Advice for kid applying to art and design schools

College Majors Visual Arts and Film Majors
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Background: I have two much older kids, but of the two younger ones, I was of some use to the older one in deciding on which schools to apply to, and in going through the process. That was a “traditional” process, and he did well.

My very youngest will be applying next year, but is an artist type, albeit one who thought that engineering would be his career until recently. He’s been doing art for some years (eg, Interlochen Arts Camp) and a lot of independent work, but has not built much of a portfolio and has had very little school-based art instruction.

He will be attending the RISD pre-college program in Graphic Arts. He fell in love with RISD during a visit, and it most likely will be his ED school. We are able to pay full-freight, so finances are not an issue. I have no doubt that, should he get in, he will be happy to attend.

That said, he’s by no means a shoo-in. Tough critics have praised his native skill, resourcefulness, and grit. His first SATs were ~2200; ACT results will arrive soonish (and he felt confident after the test, for whatever that’s worth). His GPA, otoh, will be around 3.3 or thereabouts, albeit at a competitive and demanding school. As I mentioned, his portfolio is thin, although the pieces in it are well regarded by people who are not shy in assessing art :slight_smile:

We imagine that a lot depends on the RISD pre-college program, which we understand to be graded. Additionally, it will provide a fair bit of material for his portfolio. We are guardedly optimistic, but we don’t have a plan B. As I said, if he were applying to more traditional liberal arts, engineering, etc. schools, I would have a better sense of how to proceed, but I’m new at this.

Any input is appreciated.

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I would suggest that he also look at some other schools. Not to say that he is not talented, but RISD is pretty competitive, and plan B is certainly a good idea. The pre-college program will give him an idea of what other talent he will be up against. My D was one of the top rated artist in her school, but when you get in with the rest of the kids who were top art kids in THEIR schools, it becomes a little different, and suddenly the competition is fierce. D wouldn’t even consider RISD because of it’s cutthroat (real or perceived) reputation.

That being said, he should take some time in deciding what kind of art he might prefer - illustration, animation, graphic design, printmaking, etc. Take some time in looking at various schools websites for both student and alumni work to see if they are doing what he likes.

Browsing thru this forum here will give you an idea of schools kids are considering.

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When my D was going, there were several moms on here who had kids al going at the same time. Each one went to a different school - MICA, MCAD, Carnegie Mellon, Cooper Union. Each had a different focus. Some schools have interdisciplinary programs. One student who went to either CM or Virginia Tech, can’t remember which) was also interested in robotics and sculpture, and that school was a great choice for him.

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@redbug119, thanks. We have been prepping him for being impressed (but hopefully not intimidated) by the other students. It’s unclear whether he’s even the best art student at his HS, since there’s nobody else doing the metal sculptures he does, but we’ve told him that many co-attendees will have been in drawing and art classes while he was taking physics and math – it would be expected that they’re much further along in foundational art work. He’s got some catching up to do.

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Hi @ixnaybob,
Applying to RiSD only is like applying to yale only (I see u in the yale parent’s thread ;). There are many great arts colleges. So kid will need to expand list of colleges.

His portfolio will expand greatly when he attends RiSD precollege. Look up national portfolio day. He should attend and bring his portfolio. The website will also list the names of many arts colleges. A search on cc will show what to expect on NPD. Also he can go to aicad.slideroom.com and get an informal portfolio review online.

Good luck!

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@YoHoYoHo, thanks for your well wishes. He will expand his list of colleges, but I feel much less able to advise him since I’m so new to arts colleges. I know some of the famous ones, and have to assume that many schools have arts programs that I wouldn’t think of (Carnegie Mellon has been mentioned, Cooper Union, etc.). Research, including on CC, will make things more clear.

In fairness, his brother applied early to Yale and University of Michigan; when he was accepted, he didn’t apply elsewhere and had a relaxing senior year :slight_smile:

Thanks for those portfolio leads.

