<p>We went to SUNY Purchase. Some lines were crazy long, but I would probably attempt that show first over Javits Center. Since Purchase is on a Saturday, you can always go to the Javits Center on Sunday if you run out of time</p>
<p>My daughter is a junior. We attended our first NPD in Houston earlier this month. One rep did mention that last year when it was in Austin, there werenât nearly as many people, so lauriejgs, you might have better results in Purchase.</p>
<p>Unlike the OP, we loved our experience there. My d has been pretty sure she wanted to attend art school for over a year. I wasnât so sure, but hearing her talk about her work helped me. She also made a point to visit with the universities there who also had strong art departments, and is kind of leaning that way. We were there right after it opened for about 3 1/2 hours and she was able to speak to RISD (went there first to avoid lines), U of Michigan, Washington St. Louis, Syracuse (the table was staffed by the director of admissions for the college of VPA), VCU, and Delaware CAD. </p>
<p>Yes, we waited in long lines, but it was very encouraging, and 3 of the university reps gave her a card and one even invited her to send further digital images for feedback.</p>
<p>I would recommend previewing the list of colleges attending (itâs on the NPD site), and figuring out which 4 or 5 you want to see. I also recommend taking more rather than less. My daughter only took 6 digital images and her sketchbook, but they would have looked at more.</p>
<p>As a junior, their advice to her was encouraging and instructive about where to focus this year. The seniors who were there with more complete portfolios were getting very specific feedback.</p>
<p>I agree with @jenndon to take more rather than less. DS didnât bring his figure drawings because he was just starting out and it was still very sketchy but the reps said that they would have liked to look at it for things like line quality and other things.</p>
<p>My D went to NPD in Philadelphia last Sunday and had a blast. We let her go by herself and it was a good experience for her to navigate everything on her own. She visited Temple, Michigan, SMFA, Syracuse, SVA, and SAIC, all in 3 hours. She got some good feedback from all of them. Definitely worth her time. She brough several pieces and had a friendâs iPad with pictures of a sculpture, a couple of large pieces she has hangining in her bedroom, and a portrait of her brother that he has now. </p>
<p>My D and I attended the Philly day and it was really helpful for her. The lines were long but we got there early and jumped in line quickly. </p>
<p>Definitely worth attending as a junior. Now she has a year to work on the suggestions they gave her. We saw about 4 schools sheâs interested in but also went to the lesser known ones with short/no lines. They gave her more attention which was nice. Corcoran looked at all her pieces and gave great advice even as the lights were going out at the end! </p>
<p>Some schools sent many reps (RSID And Pratt) while others had only one (Cal Arts) so how fast the lines move depends on that. </p>
<p>Bring snacks and water and chat with parents while in line. And bring lots of art if youâre a junior. The more they see, the better. </p>
<p>Another strategy we used for NPDs was to make a trip to the very popular schools that were on our short list and schedule a review while on campus and use the NPD as a place to talk to 3-4 others. </p>
<p>Update - my D has received portfolio acceptances from Tyler School of Art at Temple, and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago based on her NPD presentations. That is a big relief! We know she has the grades to get into Temple, so at least now we know she will end up somewhere on her top schools list! She had a great time and really felt confident in her work afterward. Definitely glad she went! </p>
<p>@honestmom DS is a freshman @ Tyler this year and loves it. PM if youâd like more info</p>
<p>As a high school senior who went to NPD a couple weeks ago in Philidelphia, I am very happy I went. At NPD, you are able to see a variety of schools and and ask what they want to see in a portfolio. I came an hour late since I had to take the train, and the lines were long, so I went to the shorter lines first and then to the more selective schools last (aka Pratt and RISD). I visited about 5 schools altogether, including PAFA and other Phili art schools. I am happy there are a lot of art schools in Philidelphia since it is near my home. The day before i went to an open house for UArts and had an in depth portfolio review there. I spent my time getting in depth review on my portfolio with each school (each school has different standards btw, different schools told me things that could be contradictory on each piece of what they liked/ didnât like). Hereâs a tip: if there are long lines, go to the shorter lines to get feedback and then go back to the longer lines during the end when people leave. You are there to get feedback, not wait in line! My portfolio was so good I got accepted to Moore and Tyler on the spot!!</p>
D and I visited SAICâs NPD last year (Oct. '13) when she was a junior and again this past fall (Oct. '14) as a senior. The purpose of the first visit was to get crucial feedback - for the first time! - on her artwork. SAICâs is probably one of the biggest - pretty much EVERYONE is there so it is uber-crowded. Yet she found that the schools - particularly the more selective ones - actually spent a good 20 minutes with each student reviewing their work and offering great advice. It was an exhausting day but she felt it was totally worth it (this was really her first exposure to any professional art school).
Nevertheless, we planned a very careful strategy for her senior year, so as to use her time most efficiently and maximize the information she was seeking. Iâll share what we planned and what we learned:
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Know where your top choice of school(s) is/are going to be and when. Check their website by late summer or early in September. Check the NPD website as well to make sure you arenât overlooking an event somewhere that you can possibly get to. What we noticed is that the admissions staff of some the âbig namesâ will visit several different schools within a region over the course of a week. We live in the upper Midwest and noticed, for instance, that MICA visits Minneapolis the week prior to Chicago, and RISD visits Milwaukee and Chicago on consecutive days. Traveling to Minneapolis or Milwaukee guarantees you shorter lines and more time with the admissions staff. We still needed to get to Chicago, but just for one or two key schools we couldnât see anywhere else. Iâm sure this approach works in other regions too.
