Advice to future art students and their parents

College Majors Visual Arts and Film Majors
1

<p>If I had to give one piece of advice to parents of future art students, it would be this: start developing your portfolio as soon as possible. </p>

<p>Portfolios take several hundred hours to complete. If you start in your child's junior year, it could be too late. The best time to start is either in their freshmen or sophomore year.</p>

<p>Also, have them take pre college programs to experience what a school or art program is like. This looks good on applications and could be very helpful in developing skills. There are a number of strong precollege programs.</p>

<p>Furthermore, have your kids keep up their grades. Many colleges are requiring stronger academic quality from their applicants such as CMU, RISD and University of Cincinnati. This means take hard courses along with those art related courses. Don't let up.</p>

<p>In addition, when you are ready to apply to schools, make SURE that you check out the application deadlines. Although many schools have deadlines as late as Feb , some have deadlines as late as December and some, notably University of Cincinati, have deadlines, which include the high school transcript,by October 1! You really need to keep track of these deadlines, and be aware that they vary from school to school.</p>

<p>Furthermore, have all applications and essays, if available, completed by Sept 1 of their senior year. This will free up the year for AP courses, skills training etc. This means that you will need to start checking on schools, including investigating them in your child's junior year.</p>

<p>I should note that when you investigate the schools, you should also ask about what is needed in the portfolio. You need to make sure that you have the required number of pieces and that the work meets the admission's standards. For example, if a school wants slides, you will need to start preparing slides and not submitting digital work unless it is acceptable to submit digital work. Moreover, don't submit only one type of work such as just photos, portraits, paintings etc. Schools like to see work drawn from observation (NOT FROM PHOTOS) and like to see different media used.</p>

<p>Finally, get the FASFA form done as soon as possible regardless of your income. It not only is required for need based aid, but may be required for merit based aid too. Some schools will see a FASFA and assume that those parents want some form of aid.</p>

<p>If anyone has any other useful suggestions for any artistic field, feel free to post them here.</p>

2

<p>While I would agree with all of this (helpful, to-the-point) advice, I think I'd also add that a student who hasn't done all this should not get discouraged. Exceptions -- such as a winning portfolio composed solely of pencil drawings -- do exist. Also, many schools ask that the work in a portfolio be dated. They do want to see that the bulk of the portfolio is recent work, not work done in the student's freshman or sophomore years. My daughter had not done a lick of any kind of artwork until her sophomore year when she decided she was interested in architecture and so would need a portfolio. She did attend a summer program after her sophomore year, but did no portfolio-quality work there. She spent her junior year working like a dog and, yup, she had a private art teacher once a week. Still, most of her portfolio -- and it ended up being a stunner -- was composed of work she did from August of her senior year right up to the deadline for making slides. She got into every program to which she applied, all top-tier art schools and universities. Each school remarked upon how much they liked her portfolio. So don't be dismayed if you didn't begin early. Starting early is a good plan, for certain, but don't let the lack of a good plan hold you back.</p>

3

<p>Just wanted to echo Taxguy's point about the academics. CMU has a limited number of scholarships for fine arts majors and at the overview in January said they are based half on portfolio and half on academics.<br>
MICA and SAIC also have merit money for high academic achievement, above and beyond that for portfolio quality.</p>

4

<p>My d has a merit scholarship at RIT and it's based partly on her portfolio but also academics. She needed to be in the top 10% of her class have around 1200 on her SATs to be eligible for consideration - rank and SATS from 11th grade (senior yr info didn't count). I think her RIT grant is also based on her academics because I've heard of other kids with similar financial info who were offered loans instead. It paid to have a 4.0 with a tough curriculum (honors/APs).</p>

5

<p>re: advice to future art...........
oftentimes the best portfolio piece is something fresh, unfinished even, a page from a sketchbook. There are no timelines for starting a potfolio (or essay). Each should reflect who you are, that's it.</p>

6

<p>When my son went through the review process, I was surprised at the extent to which some universities looked for "conceptual pieces." It makes sense in retrospect that they're assessing more than just technical skill. That being said, my son was accepted everywhere he applied, so it may not have been make or break for him. Nevertheless, had he known in advance, he could have put more energy into the creative/symbolic/message part of his art.</p>

7

<p>I agree with keeping your grades up but I don't think you have to stress too much if you're starting your portfolio junior year. Like Alia's daughter I did absolutely no artwork until the end of my sophmore year, when I decided I was interested in costume design. I spent junior year writing a comic strip for a local alternative paper and copying masterwork. That summer I went to PreCollege at Pratt where I felt my skills advanced enough that I wanted to apply to regular art schools as well as theater design programs, I did and got in everwhere, many places with merit money and all of my work was from Pratt or the year after. </p>

<p>I do wish that I knew how much schools valued seeing related work. I feel I would have recieved more money if I had work in a series. Also, if you're going to take your own slides, shoot at least some of them as soon as you have some portfolio work done so you can see how to improve them, nobody likes an ugly slide.</p>