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The pre-college program at RISD will help a lot. You may also consider signing your son up for figure drawing classes outside of school during the fall semester of his senior year. This will solidify his skills and showcase his natural talent. Also, while technical skill is important, of course, it’s vital that he convey a sense of who he is, especially in the drawings (beyond the portfolio) that RISD asks for as part of their application. Another technically accomplished bicycle will not do much to capture their attention. The assignments are creative challenges as much as they are tests of technical proficiency, so as long as he has some decent figures or gestures in his portfolio, he should feel free to really express himself when it comes to the required drawings. I also wouldn’t worry too much about the gap between his SAT scores and his GPA. My son was in the same boat academically (from the same kind of challenging prep school) and he was accepted RD to RISD, although he ended up choosing MICA instead.

Good luck with the process. RISD is a great place, and the strength of its design program makes it seem like an especially good fit for your artist/engineer son.

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His grades and test scores will matter at some schools and at others they will barely make a difference in terms of admissions. It all depends on how much portfolio matters. D is a studio art major at NYU (sculpture concentration) and they consider 50% portfolio and 50% academics. However schools like Carnegie Mellon rely mostly on portfolio.

All schools have different requirements for their portfolios. Many schools want to see a student’s technical skills and will expect to see drawings and paintings from direct observation and may ask for sketches using live models.

Depending on the school, some will expect to see conceptual and creative art that has a cohesive theme. They might want to see a mix of 2D and 3D art.

Many schools will give an informal review of your portfolio if you are able to get to their campuses. This can be in addition to National Portfolio days. Some schools participate at National Portfolio days, others do not. Some schools do regional visits in which they will review portfolios. You really need to research this based on each school’s web site.

D did an arts intensive summer program before senior year at NYU. She decided that she would love to apply ED. We live locally and she arranged for a portfolio review after completing the program. The advisor was impressed with her portfolio and it’s technical skills, but felt it was primarily based on school assignments. She spent the remainder of the summer creating her own art, that reflected her own voice and passion. It was ready for ED deadlines and she was accepted at both NYU (ED) and Pratt (EA.)

Not going to lie…RISD is crazy at National Portfolio day. It really turned D off. The review was like a quick moving assembly line. They gave very very few students the time of day. I don’t think they glanced at more than 2 of D’s pieces.

I would definitely add a bunch more schools to your list. My understanding is that RISD’s summer program has no portfolio review. He may feel confident at RISD when they are not weeding out students. But the story changes when they all apply as undergraduates. He will need to feel comfortable competing with the students who he feels are on the highest range of talent from the summer program because those “stars” are the ones who will likely be admitted.

Good luck!

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koolfish’s point about school assignments reminded me of my S’s private portfolio review at Art Center. To our surprise, the admissions rep was drawn to what my S thought of as his lesser pieces. The rep recognized the pieces he thought of as his best, but she could tell they were school assignments and urged him to avoid including them in his portfolio. She told him to include a few drawings from observation but suggested that the majority of pieces should be the kind of thing he does on his own, since those would better reflect the way his mind works. This sentiment was echoed by a couple of schools at Portfolio Day, and I’m convinced that his effort to stay true to himself helped him in his RISD application.

One last point: Don’t be too daunted by RISD. Yes, it’s exclusive, but their admissions policies mean that the kids they enroll aren’t always the most talented applicants. Because they don’t offer much merit aid, many middle-class kids unwilling to take on a lot of debt decide to go elsewhere. This means that RISD students come disproportionately from the ends of the socio-economic spectrum, narrowing the talent pool from which they draw and therefore making it a little more accessible to full-pay kids who may not have absolutely sterling portfolios. The portfolio still has to be great. It’s RISD, after all; the work that comes out of there is amazing. But it’s a mistake to assume that every student they enroll is a top-tier talent.

