<p>Believersmom just asked a question in another thread, but it's worthy of its own new thread here:</p>
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If you declared Art as your one and only major of interest, how many schools did you apply to that way and out of that, how many were you admitted to?</p>
<p>For example, D declared Art(specificly photography if that was an option) as her one and only major of interest(she is passionate about it and it shows in her HS career) at 9 schools(one was an EA with test scores and transcripts only), she was accepted to 8 and deferred at the EA which asked for more info(recs, ECs, essays).</p>
<p>How did it work for the rest of you? I ask because although D IS sincerely devoted to art as her major, I have heard of some artisticly talented students getting into their desired schools by declaring art as their interest when their real interest is a more competitive major(for example, business).
<p>Depends on the degree, for MFA programs about 30% of those who apply from a bachelors will get admitted. And that proportion decreases with the better schools.
However arts admission its often much more subjective than other fields. For example the evaluation of portfolios can be a situation of art style de jour as much as a serious evaluation. So in arts admissions that subjectivity is always evident. The recent trouble that Yale got into with Ms. Osberg is very indicative of that condition and the troubles inherent to the process. </p>
<p>About the concept of using an arts admission to gain entry into the overall program, perhaps. But what’s not being considered is that within the university subculture, art programs are not always regarded as being serious academic work. Sometimes deservedly so, sometimes its a slander. But if one gets admitted as an artist, he or she’s going to have to negate that perception when transferring to another college within the university. And unfortunately college art departments themselves often promote that unfortunate stereotype. Lots of neo-bohemianism and institutional avant garde persona is flipped about, sometimes even by the faculty. (who should know better, or at least acknowledge the only reason they can play that game, is they are safely encased in the ivy towers) </p>
<p>And actually, from the perspective of being in the field, I’d rather see art students declare minors in business, marketing or etc. Or somewhat less so, education. The reason is that art programs seem have major issues in teaching their students how to actually apply their art in any economically viable manner. The traditional path has been a studio major with an art history emphasis, which was sold as the glittering path to academia. Which is fine for those who get there, but very few (about 15% or so) actually succeed in that route. Art programs in academe still recite the mantra ‘everybody will get a prof job, and always do art’ to each new group of stargazers, despite the unfortunate fact that for many it simply will not happen. So the more art students who do consider other majors/minors the better. Their futures will work out easier and it could send a message to academic arts to consider reformatting their curriculum.</p>
<p>My D’s GC told us that unless the student has a knock-out portfolio (knock-out being very subjective, as Atana notes), applying with art as the preferred–or only–major can be a disadvantage at top schools. </p>
<p>In her experience, if the student appears serious about art, but doesn’t appeal to that school’s art department, the adcomm will assume that the student will ultimately choose another college/university/art school rather than study something other than art. Therefore, in the interest of yield management, they will deny an art student in favor of an equally qualified candidate with more “mainstream” intellectual interests.</p>
<p>In our GC’s experience, the question becomes how to effectively present the “artistic-but-not-dedicated-solely-to-art” student as having broad interests and intellectual depth in areas outside of art.</p>