Check the schools in N.Y.City… Why? Location, location, location! You’ll have the best of many worlds at your fingertips.
Walking distance/subway ride away you’ll have many of the great architectural styles for you to study in context: see samples of brownstone apartment buildings, bars from the 1700’s, sky scrapers old & new! From Mies van der Rohe’s Seagram Building, Cass Gilbert’s Woolworth Building, William Van Alen’s Chrysler Building, to the old icons as the Empire State Building and the Chrysler Building, not to mention the nearly finished Cook+Fox’s Bank of America and the beginning David Childs’ Freedom Tower. If your cup of tea is more towards the residential you’ll have plenty of inspiration (and firms to apply for internship). You can find many here – http://www.lowermanhattan.info/construction/project_updates/
Another great plus to studying in NY is that we are at the hub of many other design & architecturely rich locations… 2 hrs by train from Pennsylvania, a few more to downtown Boston. For $25 roundtrip fare you can take a bus to Washington DC, and on your return you can reward yourself with great Mediterranean cuisine in Little Italy or gastronomically rich Asian dishes in Chinatown (the buses depart from here).
We have amazing bookstores to complement your future studies. My favorite is th bookstore of the Municipal Art Society, which in the words of a review site “is stuffed with architecture and design books by Frank Lloyd Wright, Rem Koolhaas, and others, as well as illustrated retrospectives and monographs on major world architects. New York architecture is a specialty.”
And what do you do when you are not studying? There is too much to list, from museums, art galleries district, bar-scene to performing venues galore (Broadway shows, Madison Square Garden & Lincoln Center come to mind.
Many of the schools have also exchange programs so a trip to Europe or other faraway destination is possible.
Regardless if you choose this amazing city of ours or not, best of luck in your studies!