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@IxnayBob good idea sending him to RISD for precollege. He will have a wonderful time. My D attended last year in GD and it was known as the toughest major that summer. My D struggled because she was up against some of the best of the best . . . but there were other kids who hadn’t a clue when they signed up and they quickly decided that art school WASN’T for them. So you can see the program is a majorly good thing. We knew if our D survived and still wanted to apply to art school then it was meant to be. Your son will have an amazing time - and he will work hard!

Hopefully it’ll be the same instructor this summer. He sends recommendations to the admissions dept. and his kids usually get in with his good word. Yes, it is graded and the grades will be on his transcript (but no credit received). It will matter as far as RISD is concerned but not sure about other schools. My D did fantastic on her ACT’s and is a bright student (B/C calculus, lots of honors science, AP Euro, US, Gov’t, Art, etc.). Not the highest GPA due to severe ADHD which was finally diagnosed 10th grade. After that - straight A’s and solid and improving artwork. She did amazing work at RISD - it was a breakout experience for her - and it truly helped her get some wonderful scholarships. She’s attending Pratt this fall on 1/2 tuition scholarship, and also applied to RISD, MICA, and MCAD (here in Minneapolis - also very strong in graphic design. @Redbug119’s D attended there in illustration). She got in everywhere but RISD and was given wonderful scholarships to all. Given her struggles throughout most of her academic career, including a major lack of focus in her artwork, we were delighted with her outcomes. She loved RISD, by the way. It’s an amazing place. Definitely walk around the area when you drop him off. Beware that hill though! Better start training now! LOL. Brown took the gentle side and left RISD something that resembles San Francisco.

PM me if you wish to learn more from what she told me last year about the GD major, residential living, the program, what RISD is looking for, the application process, the instructor from last year, etc.

And I’m sorry but I’d have to disagree with the poster who compared RISD to Yale. RISD is Harvard. MICA is Yale. And the two schools have a wonderful rivalry and very much respect one another and even collaborate on a 'zine or two.

Good luck to your son this summer and throughout his application process!

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@Mamelot,
The reason that I said yale is because @ixnaybob and my kid both attend yale.

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@YoHoYoHo - oh, well, all right then. For a minute there I feared you had made an atrocious error LOL. :slight_smile:

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We on this board know that Yale is superior to Harvard :smiley:
Except for football in the last few years :((

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I have to be careful what I say, since S has a few friends at H, but he is very happy at Y and wouldn’t think of being anywhere else… especially H :slight_smile: . It is priceless to have a college freshman come home for his summer break so enthused about his first year. I can only hope that all parents experience this, regardless of where their kids attend.

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when my bro came home from his first year at H he was pretty excited as well. Heck, he was pretty excited at Christmas Break (or Winter Break they probably call it).

Almost 20 years later we were entertaining a young couple with their small children who we had just befriended here in MN. Husband was an attorney and seemed a nice type - he and his wife met in law school in the Midwest. I asked him during dinner “So-and-so, where did you you your undergrad?” He replied “Harvard”. I then said, “hey my brother went to Harvard. What year did you graduate?” He replied “19xx”. “Hey, that’s when my brother graduated. Do you know him? His name is (name withheld)”. The guy got an ashen look on his face, stared at me and practically sputtered out “YOU are (name withheld)'s SISTER???”.

None of us were quite expecting that. I never did find out what happened during that first crucial year when they were all in the freshman dorms together. Needless to say, it’s a small world. And my bro. apparently was just as obnoxious at college as I found him to be at home LOL.

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RISD is an amazing school and if your son is confident in his portfolio, I am sure he’ll have a good chance getting in. I applied to MICA, RISD, Ringling, SAIC, and was accepted too all 4 with a hefty amount of scholarships. MICA gave me about 40k a year, Ringling 25k, and RISD 46k a year. My family is mid-class, living in a suburban area in eastern shore. With SAIC I never followed up on their scholarship application because I knew their program was different from what I was looking for. My stats aren’t as impressive, I only sent 1 ACT score of 29 (my superscore was 31 but didn’t bother to send the superscore), summa cum laude (4.3+ gpa), 500+ service hours, high school in the middle of nowhere. However my portfolio was decent ( yhportfolio.webs.com has a few pieces I submitted).

