At this point, I am a big fan of $0, but I have a kid who doesn’t want to go to our urban campus of State College, even though it has a very very good art school. I don’t know what happened there, but it got talked down among her peers, none of whom have to live her life.
Kiddo really wanted to go to Pratt, but we are from a big city and she likes/is used to public transportation, and her brother lives in NYC (dance school). I don’t know anything about RISD besides that it sounds competitive (which is why kiddo didn’t want to apply there).
But I am waiting to see what other people say! We are in a similar boat. Up to mid-week, it seemed SAIC was an inevitable for her. They threw her a few bucks but even with her commuting, it’s going to be $30k plus a year net for us. Meanwhile, MICA just keeps upping the game to the point where there is a difference of $1K between it and SAIC, even including MICA room and board. Also, IMO they seem to appreciate her, but I don’t know if that’s salesmanship and whether that will change once she’s there.
We toured MICA in March but we were zombies (5 am flights will do that to you). People keep saying the area around Baltimore (something hill–Boulton?) is a bad neighborhood but I don’t know if that is true or racism or what–it looked fine to me.
Does anyone have any insight on MICA and the art community in Baltimore? Is there a scrappy, student-accessible arts community in Bmore? We went someplace close by for lunch, I took her to Fells point and then we were so sleepy we went to the airport and waited for our plane. Chicago has an accessible arts community, but the school here (SAIC) is kind of like, “Eh, come if you want, we don’t care,” and MICA is like, “OMG WE APPRECiATE YOU FOR and we NEED YOU HERE.”
Pluses of SAIC (for Kiddo) are that it’s pass-fail and very interdisciplinary, and a known entity, easily accessible by public transport.
I mean, I know what I think but I am wondering how it would look from a student’s POV, since it’s her life, not mine… Any thoughts would be extremely welcome. TIA for all the info and hand-holding.