for some background, i am going to be attending art school in the fall (mica), and if i get rejected from these schools i’ll honestly be really more than fine at staying at my current school. esp since im worried about my credits transferring bc in coming from art school. i was rejected from brown this past march, but a few things have changed since then so im hoping i can have a better chance!
Major: Studio Art and Women and Gender Studies
Stats: No SAT or ACT, hs GPA: 3.92 My graduating class size: 120, no rank
Honors:
YoungArts Merit winner (national)
David LaChapelle Endowed Fund for Excellence in Visual Arts (school)
had my art at the MINT museum
had a group thesis exhibition at another art museum called SECCA
Scolastics silver medal and gold key
EC’s:
art 6+ years. been doing it my whole life basically, moved schools for it even
Young Arts Lab- i was flown out to miami for this art event with other young arts winners for an interdisciplinary art workshop for 3 days
Zine production: distributed zines about diversity across campus to inform people about POC artists and makeup brands. also personal zines about my life which include my poetry and art
Runing a newsletter where i post my poetry and prose writing
video editing: making mini doc series’ of my personal life & also video editing for my schools visual arts program
Had my poetry in a local art showcase from a non profit organization called Dose Art Collective
Diversity in Design and Production: me and three of my freinds went around interviewing the faculty in the design and production program at my school (ie wig and makeup, stage props, costume tech) and asked them what they are doing to uphold diversity in their classses and as teachers. we made three zines which we distributed across campus on various topics from POC stage prop designers and make up artists ect. We then made another one that culminated all of the interviews that we conducted into a cohesive zine which we named the history of design and production.
additionall info: I hope to volunteer at an art truck this summer, which I think is gonna be really fun! And I also want to work at Barnes & Noble and work on getting more of my writing, published & out there!
If you were to broaden your list even slightly beyond Brown and CMU, you may want to consider other colleges appearing in this site, such as Skidmore and Hamilton:
I had my art in two major museums, I got a silver medal and gold key from the scholastics art and writing awards, i was flown out to Miami for a national art competition, and I have a small newsletter for my writing. Also the design and production zine & interviewing project.
I don’t know if these are major enough changes, what do you think?
Those are good achievements, congratulations. Who knows if it’s enough to get a yes next year from Brown and CMU (did you also apply to CMU as a senior?), but worth a try.
I do encourage you to go into your freshman year not intent on transferring. You will have to cover why you want to transfer on your apps…so think about what that reason/those reasons would be.
If you don’t get into Brown as a transfer, it won’t be because your app isn’t good enough.
They just don’t take a ton of transfer students - the transfer acceptance rate was 5% last year - and a number of the available spots (I don’t have numbers on this) are reserved for community college transfers and non-traditional applicants such as military veterans. It’s often asserted on CC (and I believe it’s probably true, although I have no specific data to support this) that a student who was already declined is less likely to be accepted as a transfer, especially in the very next application cycle. Plus, the majority of your new accomplishments are art-oriented, which might make your case more strongly at RISD than at Brown. Of course, the RISD/Brown dual degree program would be ideal, but that requires getting into both!
Are Brown and CMU the only schools that you would transfer for? If what you want is conservatory-level visual arts, but with high-level academics for writing & liberal arts as well, I would think there would be additional worthy options. Tufts/SMFA comes to mind SMFA at Tufts | Tufts Admissions as one example. Maybe USC? They take a lot of transfers, and are very interdisciplinary-friendly.
I was thinking about Cooper Union and RISD! I know that my changes of brown are even lower because they are need-aware as well and I need financial aid.
I honestly think that I would like my current school. I mostly love Brown because of its emphasis on multiple interests, and their open curriculum. As much as I love art and that is what i want to get my degree in, I also want the opportunity to explore my love for gender studies and English. When I was applying to schools this past round I only really applied to atr schools bc I was sure that was what I wanted. I was accepted at Cal Arts, but I wasn’t 100 percent sold on California. I wish that I had applied to more academic schools with grat art programs instead of only art schools.
Congrats on mica, I hope you end up loving it! But if you do end up deciding to transfer to a more academic school with a great art program, there are lots of options out there in addition to Brown and CMU. Just let us know if you want other suggestions.
Well, it looks as if MICA has some good cross-registration options, if you’re happy there but just need more non-art course offerings. JHU is quite close by. Baltimore Student Exchange Program | MICA
Does your HS guidance counselor have a relationship with your Adcom at Brown? If so, and if he/she is willing, it might be worth a quick phone call. Doubling down on more art-related accomplishments might be the wrong direction to go in. If your application didn’t feel “academic enough” (which is possible with no test scores) then MORE art awards isn’t going to move the needle. Might save you some aggravation to know now, right? Transfer rates are so tiny, I’d hate to see you focus on one university…
Based on what you’ve written, I think you should go off to college prepared to love it. If you don’t, then having a transfer possibility in the back of your mind might be useful. But I don’t know anyone who loves their college when they are already preparing to transfer in May of their senior year of HS.