<p>hello-
I want to major in either fine arts((painting)) or most likely graphic design! Does anyone know which art schools would be best for those areas of interest, and also how SAIC stacks up!?
Thanks in advance for your help !</p>
<p>if you dig up some old threads here, you'll find a lot of info on top art schools.</p>
<p>just to save you some trouble, i don't know much about fine arts but for graphic design some top schools at the top of my head include risd, art cetner, calarts, parsons, pratt, cca, ccad, otis, university of cincinnati (daap)...</p>
<p>there's more schools, i would suggest you look at the National Association of Schools of Art and Design. it has a list of accredited art schools that would suit your needs.</p>
<p>Thank you so much!</p>
<p>Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) in Baltimore, MD would be a good choice for either fine art, graphic design or a combination of the two.</p>
<p>D is a freshman there and very happy.</p>
<p>We visited SAIC, but the fact that the accept well over 80% of applicants was not a good thing to my D.</p>
<p>m&sdad, my son has been looking at MICA for painting also. The school seems great, but Baltimore makes me a little uneasy. What has your family's experience been?</p>
<p>Is Baltimore ACTUALLY dangerous? </p>
<p>As in, if I don't act like a fool, don't flash my i-pod and jewlery around, and don't wander the streets aimlessly, am I still at risk of being targeted for a mugging? </p>
<p>I'm totally biased towards MICA - but I'm also from d/t NYC, no where near Baltimore, so I have no idea.</p>
<p>Bolton Hill seemed extremely safe enough, though, when my family and I visited.</p>
<p>I was thinking of moving to Baltimore even before I decided to go back to grad school, and talked to some friends-of-friends about the crime rate there. After looking at the numbers (just google crime rates and cities and you'll find comparison tools), the murder rate specifically seemed exorbitant to me and was a cause for some concern. Locals told me that the real problem there is crack. There's a big crack trade, and those involved in it are very frequently killed, which accounts for the murder rate being so high, and the perception that Baltimore is a high-crime city. They also said that if you stay out of the crack trade (don't sell it, don't buy it, don't befriend anybody who does), you're as safe in Baltimore as you would be anywhere else.</p>
<p>The immediate neighborhood surrounding MICA is the biggest negative for my D, more so that Baltimore as a whole. She grew up in a smallish city, has some street smarts, but always felt comfortable walking places. She does not have that comfort level there. </p>
<p>She does not go out at night by herself, and when she is out she is very aware of things around her. Freshmen spend the bulk of the time on comapus and campus security is decent.</p>
<p>She received very good merit based aid at MICA; we did not qualify for need based. She feels challenged but not completely stressed. She just found out today that one of her pieces, the second one in fact, has just been selected for the Best of Show in September.</p>
<p>Nothing makes me happier than to see her happy and challenged.</p>
<p>Thanks m&sdad for sharing this information. It's so hard to make an honest assessment of a place you live nowhere near. Like larationalist, I googled crime stats, which seemed a tad bit high, but which I also know can be misleading. </p>
<p>Congratulations to your daughter on her successes, you must be so proud!</p>
<p>patois,</p>
<p>my son i a freshman at MICA, and like you, he grew up in downtown NYC..... Baltimore is definitely a scarier place than Manhattan, but he he good street smarts and common sense........ he has never been hassled, but regrets that he has to be so careful.</p>
<p>BTW, he LOVES the school, and is doing very well. Freshman foundation program is INTENSE, but he's up to the challenge. </p>
<p>Good luck!</p>
<p>Miss you, I am by no means a expert but a close friends son who was very talented and now is a top designer working with several companies including having his own furniture lines went to the ART Institiute in San Fransisco. His degree was in Graphics design.</p>
<p>He originally started at a New York State school and after a extensive search, selected this school and submitted his Portfolio and was accepted. He seemed very happy with the school and has become very successful. He travels through out the world and is often in Italy working with his furniture companies.</p>
<p>Here is the link</p>
<p><a href="http://www.artinstitutes.edu/sanfrancisco/%5B/url%5D">http://www.artinstitutes.edu/sanfrancisco/</a></p>
<p>My daughter is currently a freshman at MICA, and also received a very generous merit scholarship. At first, she wasn't so sure she made the right choice because of the aforementioned comments about Baltimore. But she's found that she feels safe as long as she's with others at night. And she's learned very quickly which neighborhoods to frequent, and which ones to avoid. All in all, it seems to me like B'more's no worse than any other east coast major market in terms of safety, and it gets a bad rap because the bad 'hoods are very concentrated and noticeably awful. But there's a whole lot of great stuff that the city offers. Also, the campus shuttles will take kids anywhere they need to go on Bolton Hill at night -- even if they don't live in on-campus housing! So if you go to MICA and live off-campus (which most kids do after Soph. year), then make sure you rent an apartment somewhere in the Bolton Hill neighborhood. If you've ever been exposed to NYC rents, then Baltimore rents are going to seem like a major bargain! Also, even though the campus is definitely urban, there's a light rail train stop right on campus and kids can get around pretty well, and can go to the airport for a mere $1.65 or something like that...also Penn (train) Station is only about a five-minute walk away, which makes weekend trips to Washington, Philly and NYC very do-able. </p>
