Individuals who have completed a pre-professional four-year Bachelor of Arts or Bachelor of Science degree with a major in architecture or environmental design may be eligible for admission with advanced standing, subject to the review of the admissions committee. Such applicants will be considered for placement in the third term of the program, thus reducing the required course of study to two-and-one-half years.
Applicants who are granted advanced standing must have completed the same preparation in college-level calculus, physics, and history as described in the previous section, as well as undergraduate courses that are roughly analogous to the course of study of the first year of the graduate program, demonstrating high achievement in design.
Individuals admitted with advanced standing normally begin with the third term of the program and must complete a minimum of five terms of full-time study in residence. Under special circumstances, students may receive permission to reduce their course load and extend their studies over a longer period of time.
Please note that the MArch program is now designated as a STEM program. Accordingly, international students holding F-1 visas may be eligible for a 24-month Optional Practical Training (OPT) extension on top of their initial OPT of 12 months, for a total of 36 months, following graduation. Each F-1 student must petition United States Citizenship and Immigration Services to approve the 24-month STEM extension, and Harvard does not represent or warrant that USCIS will grant any individual petition.
BRICK: THICK/THIN STU-1311 Frano Violich
In the United States, most registration boards require a degree from an accredited professional degree program as a prerequisite for licensure. The National Architectural Accrediting Board (NAAB), which is the sole agency authorized to accredit professional degree programs in architecture offered by institutions with U.S. regional accreditation, recognizes three types of degrees: the Bachelor of Architecture, the Master of Architecture, and the Doctor of Architecture. A program may be granted an eight-year term, an eight-year term with conditions, or a two-year term of continuing accreditation, or a three-year term of initial accreditation, depending on the extent of its conformance with established education standards.
Doctor of Architecture and Master of Architecture degree programs may require a non-accredited undergraduate degree in architecture for admission. However, the non-accredited degree is not, by itself, recognized as an accredited degree.
The Harvard University Graduate School of Design’s Department of Architecture offers the following NAAB accredited degree programs:
Master of Architecture (non-pre-professional degree + 105 graduate credit hours on the NAAB scale) Note: this is equivalent to 140 units in the GSD course unit calculations.
Master of Architecture AP (pre-professional degree + 75 graduate credit hours on the NAAB scale) Note: this is equivalent to 100 units in the GSD course unit calculations.
