Best Extracurriculars for Future Architects and Designers

Author: Extracurricular Hub

Article Summary

Best extracurriculars for future architects and designers. RISD, Cornell AAP, Cooper Union, Pratt, ACE Mentor, design competitions, portfolio building, and a 4-year roadmap.

Full Article

Architecture and design programs are different from almost every other major. Schools like the Cooper Union, Cornell AAP, RISD, SCI-Arc, Pratt, Carnegie Mellon, and Syracuse admit students based primarily on portfolio quality. A perfect SAT and a 4.0 GPA will not get you into a top architecture program if your portfolio is weak — and a strong portfolio can compensate for an otherwise mid-range application. The path to a competitive portfolio is well-defined: develop foundational drawing and modeling skills, learn industry software, attend at least one substantive pre-college program, enter design competitions, and build a body of original work that shows how you think. This guide walks through each piece. What Architecture and Design Admissions Officers Want Top programs consistently emphasize the same portfolio signals: Original design work — Projects you conceived, designed, and produced (not just art class assignments) Process documentation — Sketches, iterations, and failed attempts that show how you think, not just polished final outputs Technical fluency — Drawing by hand, basic CAD, physical model-making, and ideally one rendering or visualization tool Spatial reasoning — Evidence that you understand how buildings, products, or spaces work in three dimensions Conceptual range — A portfolio that shows curiosity across scales, from a chair to a building to a neighborhood Sustainability awareness — Increasingly, schools want to see that you think about environmental impact The portfolio is the application. Everything in this guide should ladder up to building it. The Single Best Free Year-Round Program: ACE Mentor The ACE Mentor Program is a free, year-round, after-school program that pairs high school students with practicing architects, contractors, and engineers (architecture, construction, engineering — hence ACE). Teams work on a real or simulated project from concept through presentation over the academic year, often producing site visits, design reviews, and a final showcase. ACE has chapters in most major U.S. cities. It costs nothing, builds real-world relationships with practicing architects who can later write recommendations, and produces concrete portfolio work. If you have access to an ACE chapter, joining is the single highest-leverage thing you can do as a future architect. Top Pre-College Summer Programs Pre-college architecture summer programs are paid, intensive, and produce both portfolio work and faculty letters of recommendation. Aim to attend at least one before senior year. RISD Pre-College Six-week residential program at the Rhode Island School of Design with an architecture major option. Students complete college-level studio coursework and produce substantial portfolio pieces. Cornell Summer College — Architecture Three- and six-week sessions at Cornell's College of Architecture, Art, and Planning (AAP). Studio-based, intense, and taught by Cornell faculty. Columbia GSAPP Introduction to Architecture Three-week residential or commuter program at Columbia's Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation focused on architectural design fundamentals. Pratt PreCollege Four-week intensive at Pratt with an architecture concentration available. Strong portfolio outcomes and well-respected by other design schools. Carnegie Mellon Pre-College Architecture Six-week immersion at Carnegie Mellon's School of Architecture. Heavy on technical drawing and digital tools. SCI-Arc Design Immersion Days Shorter Saturday-based program plus longer summer offerings at the Southern California Institute of Architecture. Particularly relevant for students interested in experimental and digital architecture. Browse all options in our Summer Programs directory. Design Competitions Future City Competition — Middle and early high school competition where teams design a sustainable city of the future. Includes essay, virtual city in SimCity, physical model, and presentation. AIA (American Institute of Architects) student competitions — Local AIA chapters frequently run student design competitions with real prize money and exhibition opportunities. Bee Breeders — International architecture competition platform with frequent open calls. Many competitions explicitly welcome students. Vectorworks Design Scholarship — Annual scholarship competition for students using design software, including high school applicants. National Trust for Historic Preservation contests — Various design and essay competitions related to historic architecture. Find more in our Competitions section. Software and Technical Skills You do not need to be an expert, but architecture programs expect basic fluency with at least one or two of these tools by the time you apply: SketchUp — The most accessible 3D modeling tool. Free for personal