Art Major - how much do rankings matter?

College Search & Selection
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My D23 is fortunate to have several great options for acceptances this year. She attends a public art magnet school and has developed a strong art portfolio that, along with awards, convinces us that she has a shot at making a career with some sort of art focus. She also has a penchant for STEM, so she decided to apply to universities rather than art-only schools so she could maybe find her way to advance her interests in both fields during her 3-4 years in college (she has about a year’s worth of AP credits).

Right now we are looking at 4 options: UCLA, the Stamps School at UMich, Boston University, and UMD.

UMD gave her a full ride, which is a huge honor. However, after a 1:1 tour of the art department, it appears that the program would be a repeat of her high school program, which she does not want to do. If she went to UMD, she would likely major in Physics - which would be a huge shift from what she envisioned for herself, but a full ride is hard to ignore. Physics would be the safe route from a career standpoint, given her interest in space and the connections that UMD offers to internships at NASA. Yes, she could do art as more of a hobby, but with the demands of launching a new STEM career she doesn’t see herself dedicating the time to it that would be needed to make some traction in the art world.

BU offered her a fantastic and very unexpected $45K scholarship. BU has a stronger art department than UMD, but it isn’t clear through our research how many students actually go on to make art their career. There are some alumni examples on the website - some with Master’s degrees, some not - but we can’t find many off-website examples of artists who have “made it”.

Then we come to the UCLA and UMich options, which by most accounts are listed on most lists of the top art programs in the country (not just US News, which I know is focused on the grad programs). Our research seems to indicate that success in the art world is 90% connections and 10% talent. If we were lucky enough to be a CA or MI resident, these schools would be a no-brainer because of their standing in the art world, and given the talent they cultivate. But we don’t live there, so these options are in the mid-$60K/year for tuition, room, and board (understanding of course that CA has more travel expenses). After some number crunching and a fortunate bonus at work, this cost is at the top of our budget.

We have visited all but UCLA, which we will visit in a couple of weeks. She liked the UMich campus the most, didn’t like that BU doesn’t have a centralized campus center, and UMD was “fine” (her words).

For those of you who know anything about creative careers - how much does ranking really matter in getting those real-world opportunities?

Thanks for your input!

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I think that is the first time I’ve ever seen this.

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Physics is indeed a safe major as long as you don’t intend a career in Physics. Also OP must be thinking in relative terms vs art.

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Yes when I said “safe”, I meant potentially more applicable to a broader set of careers than the Fine Arts. For example, jobs in our area for grads with a Bachelors degree in Physics are regularly advertised by the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab.

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Congratulations to your daughter on her acceptances, and the full ride to UMD!

This is a very long shot, but has she inquired as to whether or not an arrangement could be made that would allow her to participate in the Baltimore Collegetown consortium? The consortium’s website is under construction at the moment, so not particularly helpful, but MICA’s page on it is here:

Since other U. of Maryland campuses (like UMBC) participate, maybe there’s a way for her to? There have to be more advanced classes for her at the Maryland Institute College of Art.

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Thanks! I actually entertained this option but there are a few hurdles. UMD College Park doesn’t participate, although maybe we could talk our way in. She would also need to then keep a car in College Park, which we weren’t planning on having her do. Probably the biggest challenge is the studio time required. UMD-CP is 45-50 minutes away on a good day, and with other classes she isn’t likely to have the time in her schedule to commute 2 hours round trip plus do all the studio time on top of the actual class.

DC is more accessible from College Park. I looked into what was available there and it seems like the Corcoran School for Art is the best in that city. But it is now part of GW and she was accepted there too. Although she got a good scholarship from them, the net cost is within $5k of UCLA (obviously without the travel expense favored in). If she doesn’t go to a “ranked” school, it would seem in that case that BU would be the better option because of the bigger scholarship.

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This is also something that I’m very interested in, as my high school junior plans to seek a degree in studio art, most likely at a university or liberal arts school.

In terms of art career success, I take it that you’re talking about fine art (selling your own art) with the “90% connections” comment; as opposed to being an illustrator, animator, graphic artist, etc. In the latter fields, I understand that it’s mostly about the artist’s talent (their portfolio). There are several professional artists out there who opine that an art degree, especially an expensive one from an art school, is unnecessary at best and wasteful at worst. Personally, I’d be worried about my kid’s future in art if it seemed like she was pursuing a future in art half-assedly. But she’s very focused and organized, so I’m confident that she can make a great career in art.

Anyhow, those are all great schools. I’m a UCLA alumnus, but my daughter did a summer art program at Stamps two years ago and will likely to a summer art program at BU this summer. The biggest differentiator between those schools for us is cost: UCLA and UM are prohibitively expensive OOS. BU is expensive, but offers decent financial aid and a small hope of merit aid. I don’t know anything about UMD, but if there is collaboration with MICA, that would boost its art stock.

I think UCLA offers only a BA in Art, as opposed to a BFA, if that matters. I think BU and Stamps also offer BAs too, but my impression is that BFAs are much more popular at both schools. In any event, the BA allows more flexibility and a possible double major/degree with physics. BFAs, as I understand them, make it extremely difficult to specialize in anything else academically.

More on UCLA . . . while I’m sure its undergraduate program is great, I suspect that UCLA’s art reputation is largely founded on its MFA program. I have to imagine that a stellar MFA program likely translates to at least a good undergraduate program, but who knows. As for the school more generally, I am often taken aback by people’s perceptions of the school on boards like this. I was an English major and never had complaints about class size or getting into classes, I had wonderful and very personal relationships with several professors, and I was able to do two independent study projects, which are the equivalent of one-on-one classes with the professors of my choosing. Nor did I ever feel like I lacked resources or needed additional administrative handholding. I loved my time there, and it’d probably be my top choice for my kid if it were more affordable.

