Hello!
First, my main question: How difficult is it to get accepted to an art school such as Pratt, RISD, or SAIC if transferring from a liberal arts college my sophomore year?
Back story: I am a senior set to graduate in May 2016. All throughout high school, I was unsure of what I wanted to study in college. I planned on attending a liberal arts school, so I followed the college admissions process with small, liberal arts universities in mind. However, I recently decided that art/design are my true passions, and that I would like to transfer into an art school my sophomore year of college (as it is too late to apply for priority financial aid, and my portfolio probably isn’t strong enough to get a good merit scholarship otherwise). I’ve taken 2d visual art courses throughout high school, but I still don’t have that great of a shot at getting into a good, competitive program with my work right now. However, I have met with a couple of my art instructors and they agree that if I were to dedicate my time to art I would be able to progress very quickly.
I have a 4.0 unweighted GPA, and have been pretty successful in high school so far. I’m used to working hard to meet my goals. That being said, should I go to a “regular” university for one year, then transfer to art school my sophomore year? Or are there alternative solutions I should be considering?
Thank you so much!
P.S. I am sorry if this thread isn’t in the right place – I’m new to this website (:
No matter what you are talking about an additional year of school at $60K+/year. Check out the Web Sites of ALL the schools you listed. IMO art school will not prepare you better than some LACs with good art programs. Your talent is what will define how well you do after school. My D’s close friend attended an art school for two years before she dropped out. What had been a joy became a drudgery in trying to get projects done in time for grading.
I’m not sure about art schools in particular, but many colleges have worse financial aid for transfer students than they do for freshmen. If that’s the case with RISD, Pratt, etc., you might want to seriously think about taking a gap year and applying next fall. In addition to bettering your FA chances, you’ll be able to work on your portfolio; once you start college, you won’t have as much free time to improve it.
If necessary, you might be able to accept a college’s offer this spring, but defer attending for a year, so you have an option in case art schools don’t work out or you change your mind or something.
Few art schools have good financial aid. Being a transfer may not make a difference. Run the Net Price Calculator for each school to see what it would be for an incoming freshman.
2 rated fine arts program in the entire country just behind YALE is VCUarts and it's a public school so somewhat reasonable price. That's right its higher ranked than RISD grad program.