have caught what was missing.
You do not need luck. You need informed guidance. And unlike my math teacher’s well-meaning but limited advice, I can give you exactly that.
Check out the Work with Me page to get started.
Life Outside of Design Studio 
This is great to read.
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