<p>My daughter now loves MICA, has made great friends, is learning to paint in leaps and bounds, and believes she's getting a great education there. I attended the recent parents' weekend, and was impressed with the overall quality of the students' collective intellect and work ethic. </p>
<p>By the way, she was accepted at about nine or so very good schools, including Cal Arts, NYU, UC Santa Barbara College of Creative Studies, and The Museum School -- and after visiting all of them last spring, decided that MICA was the best place to be...and THEN learned she received a great scholarship after she'd already made her decision!</p>
<p>It must be obvious that she and I are very impressed by the place and highly recommend it.</p>
<p>nice post, fannie.</p>
<p>I was at the Parents Weekend recently as well, and it was a great event. MICA is a very well organized operation. They have done a first class job all the way in every aspect of the process...... from reaching out to applicants, providing detailed tours, being very thorough in communicating during the admissions process, a fantastic and welcoming environment during the accepted students weekend last April, facilitating the move-in process in August, and now the Parents weekend.</p>
<p>Obviously, all of this is small stuff compared to their real responsibility........ providing a solid art education for students and they do a wonderful job at that, as has been noted here many times.</p>
<p>But it's very reassuring from a parent's perspective, to know that the staff at MICA is highly competent and on the program.</p>
<p>I feel very good that my son is there, and he loves it.</p>
<p>I had noticed the same thing about the administration, DGB. Every time I've had contact with them, it's been great. When I called to schedule an interview, they actually remembered who I was and let me know that my portfolio made it there a couple days prior. They are one of the only schools I applied to who make the application requirements (including where to send stuff) extremely clear, no contradictions, and has not misplaced any materials or sent me any non-applicable emails by mistake. Overall the application process for them went more smoothly than any other school I applied to.</p>
<p>missyou....this has become a MICA love-fest :-) Check out MICA and other art school websites...make visits to the schools. There are many great art school. My D and I visited MICA as well as Pratt, RISD, SCAD, and Ringling. MICA was the only school that she decided not to complete the admissions application after the visit. It just didn't feel like the right fit for her...even though we liked the facility, the location was not an issue...it just didn't "feel" right.</p>
<p>ktwofish, What areas is your daughter specifically interested in? What were her top choices and where is she finally going? Thanks.</p>
<p>Ktwofish,</p>
<p>My D felt that way about RISD. Great school, but she didn't think it was a good fit for her.</p>
<p>My daughter visited RISD, loathed it as well, and didn't apply. However, there are a few kids from her high school who went there and think it's swell. It just seems to me like all of the typical places one always hears about on the so-called top lists -- RISD, Museum School, MICA, Chicago Art, Pratt and so on -- are all equally great places. One doesn't appear to necessarily bebetter than the other on the whole. It totally depends on what the applicant is like, and how each place suits that applicant's personality. Some people prefer a school that leans toward an edgier fine arts approach, some take a more mainstream fine arts direction, yet others feature a design school orientation. All of them appear to do both in varying increments, thus it all depends on individual perception. AND it's very difficult to define just what these various orientations actually mean. I think that MICA does a pretty decent job of attempting to lay it out in their think little white book that they sometimes give applicants they deem to be serious about attending there. At the end of the day, I suspect most applicants end up deciding where to go based on gut instinct and/or financial help.</p>
<p>My daughter is at RISD. I think fannie is correct...students (and families) ultimately decide based on their gut instinct and financial situation. MICA is a great school, but was not the right fit. We couldn't really decide the exact reason why we didn't like MICA...the tour guide was a bit boring and the portfolio reviewer put me off by asking me to wait outside...but the location was fine and the facilities looked good...nice dorms and we ate in the cafeteria--pretty good. But my daughter and I both agreed that we did not have the same "feeling" for the school as we had after our visit to RISD.</p>
<p>What I liked about RISD (not necessarily what my D liked)... the strong academics in addition to the strong art reputation...the connection with Brown...the location--Providence is a beautiful city and RISD is in a great location....the proximity to Boston and NYC (easy train or bus rides).</p>
<h1>1 suggestion...visit schools, visit schools, visit schools...and make up your own mind!</h1>
<p>Hello- Thank you to anyone who has given me advice! Does anyone here have any personal advice or information they could give me about The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. I know that their graduate program is ranked #1 by U.S. News. Do you think that their undergraduate program is just as good? I live near Chicago, so this would be a very convenient school for me to attend! Any input is greatly appreciated!</p>