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Know who your admissions counsellors are for your top choices and let them know which portfolio day youâll see them at - This works for counsellors you might have already met, and those you havenât yet. Dâs admission counsellor at one of her top schools was eagerly waiting to see her again when she showed up at our local Portfolio Day (a much less frantic event than SAIC). Another counsellor who seemed to be dreading the extremely long lines at SAIC as much as we were actually invited her to a quieter and more personalized review the day before! She received very favorable reviews in both situations.
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Start getting feedback before senior year of high school - so visit Portfolio Day during your junior year and enjoy the experience (and low pressure for you compared to the seniors who are there!!!). Figure out which schools you seem to click with and which you donât. D found that she was able to cross two prospects off her list just from that first NPD visit. During your senior year your experience at Portfolio Day should be stepped up a notch. You are not really narrowing your search anymore; rather, you are basically interviewing with the colleges of your choice. So be sure to treat it as such. Show them your best work taking into account what they told you last year (or during your campus visit). Get that last minute advice so you can fine tune what you need to before uploading and sending it off. Everyone is different, of course, but my D treated her senior year NPD visits as the last thing she needed to do in order to complete her application - and that approach worked very well for her.
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And, not the least important - get an informal rating of your portfolio before you leave the review. Some schools disclose their merit aid possibilities right up front on their Net Cost Calculator. By asking for an informal ranking, you may be able to use the calculator to compute a reasonable expectation of merit aid even before the acceptance letter arrives in your mailbox. The earlier you start to get a handle on degree of affordability, the more time you will have to explore the fun stuff like curriculum, faculty, learning environment, internships, career office, placement stats, etc. - all those other things you have to know about before you can make a final decision.
Great advice there Mamelot!
National Portfolio Day will be in our area next week. DS has been accepted into all but 1 of the colleges he has applied. Other than that school, is it worth attending NFP? The schools have already seen his work in the application process. Would face to face review help with scholarships?
@scrapgal, thatâs a very interesting question worth exploring with the schools or at least checking their admissions websites to see when merit aid is awarded. The NPDâs now taking place have to be in large part for the students who have not yet sent their applications. Dâs schools, for the most part, included any merit aid with the acceptance decision but other schools may have a different process - for instance, awarding merit and need-based aid at the same time in April. It depends on the school, probably, which is why itâs a good idea to check.
I think it would be worth it to go and ask. And who knows, there might be a school there you had not considered and there is still time to apply. My D has been accepted at Temple/Tyler with an academic scholarship, but they donât make decisions on art scholarships until after the final application deadline in February so they can compare all the applicants. I think other schools might do the same, so an in person presentation might be helpful.
My son is a 3rd yr art student so itâs been a while since we attended NPD but Iâll say that it was definitely of benefit to attend. We attended in his Junior HS year - just to see what it was like. We spoke with 2 reviewers that werenât too busy. They said to work on this and that. With that advice, he had time to work on various skill sets. Plus we had an idea of how to make the most of NPD when it really mattered.
I recommend when possible, just visiting to see the quality of student work being presented and listening to feedback being given. We saw one young lady with about a dozen beautiful paintings - they totally bored the reviewer. They were too similar and showed a single skill which was very high skill. My S brought a variety of works - illustrations, paintings, sculptures, digital art and sketches - the reveiwer thanked God for such an interesting portfolio. We learned that from listening the year before.
Hello there,
After reading this thread it seems that there are many knowledgeable people on here who might be able to answer my question. I just was wondering about what âportfolio approvalâ and merit scholarship nomination exactly means? I had an undergrad admissions counselor approve of my portfolio at SAIC in person at their admissions office in Chicago and they followed up with a letter and email about the approval and nomination, urging me to send in my application materials. The counselor was pretty positive about my work and said it was a very strong portfolio that was cohesive with a great personal voice, then accepting it on the spot with a merit nomination. Does this mean that once the rest of my application materials are sent in and my test scores/transcripts meet their requirements, that I will most likely officially be admitted? As for my grades and test scores, they are above the minimum requirements they list on their website. I just sent in all of my application materials last week for the merit deadline at SAIC and Iâm nervously waiting for any news, but I donât want to get ahead of myself and mistake this for something that it may not be! Thank you for any input!
@littleboone, my daughter had the same experience with MICA and she ended up with an acceptance and some merit aid. If they sent you that type of letter and the rest of your application materials meet the requirements it most likely means you will be accepted with merit money, so congratulations in advance!
I tend to view merit aid as an indication that the school is trying to be competitive with other comparable institutions that they believe you will be applying to. Admissions departments are in the business of identifying top applicants and then persuading them to enroll - and they are, very good at their job. They know where else you are applying and they also know your prospects for getting into THOSE schools. So if they are offering you merit aid, take it as a good sign for your prospects in general.
To get an expected indication in advance of their decision, just go to the following page on the SAIC website and link to the net price calculator:
http://www.saic.edu/financialaid/helpfulresourcesandtools/calculatorsandscholarshipsearches/
It will ask you all sorts of questions regarding financial resources, your GPA, test scores, quality of your portfolio, etc. You donât have to save or submit any of the information you type in but do print out the result so you know what you can expect regarding merit and need-based aid. The fact that you have received very detailed feedback from your admissions counsellor regarding your portfolio means you will be able to enter fairly accurate information into the Calculator for that aspect of your application.
Good luck!
Thank you so much for the great info, @Mamelotâ, I really appreciate your response! Today in the mail I received my acceptance letter to SAIC so that part is squared away; now just to wait and see about any possibly merit money!
Best wishes to you and your daughter and congrats on her admission and merit to MICA!