Awesome @Vineyarder ! I wouldn’t worry too much about the drawing class - I know in a lot of foundation classes the teachers will know intended majors and such so alot of time a good attitude and at least trying is what’s needed to pass. One of my classes has drawing assignments for the first half and really my goal is to get them to make a hand/brain connection to the concepts I’m trying to teach. Some students clearly this is their thing and their drawings are great so my approach is to keep nudging them to develop their skills even further. Others struggle more, but I grade in a way that meeting the requirements and making a decent attempt are fine.
Same view about MICA. Finally it was Pratt/MWP and MICA for my D and she had a hard time not to fall for MICA. The admission counselor was awesome and communicated immediately even over the weekends. We really got a good vibe for that school and that started from our National Portfolio Day visit. However even after a good amount of scholarship (merit, artistic and NAHS) MWP beat MICA in money and D’ s dream has been NY always.
After our decision was made the counselor wrote back asking what school she was attending and why. When she mentioned Pratt/MWP, he replied saying he is a Pratt alumni and if not MICA he is happy its Pratt 
We are almost at the end of our journey. All the dilemma and thoughts and questions have finally come together to a time now - most kids are moving in soon!! Good luck to all. I am thankful to this community who have directed us more than any counselor at school did.
Not sure where to post my thought about taking the AP credits. Just recently D got an email with 6 of her dual credits transferred to Pratt/MWP, besides the 9 AP credits. And so long we thought (and were sorry) that out of some 24 AP credits she had they take only 9. So just for the information of those oncoming students who are debating whether to take AP class or not or how many, I hope this helps. If you have the chance to take college classes (we have our school offer dual credits via the community college) take them! Pratt takes no more than 9 AP credits - scores 4 or more, (the number varies with school), BUT the college/dual credits transfer in a diff category and if you take them balanced out with the AP classes, you might end up with a good number of credits for college. For us, all dual credits are accepted in all colleges instate (texas) but it seems like a lot of OOS takes them too. D has 15 transferred credits (she would have 27+ if she went in state) for Pratt now, a whole semester worth of classes. The extra 6 which we didn’t expect makes us feel good now.
Best of Luck to everyone in their Journey!
^ Pratt is one of the most - if not THE most - restrictive art/design school when it comes to AP credits. My D didn’t do AP lang/comp (Pratt doesn’t accept Lit/Comp credits) and none of her history or art. Just B/C calc - 3 credits there so she was still on the hook for another Math/Science course. MICA, RISD, MCAD, etc. - different story. @SomaRathore it’s great that your D was able to get her dual credits transferred because my D took CS over the summer one year at the local CC and wasn’t able to LOL. I called Pratt the spring before D matriculated and asked about math at NYU and they were like “maybe” those would transfer - subject to approval. As I said - restrictive. However, I would NOT discourage anyone from taking as much AP as possible in senior year. First of all, you may not go to Pratt. Second of all, AP wasn’t accepted but it was still valued in the admissions and scholarship decision process. That’s true at many top schools - not just Pratt.
Edit/addendum: one reason for Pratt’s lack of AP acceptance is that their academic courses aren’t throwaway. And they are broad in scope. I like to brag that Pratt is the only art school around with a real particle physicist on staff. Her course on astronomy includes a design project that is “out of this world” - literally! 
@JBStillFlying Agree with you on all that you said about Pratt. And you will know way more. I was looking at their curriculum and the academic requirement and it seems a good amount. D did have her Art History, English 1 and Environmental Sc AP transferred. So that’s 9 credits- the max they will take. And 6 of Dual in electives. But none of her history and she worked so darn hard for those that i feel like crying She is having to take global history/culture again now in her fall semester. (she had two academic classes for sem 1 covered by her AP transfer so they let her take the Spring sem’s class to add up to 15 credits).
A lot of other schools (and yes all of the instate) accepted all of her 27 AP credits. Not sure how many of them would apply to her curriculum if she went there,
DC says for sure acceptance in state and on evaluation in OOS, so we are thrilled they gave her those.
Wouldn’t discourage anyone to take AP since it raises GPA and you never know which school or curriculum will do what. But we really didnt think of DC in that way when she took it. She did becoz it was easier than AP. Now we know if the schools are narrowed down and we have the most information, classes can be planned out to certain extent. D took her most AP in her junior year and our fault that we had not yet actively started looking for schools then.