use. Start here. AutoCAD — Industry-standard 2D drafting software. Free with student licenses from Autodesk. Rhino — Powerful 3D modeling used heavily in contemporary architecture. Steeper learning curve but transformative once mastered. Revit — Building information modeling (BIM) software. Increasingly the professional standard. Adobe Creative Suite — Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign for portfolio production and presentation graphics. Hand drawing — Still essential. Practice perspective, isometric, and orthographic projection regularly. Build Your Portfolio by Subspecialty Design is broad. The strongest applicants show focused interests within it. Architecture Original building designs at the scale of a house or small civic building Physical models in chipboard, basswood, or 3D-printed components Site analysis drawings and conceptual diagrams Interior Design Redesigned room or space documented with floor plans, elevations, and material boards Color, light, and material studies Furniture layout and circulation diagrams Industrial and Product Design Designed and prototyped products (chair, lamp, tool, container) Sketch sheets exploring multiple form options for a single problem 3D printed prototypes with iteration documentation Urban Planning and Landscape Architecture Site analysis of a real neighborhood or park Proposal for improving a public space (intersection, plaza, schoolyard) Photo documentation of how people use existing spaces Sustainable and Green Design Design study showing how passive solar, ventilation, or material choices reduce energy use Adaptive reuse proposal for an existing building Material research project on alternatives to concrete or other carbon-intensive materials Your 4-Year Architecture Roadmap Freshman Year Take art and drawing classes; develop basic hand-drawing skills Start a sketchbook habit — one drawing or sketch per day, however small Photograph buildings around your community thoughtfully If your area has an ACE Mentor chapter, join Track everything in the Activities Tracker Sophomore Year Begin learning SketchUp and basic Adobe tools Take AP Art if available; consider community college drafting or art courses Enter the Future City Competition or a local AIA student contest Start your first independent design project (a chair, a small structure, a redesigned room) Junior Year Attend a pre-college summer program (RISD, Cornell, Pratt, GSAPP, CMU, or SCI-Arc) Build a personal portfolio website to host your work Reach out to local architecture firms about shadowing or part-time intern work Move toward AutoCAD, Rhino, or Revit beyond SketchUp Senior Year Polish 8-12 portfolio pieces representing range and depth Write portfolio captions and process descriptions for each project Get faculty or mentor letters from your pre-college program or ACE leaders Apply early — many top architecture programs have January portfolio deadlines Internships and Firm Exposure Architecture firms are often willing to host motivated high school students, especially for unpaid summer or after-school work. The most accessible options: Local independent firms — Small firms (one to ten architects) are far more flexible about high school help than large corporate firms. Send personalized emails referencing specific projects from their website. Construction companies — Even non-design construction firms can be valuable for understanding how buildings actually get built. ACE Mentor often connects students with both architecture firms and contractors. Urban planning departments — City planning offices and nonprofit planning organizations often have student volunteer roles. Makerspaces — Community makerspaces give you access to laser cutters, 3D printers, and CNC routers that are essential for building physical models. Browse current opportunities in our Internships directory. Common Portfolio Mistakes to Avoid Reviewers see thousands of portfolios. The same handful of mistakes show up over and over and immediately weaken otherwise promising applications: Showing only finished beauty shots — Without sketches, iterations, and process pages, your portfolio looks like polished art class assignments rather than design thinking. Always show the messy middle. Including too much fine art — Drawing and painting are valuable foundations, but architecture programs want to see design work: things you composed, structured, and resolved. A portfolio that is 80 percent observational drawings reads as an art portfolio, not an architecture portfolio. All-digital or all-handmade — A balanced portfolio shows hand drawing, physical model-making, and at least basic digital tools. Going entirely in one direction limits your demonstrated range. Missing scale — Plans, sections, and elevations should always include some indication of scale or human figure. Drawings without scale read as visual exercises rather than architectural propositions. Weak labeling — Every project should have a brief title, a one-sentence brief, and short captions explaining the drawings. Reviewers spend less than a minute per