<p>Any advices on which college to go to??</p>
<p>I feel more confused now abut this than when my d began her search. There are lots of threads, esp by taxguy. Depends on what you're looking for - art school vs. college environment - big vs. small - city vs not - etc. One thing we discovered (not coming from an art background) is that a fine art portfolio is absolutely required and much of the admission decision is based on this. My d didn't have tons of drawing, having mostly taken computer based art classes. She rushed to put something together, even taking a college drawing class during her junior yr. Almost every school said all they wanted to see was drawing and maybe a few non-drawing pieces. </p>
<p>We got started with a list of GD majors on Princeton Review (I think). Then had another list from somewhere, maybe US News... Also went to archives and present board and did search. Lots of variety to choose from. Some colleges have screened programs where you start out as an art major, and after freshman or sophomore yr, you apply to GD. Also lots of differences in GD curriculums so actually check the college/art school websites to see quantity and quality of program. After you compile your list of possibilities, it will come down to personal preference.</p>
<p>My d wanted a college environment. Some schools she considered were RIT, Syracuse U, Carnegie-Mellon U, Lehigh U, Arcadia U, Penn State, TCNJ, Towson U, James Madison U and U of Delaware. So many more choices out there.</p>
<p>thank you so very much. you're the best!</p>
<p>Hi, is RIT's graphic design program good? Is it hard to get in to?</p>
<p>RIT's program is very good and well ranked by US News and World Report. In fact, I asked some graphic designers about school recommendations, and most mentioned RIT and RISD. It is also a fairly hard school to get into. Other good schools for graphic arts that are NASAD accredited are supposedly VCU, Univ of North Carolina, Asheville, University of Cincinnati, and Pratt Institute. Someone mentioned TCNJ above. Although it is a good school , it is not surprisingly accredited by NASAD.</p>
<p>I forgot to mention BU and Northeastern on my earlier list. Taxguy, do you know if they're NASAD accredited... I believe we used a NASAD list as one of our starting points, but so many schools got added and deleted over time...</p>
<p>As for RIT, they accepted my d and gave her an achievement scholarship through the School of Design. I'm sure there are more advanced artists than she is, but they seemed to like her work, she's an A average (Honors and APs) student ranked in the top 10% of her class (guess that helped). SAT requirements for Design students are lower than for RIT in general. Hers were only 1200, higher in math. Planned to take one of those courses to raise it, but got sick so had to go with her junior yr ones. We found out later that alot of schools base scholarship $ on junior yr SATs and rank so even if she had scored higher in the fall, it may not have mattered.</p>
<p>At RIT open house for accepted students, we were told 40% of the portfolios were accepted. I bet that number is lower for a stand alone art school but I really don't know. My daugher's portfolio was also accepted at SU and she was offered an even larger scholarship there. SO there is money available to Design students - little did I know. We were quite surprised.</p>
<p>You can look up whether a school is a NASAD member by going here. <a href="http://nasad.arts-accredit.org/index.jsp?page=Member%20Lists%5B/url%5D">http://nasad.arts-accredit.org/index.jsp?page=Member%20Lists</a></p>
<p>Each school has to be entered separately (in the box at the bottom of the page) unless you want to pay $15 to buy access to buy a copy of the whole institutional member list.</p>
<p>Both Boston University and NorthEastern are NOT regretably not NASAD accredited. I was seriously considering Northeastern because of their interdisciplinary program with art and music. I will now have to call them up and find out why they aren'tNASAD accredited. I will post their answer here.</p>