Funny that you mention the Astronomy class becoz today I was looking at the curriculum and thought to be a very interesting addition to the art curriculum. I was wondering they would incorporate the design factor if they did that! Out of the World is cool!!
@SomaRathore My D got 4’s in APUSH and Euro (never took world) and of course those weren’t accepted at all. However, she really loved her History of World Cultures class or whatever it was called (the name might have changed a bit with the new curriculum but the concept is probably still the same). The prof. was excellent and the material really gave context to her study of art as an academic discipline - plus, it was just plain interesting! But she’s kind of a history nerd so little surprise that she would love a class of that type. I guess she didn’t find that the college material repeated what she learned in AP. However, she did tell me that a good amount of the class simply wasn’t engaged like she was.
D took two psych courses as well - one might have been for her social science and the other might have been the academic elective. One of them had a 20 page paper at the end of the semester! Hard core.
Hey I’m an architect and artist at Cornell. i’ve won Scholastics and Youngarts in visual art and design. Dm me if anyone wants portfolio advice (content, editing, blurbs, etc).
@JBStillFlying Psychology and Culture, Identity Power is what D is taking this sem! My kid might be in that “not engaged” group lol. She took way too much history and it doesn’t interest her much, unless it has art related stuff in it and I hope this does. She loved her Art History AP which fortunately they took, but looks like she has to take another. Thanks for the heads up of the 20 page paper!! She will be warned. Even after full 15 credits she has one day free in the week! Thankful for her schedule. Your posts always help I have been trying to understand the classes to take in their curriculum each sem, but havent quite figured out the classes besides the core art ones. Maybe we will get to talk when we go this week.
@SomaRathore, don’t hesitate to fire away. and be sure to keep everyone updated as she goes through the program under the new curriculum. The content of the foundation year will pretty much be the same as it has been since that tends to be standard everywhere. Best way to figure out what’s going on is not to look at # of credits; while she’ll need to make progress there in order to graduate of course, they may or may not be correlated to contact hours in studio or classroom - especially at Pratt! For each of the foundation studios like drawing, light/color/design, and 3D/4D, she’ll very likely be in a morning and afternoon session one day a week, and then will have a couple of 3-hour per week academic subjects on top of that. You will be able to see that if you view her schedule. When my D went through the old curriculum for the major, she was regularly maxing out on 18 credits per semester until senior year, when she lightened the load a bit (but still a full load in order to access electives that she really wanted to take). My D also took a total of 18 credits per sem. for foundation. Not sure how they are tabulating everything now but if it’s 15 credits instead of 18, rest assured that 1) the work load will still be similar to prior years and 2) it still doesn’t correlate to contact hours, which will be significantly higher than 15. Some traditions just shouldn’t change LOL. As long as your D is maxing out the number of credits she’s allowed to take, she’ll be fine. And her advisor will help her in that process. Pratt’s administration is a bit spacey; however, my D had very good freshman and major advisors.
Good luck to your D this upcoming year!
@JBStillFlying Thank you for that info!! She was going to take another foundation (which would be 18 then) the registrar mentioned that 4 foundation classes - 6 hours of class for each, (and two academic- three hours for each per week) might be a plateful for the first sem. I guess she can decide how much she is able to handle and decide for next sem. With two classes already transferred for her first sem, they were offering her only one more class (so only 12 credits ) She asked for another. So its three core foundation and two academic for her this sem.
The 20 page report did not make her happy 
She is in MWP now and we have had very responsive people so far. But I am one of those nosy parents who likes to know what is going on and what classes she is taking. Don’t believe in let her be motto esp since she is going to be so far from home :). She is fine with that.
Seems like MWP and Brooklyn do work in sync and that makes me feel good.
^ Have always heard that MWP and Brooklyn is the same academic experience.
If she’s taking 3x6 hours of studio plus another 2X3 hours of academic, that’s plenty! And that’s pretty typical for a first year foundation schedule. The ComD schedule on Pratt.edu outlines this pretty well so I’d follow that (see link below). Your D’s particular schedule will vary as she’s bringing in credits so can skip ahead in some cases on the academic stuff and should definitely encourage her advisors to let her do that. Better to go “light” when she’s doing senior project so she can devote the extra time to that.
Arranging the liberals by academic “Core” subject is super cool and the course descriptions really sound very interesting. One thing that we looked for was an art/design school with great academics and Pratt really fits the bill there, IMHO. My D’s 20 page paper was either her psychoanalysis course or her cognitive psych course. Both must have been “Post Core” liberal arts electives! Your DC can steer clear 
@JBStillFlying
I like it that in Pratt the curriculum is structured. I know it depends on the kid but D works well with some structure rather than all free choice. One reason she stayed away from SAIC.