portfolio on first pass; help them follow your work. Rendering over thinking — A photorealistic Lumion render of a generic glass box is less impressive than a careful hand-drawn section showing how light enters a small room. Substance over shine. Imitating a famous architect's aesthetic — Reviewers can spot a Zaha Hadid imitation or a Frank Lloyd Wright pastiche immediately. Show your own thinking, even if it is rough. Skipping the personal pieces — Sketchbook spreads, observational drawings of buildings you find interesting, and a hand-drawn travel journal page or two humanize your portfolio and signal genuine curiosity. Document Your Process, Not Just Your Product The biggest mistake high school portfolio applicants make is showing only finished work. Architecture admissions officers want to see how you think. For every project, document: The problem you were solving — What was the brief? What constraints did you have? Initial sketches and brainstorming — Even rough ideation pages Iterations and dead ends — Designs you abandoned and why Process photos — Building physical models, working at the computer, talking with mentors Final presentation drawings — Plans, sections, elevations, perspectives, and a model Reflection — What you learned and what you would do differently next time Putting It All Together Architecture and design admissions are unlike any other major: portfolio is the headline, and everything else supports it. Build foundational hand and digital skills, attend a real pre-college program, enter at least one competition, and document your design thinking — not just your finished images. By senior year you should have eight to twelve refined portfolio pieces and a clear point of view about what you find interesting in the built world. Find pre-college programs in our Summer Programs directory, design competitions in our Competitions directory, and use the Application Tracker to manage portfolio deadlines and supplemental materials across each school you apply to. Frequently Asked Questions Do I need to take art classes to apply to architecture school? Yes, in practice. Strong drawing and visual literacy are essential, and almost all admitted students have substantial art coursework. AP Art, AP Art History, and any community college art classes you can take are all valuable. What is more important: hand drawing or computer skills? Both, but hand drawing matters more for your portfolio. Schools want evidence that you can think and communicate visually before they care about your software fluency. Software is teachable in college; the visual sensibility from years of drawing is much harder to acquire later. Is a five-year B.Arch better than a four-year pre-professional degree? It depends. The five-year Bachelor of Architecture (B.Arch) is a professional degree that prepares you to take the licensing exam after graduation. The four-year Bachelor of Arts or Bachelor of Science in architecture is preparatory and requires a follow-on M.Arch. The four-year path leaves more flexibility; the five-year path is faster to licensure. How big should my portfolio be? Most schools want 10-20 pieces. Quality over quantity. Eight excellent projects with strong process documentation will beat fifteen mediocre ones every time. Show range across scales (object, room, building, site) and media (drawing, modeling, digital). Can I apply to architecture school without attending a pre-college summer program? Yes, but it is harder. Pre-college programs produce both portfolio work and faculty letters that are hard to replicate. If a paid program is not financially feasible, ACE Mentor (free, year-round) is the strongest substitute.

Frequently Asked Questions

Do I need to take art classes to apply to architecture school?

Yes, in practice. Strong drawing and visual literacy are essential. AP Art, AP Art History, and any community college art classes you can take are all valuable additions to your portfolio profile.

What is more important: hand drawing or computer skills?

Both, but hand drawing matters more for your portfolio. Schools want evidence that you can think and communicate visually before they care about software fluency. Software is teachable in college; visual sensibility from years of drawing is harder to acquire later.

Is a five-year B.Arch better than a four-year pre-professional degree?

It depends. The five-year B.Arch is a professional degree that prepares you to take the licensing exam after graduation. The four-year BA or BS requires a follow-on M.Arch but leaves more flexibility.

How big should my portfolio be?

Most schools want 10-20 pieces. Quality over quantity. Eight excellent projects with strong process documentation will beat fifteen mediocre ones. Show range across scales and media.

Can I apply to architecture school without attending a pre-college summer program?

Yes, but it is harder. Pre-college programs produce both portfolio work and faculty letters that are hard to replicate. If a paid program is not financially feasible, ACE Mentor (free, year-round) is the strongest substitute.