MICA was basically my backup choice and I was very familiar with the school and many of the students that already attend the school. In my opinion… I wasn’t impressed with a lot of alumni work especially in the major I was interested in (illustration/computer animation) and many of my acquaintances that were accepted there had sub-par portfolio quality in comparison to RISD’s incoming freshman work. My parents disliked MICA because there were so many kids they knew that had bad reputations in my local high schools/ mediocre portfolio. However, that doesn’t mean I think MICA is a bad school, it’s a really great school with amazing resources and I have met some students with amazing work. Yet it wasn’t enough to convince me to attend MICA. Keep in mind that I probably have a very distinctive perspective because I live close to MICA and the Korean community around this area … isn’t ‘close-knit’ per say but things get around fast lol.

During NYPD RISD has a crazy line and everything is so rushed that I was turned off as well. But when I visited their campus and met up with an admission counselor privately, it was definitely a game changer for me. I’ll be attending RISD this upcoming fall and if you have any questions later on about freshman experience or the application process, feel free to contact me c:

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@winterbi, thank you for your input and offer. It’s early days, but so far we’ve been impressed with the helpfulness and warmth of everyone we’ve encountered at RISD. His portfolio is a bit thin, but it should fill out between now and application time.

Congratulations on your successes in being accepted and in being offered scholarships. I understand about extrapolating based on who you know who has attended a school. My older son weighed that heavily in his decision making, and tbh, it worked as well as any other method.

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I’m sure he’ll be able to make a good amount of portfolio pieces between now and until the application date. I hope my input doesn’t make anyone upset, it’s only what I have viewed directly from the peers around me and the community I’m involved in so it’s perfectly acceptable someone else will have a complete opposite look on MICA.

Also it’d be great if he could enter competitions like the YoungARTS foundation, congressional art competition, and the Scholastic Art&Writing awards, I know for sure that if you are chosen in YoungARTS/Scholastic you’ll be able to get money from many art and liberal art colleges c:

// meant to say NPD, not NYPD in my last post haha
I went to NPD in NY, Baltimore, and D.C so a bit of a word mix up there x)

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@winterbi, I doubt anyone would be upset by what you said. There’s an old saying: “that’s what makes horse races.” Sometimes your perception of a school is based on a random combination of factors that don’t really mean anything, and sometimes you will have tapped into something that is essential about a school and determines whether it’s a fit or not.

I admit it took me a minute to figure out what NYPD referred to :slight_smile:

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My D didn’t feel that MICA was the right fit for her; however, the kids there do some really amazing work in graphic design and the campus is wonderful. It’s great to have choices and the precollege experience so you can really figure out what kind of program works for you. D was telling me how happy she was that she was going to a school that she really liked (her way of saying it was a good fit). While I like Pratt, I really felt MICA had a lot going for it. I particularly love the interdisciplinary nature of the program. I think - and this is just my opinion - that at the BFA level these kids really need a LOT of open electives so they have the freedom to explore. But D prefers the structure of Pratt - ComD is interdisciplinary in that she will be exposed to advertising art, packaging, illustration, printing, etc. but they are required courses for her program. She really only has a few truly open electives and that’s just fine with her. Kind of like she would have been happy at RISD taking open electives during Wintersession. That amount of structure works for her. It wouldn’t have worked for me. But I’m not the one getting the BFA :slight_smile:

Basically there are going to be style differences among the various schools and also differences in the way that the program is structured. All that can be discovered through research, visits and the CC forum. But in all cases the foundation year should be excellent and for a student who is truly supposed to be at art college, the overall experience should be life-changing.