Thanks for the link! That is the one I was trying to get my head around. Her DC transferred as one Humanities/Media Elective and the other class as All Institute Elective Transfer. She is hoping that these will apply to her curriculum. We will clarify this week hopefully.
Good advice on the senior year. We were discussing how to finish up more now so she has time later to take what she wants or intern. D is shy and not a go getter. I am sure everything will work out as this process for the past year did too (But I guess I will always worry too)
I have no idea what I would do without the information I get from here
@SomaRathore - we definitely thought that a school with a very proactive professional development program would be beneficial to my D. As I posted earlier (either on this or another thread), she only wandered into Career Advancement in Senior year, when she was getting her resume ready for the job market. From what I could gather, Pratt seemed to take it for granted that these graduates were employable. Hence the worry LOL. MCAD and MICA (her two other primary choices) definitely pushed the career development thing a bit harder with us during our admitted visits. However my D just clicked with Pratt and Brooklyn so that was that. And her scholarship made it doable.
My personal viewpoint is that graphic design jobs look hard-to-get on paper, because anyone can purchase the Creative Cloud, call him/herself a “designer” and apply for a nationally posted job (assuming it’s not something that Pratt’s own proprietary career portal has made available). However, the professionals who have invested in a high-quality studio-based education will typically have the rep. of the school and their own portfolio to speak for them - two significant legs up in this competitive process. Most of Pratt’s professional connections in my D’s field (graphic/visual/communications design) are in NYC, but she opted to launch her career in Chicago in order to save a bit on housing costs. So she went on the market “cold” but still found work within a few weeks due primarily to the quality of her portfolio. The Pratt name supports and verifies that she’s the genuine article and can deliver what they were expecting or better. Despite being tossed into several projects simultaneously on her first day (her firm had just fired a couple of creatives who weren’t meeting deadline) and skipping the usual orientation and transition period, she adjusted quickly because work isn’t as intense as school was. No doubt she’ll have a few late nights or might need to come in on a weekend to oversee something with a rapid turnaround, but so far that hasn’t happened. She marvels that it’s simply not as stressful as school and that they pay her for her ideas! She’s on a team of art directors and is delighted to have found “her people” LOL. They are all a tad quirky, know the tricks of the trade, and so forth. This is by no means some fly-by-night start-up; it’s a respectable publishing house in the Chicago area. But creatives are creatives, regardless of who they work for.
Just one Pratt grad’s experience, but hopefully representative of how it’ll all turn out for others who are starting ComD at Pratt. And for parents who, like us, were a tad anxious about outcomes. In our daughter’s case, it has been an excellent program.
@JBStillFlying Always helps to hear success stories! Your daughter made a smart move; we all know that there are more jobs in NYC but more expense too! And possibly more competition.
We just dropped off D and came back. She starts today. Since we flew all the way from Texas with her luggage we stayed one extra day and that helped us to buy her the things (some storage/cleaning supplies etc) which we could not carry from here. But they are (4 in a room!!) are pretty much set and arranged for. Knowing D the smaller environment will help I hope - (she is already not attending the social events becoz there are “too many people” 
). But here is to a good start hopefully !
Good luck to your D! The difficult part is over! I like how she thinks school was harder than work, and that def. means she is liking what she is doing. Nothing can be better than that.
May I ask why your D is no longer considering SMFA/Tufts dual degree program?
My daughter is a senior and thinking about this 5-year program.
I would love to hear what you’ve heard recently about the Tufts/SMFA dual degree program! My daughter is a senior and she is intrigued.
You brink up excellent points! May I ask if you’ve learned anything new/recent about the SMFA/Tufts joint degree program? My daughter is interested in this program but we can’t seem to get any solid info. on the quality of the SMFA side of the program. Thank you!
@artdreamer may I ask what you and your daughter think of the joint degree 5-year program at SMFA/Tufts?
@artdreamer may I ask what you and your D now think about the SMFA/Tufts joint degree program? Or even just the SMFA alone? My D is really thinking about Early Decision for SMFA/Tufts joint program.
@Artful4art May I ask what you now think about the SMFA/Tufts joint degree program? I’m reading this thread only now (as I’m new to College Confidential). My daughter is very intrigued by the SMFA/Tufts joint degree program