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Thanks for your thoughts, and I’m glad to see there is another kid out there with diverse interests like my daughter!

She isn’t worried about the size issue that most people say can be a problem at UCLA and UMich because the art programs are so small. Stamps has a freshman class of 150, and UCLA is even smaller. Both tout the tight knit culture of the major. UCLA also shares graduate level professors with undergrad courses. I think she will find her people in her art major no matter the size of the overall university. She also got into USC which also makes some of these ranking lists, but unfortunately without merit so she put that one in the “no” bucket.

She was really disappointed when she toured the art department at UMD because my frugal child is all about not spending money unnecessarily, even if it is coming from her parents’ bank account. It is against her grain to walk away from anything free, but we have to look at the big picture and which program will set her up for the best chance of success. Yes she is looking at fine art rather than graphic design or animation. Of course like any college kid, she could change her mind when she gets there, but her awards to date have been in painting and sculpture.

Best wishes to your daughter in her upcoming search! If you are looking for colleges that give merit, you might also want to add RIT to her list. My daughter was accepted there too and really liked the program, just not Rochester.

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Thank you and congratulations! Great options.

I work at our local flagship state school, where tuition is free. So we’ll likely be in a similar dilemma a year from now.

This may or may not matter to you or your daughter, but one factor that’s important to us is each school’s study-away and study-abroad programs. We’ll be considering some LACs, and one way to counterbalance the broadness of the liberal arts education is for the kid to study at an actual art school for a semester or two. For example, a number of schools allow kids to study at the University of Arts London or the Glasgow School or Art. Other schools have programs with actual art schools. Wesleyan, for instance, lets students study at Parsons in NYC for a semester.

I can personally attest that the UC Education Abroad Program is (or at least was) fantastic, although I’m not sure if it has any art school options.

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Good point! I know BU has a BU School of Art location in Venice but I didn’t look to see if they partner with other art schools for additional study abroad programs. I need to see where UCLA and UM students go. UAL would be an awesome program. Will look!

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I think you mentioned that you’re going to visit UCLA soon. I’m biased as an alumnus, but UCLA has an awesome campus. IMO, it looks and feels like what many of us imagine to be the platonic ideal of a college campus, unless one wants crusty old gothic architecture.

Funny story: Last summer while on vacation, I took my then 15-year-old daughter to UCLA in the hope that it would inspire her. It was 70 degrees and not a cloud or hint of smoggy haze in the sky. Things were going so well until I noticed in the brochure that OOS annual costs were north of $70k. Huge backfire! It’s what woke me up to current realities and made me realize that I needed to start doing a lot of research. I love UCLA and will continue to sing its praises, but it’s not worth ~$300k for this middle-class family.

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No doubt the price is steep, although $70K+ is a little higher than the actual when you take out things like health insurance, which they include in that total COA estimate but we already have covered under our family plan. We focus only on tuition, room, board and any mandatory fees, since things like “personal expenses” are so subjective. TR&B for UCLA is just over $64K for OOS - still eye watering when compared to in state, but nowhere close to the $85K of a private school. My daughter got some nice scholarships from private schools that still come in higher than OOS for UCLA. UCLA also has a cool new program where they guarantee that your tuition won’t go up for a maximum of 6 years of enrollment, so none of those sneaky increases when you are already committed.

Plus we are lucky that my daughter has a little over a year’s worth of AP and dual enrollment credits that UCLA will accept, so it’s like getting a 25% discount. They are also the only school on her short list that will take her AP studio credits, which amounts to 3 classes worth of electives. If your daughter has taken any dual enrollment classes, there is a cool site called transferology dot com that can tell you if the specific classes taken at the original school (in our case, a community college) will be accepted by the new school.

We are visiting UCLA next week, and I’m really looking forward to it! We are getting down to the wire for a decision, and I think she is between UCLA and BU. Two very different experiences, but based on the way you describe the UCLA campus versus what we know of BU’s narrow urban campus, I think she will end up a Bruin!

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Awesome! Like I said, I loved and continue to love UCLA. Walking between Royce and Powell is always inspiring for me. Aside from touring the campus, you might consider spending a few hours in Westwood, which is an integral part of UCLA. Maybe have a cookie sandwich at Diddy Reese and see a movie at the Fox or Bruin movie theaters. (These are old-school, ornate theaters where movie premiers are or were often held with very savvy, enthusiastic audiences–it is or was a different experience than seeing a movie at your standard suburban cineplex.) I don’t know if you have In N’ Outs in Maryland, but there’s one in Westwood. I could constantly smell it from my apartment junior year, which did not aid my already poor dietary habits.

Coincidentally, my mountain child will be spending a month at BU this July at its pre-college art program. We’ll see how she likes actually going to school in a city. She’s visited San Francisco and Tokyo many times and has never been wild about either. But I think actually living in a city with (prospective) friends may affect that.

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Thanks for the UCLA tips! And I hope your daughter has fun at BU. Boston is an amazing college town with so much to do, and it has really become home for my daughter who is currently a Northeastern student. The only con on my daughter’s BU list is the lack of a “contained” campus, but I’m not sure if that would have been so important to her if we hadn’t then toured Northeastern, which does have a centralized campus, on the same day.

Lots of good decisions to make!

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