8

<p>Why do you think there is such an emphasis on strong academics in arts programs? We are struggling getting our film-student-wannabe 16 year old through pre-calc with a high grade, and I wonder what the point of this is. He'd so much rather be writing screenplays, doing pre-production work, etc., but instead he's spending 2+ hours per day on math!</p>

9

<p>A BFA is still a batchelor's degree. There is an academic component at whatever art school a child goes to. </p>

<p>The schools want driven, motivated kids with a desire to suceed. It's not just who draws best; it's also the thoughts, concepts and ideas that inspire the art.</p>

10

<p>"Why do you think there is such an emphasis on strong academics in arts programs?"</p>

<p>A good artist (or designer) is one who can, among other things, make deep and meaningful connections between concepts that are not normally considered "related". It is through these connections that a form of synthesis - and innovation - occurs. "Academics" (and by this I think you mean "liberal arts" or "general education") are the major form of these new connections. Writing, reading, and thinking analytically about concepts are the pathways to forging these new connections. </p>

<p>Calculus, in and of itself, is probably not going to be of huge use to a student studying filmmaking. The underlying logical that must be grasped to perform calculus most likely will help your child immensely (and I mean help with regard to making better films; the whole "business" side of things is another ball of wax).</p>

11

<p>timely askes,"Why do you think there is such an emphasis on strong academics in arts programs? "</p>

<p>Response: I certainly agree with jkolko; however, let me add one more thing that I never thought of. University of Cinccinati doesn't require a portfolio for its design programs. I asked a professor there for the reason in not requiring a portfolio. Her response was that they have found that kids with strong academic profiles tend to be able to think more creatively and think"outside of the box." They also feel that these kids can learn techniques and software applications easier than those without strong academic credentials.</p>

12

<p>please also review the school itself that you're applying to.. especially with graphic design. different schools teach different aspects / approaches.. a lot of people don't realize this and just go to whatever school [ myself included. ] also what style you [ or your child ] wants to pursue.. is it more design based, or more geared towards the average consumer?</p>

<p>i go to syracuse for communcations design and i'm insanely unhappy because i didn't realize there was a difference between comm design & graphic design, and i have no interest whatsoever really in advertising, but my interests lie more in printmaking/design theory/typography.. i'm in the process of transferring.. waiting to hear back from cal arts, which is a school based on more on the bauhaus system [ all students together in studio space, extreme experimention, etc. ]</p>

13

<p>//i'm in the process of transferring.. waiting to hear back from cal arts, which is a school based on more on the bauhaus system [ all students together in studio space, extreme experimention, etc. ]//</p>

<p>Well...then you will be disappointed - partly - as the Bauhaus did NOT encourage extreme experimentation at all - although its singular approach was revolutionary. The Bauhaus developed a systematic approach to design based upon Modernist ideals, and Modernism is a thing of the past - at least partly as visual design and communications have become much more pluralistic. And at least two of the faculty at CalArts, Ed Fella and Jeffrey Keedy, are very much Postmodernist designers and highly regarded historically in this respect. I believe Lorraine Wilde is regarded similarly. Fella came out of Cranbrook under the leadership of Katherine McCoy, who advocated Deconstructionism, which is very unBauhaus-like.</p>

<p>However, the Bauhaus did initiate a revolutionary approach to design at the time, and had the most amazing assemblage of faculty, ever! For example, Lazlo Moholy-Nagy, Herbert Bayer, etc. And the Bauhaus unified all the applied arts under one roof. So yes CalArts may well be a haven for experimentation and it may have a pedogogical system similar to the Bauhaus, but be careful not to liken CalArts style to the Bauhaus.</p>

<p>Also, there isn't a specific difference between "graphic design" and communication design". It simply comes down to a matter of subjective interpretation.</p>

14

<p>yes i said it was baed on the bauhaus and not generally is exactly like the bauhaus [ obviously more based on the studio/peer aspect than on the experimenation.. but i like cal arts because its cal arts, not the bauhaus 3.0. </p>

<p>and there is a different.. communications is based more on advertising/marketing.. trust me i got this lecture on way too many occasions.</p>

15

<p>//and there is a different.. communications is based more on advertising/marketing.. trust me i got this lecture on way too many occasion//</p>

<p>No. Each school interprets the nature of its department differently regardless of what it calls itself. You can't look up the terminolgy in a dictionary to find a specific definition for each. A design dept. at one college might focus more upon professional practice and another school might emphasize the theoretical, both under the umbrella of G.D. There is no standard or agreed definition. Many theoretically-based schools now describe their practice as visual communications because of the wide variety of media graphic designers use (not just "graphic" anymore), and that the function of design is to communicate, period - whether it is information design or for persuasion, etc. </p>

<p>Anyway, how the terms are applied are subjective; trust me, I've spun this conversation with many designers and educators.</p>