Art programs at non-art schools

College Search & Selection
41

Daughter decided on Stamps. She will be in the Alice Lloyd Arts & Writing residential college, and living in Alice Lloyd Hall residential dorm.

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42

My D is a junior at UIUC. Originally when applying to colleges, UIUC was not her first choice. She only applied because we felt it was important that she applied to one in-state school as a back up. She was an academically high stat HS student with an excellent portfolio. She felt going to an art college was what she really wanted. She thought initially majoring in illustration or animation, and digital media. She was accepted to RISD, Pratt, Ringling, USC, Skidmore, Bard, RIT, UIUC, DePaul. After visiting each campus, she decided RISD was the one. Upon returning home, she was offered a full ride named scholarship (for 4 years) from UIUCā€™s college of art. After 24 hours of considering the offer, she decided on UIUC to our surprise. (We told her RISD was her final choice before the news and she didnā€™t have to take UIUCā€™s offer.)

After the first semester at UIUC, she decided on Industrial Design major and has really thrived. She realized that a bigger school is what she really wanted and needed. She also had several opportunities to work on PhD and Masters engineering studentsā€™ research projects, all very technical and working towards getting to market with their concept. She knows that these opportunities would not have been available at art specific colleges. Working on these projects has really honed her research skills and given her wonderful opportunities to work in different sectors. I believe all of these opportunities were available to any students via college emails, etc. She always followed up to get more info and was offered the positions. One was offered to her by one of her professors. The point was sharing this is to show that there may be many paths for ā€œartā€ students and big non-art colleges have different things to offer.

My D did not apply to Stamps at UMich because she didnā€™t "like "the staff member who lead the info sessionā€¦ yes, it was a silly reason, but she also didnā€™t like that Stamps was in North Campus. She did not apply to Syracuse but was offered a merit of $20k from their rep at our local art portfolio day, if she applied. At that time, my D had her list of schools and she didnā€™t want to do one for application.

Good luck to your daughter.

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43

Thank you for your insight, and congratulations to your daughter! It is clear she will thrive in whatever she chooses to do! My daughter decided yesterday on going to Stamps instead of going to a traditional art school. She likes the variety of courses that she can take at LSA in addition to her Stamps classes, as well as for all the other myriad reasons that make UMich a great school!

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44

Congrats on Stamps decision. Perhaps our kids will connect at Stamps. We are OOS from NJ.

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45

Thank you! I am sure their paths will cross! We are OOS from Chicago.

46

Were you by any chance at Campus Day on March 11 and in the Stamps tour?

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Yes, we were there on March 11. It was a rather cold day!

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Hi fiftyfifty,

Which non-art schools did the retired graphic designer recommend to you? Iā€™m curious if there are other good options that havenā€™t been mentioned already in this thread.

Thanks!

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49

Well, she didnā€™t give any specific recommendations, because my kid was already done applying so that would have been water under the bridge. Her own degree was from CMU. The quality of art education there was excellent, she just wishes she had taken more non-art classes (thus getting a BA type degree not BFA.) In my sonā€™s case, she just said he shouldnā€™t go to any of the art schools he applied to (Pratt, Parsons, FIT), but should choose from one of his regular school options (some CUNYs, our state flagship, NYU, Fordhamā€“he ended up choosing Fordham as it came in the 2nd lowest COA of all his choices, and was in NYC where he really wants to be.) Her advice was partially based on the fact that my son has very broad interests already, not narrowly focused on art. She feels like even for kids with interests narrowly focused on art, they should try to get a broad education, and this is even more true of kids who are not narrowly focused.

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