My D has been a natural artist from a very young age, but also dabbled in music and photography. She is basically good at every sort of art, including singing, acting, and playing musical instruments (taught herself guitar and played oboe for 6 years). Luckily, the schools she attended all had wonderful art teachers and all students had to take art. In her ninth grade year she won a major school district art award, and her teacher told us she was the best student she had had in 37 years of teaching. That was kind of an “aha” moment for us. We were blown away by the drawings and paintings she did in that class. But she still was not thinking of art as her calling. We continued to encourage her do paint on her own, decorate her bedroom, take photos, etc. At one point going into high school she wanted to major in vocal music, mostly because her older brother was a music major. She took music theory as a sophomore and signed up for AP music theory as a junior. She took no art classes as a sophomore at all. That winter I talked to my son and he talked to her, and he convinced her that she was not a good enough vocalist to get into an audition music program and she was much better at art.
So she got serious about art classes as a junior. She made friends with other “art kids” at the high school and that got her to do more art. At the first Back to School night, her art teacher told us she was a special talent and we should encourage her to do summer art programs before senior year. We also bought her some art books and started visiting more museums to get her to think more about what kinds of art spoke to her.
One of her art class friends was in the class ahead of her and mentioned that she had attended a summer portfolio camp at Temple University and it got her portfolio accepted at Temple and other art schools. Another girl in that class won several local awards and got a full scholarship to SCAD. So we signed up for emails and brochures from several art schools to get their summer program materials. We let her choose which one(s) she wanted to do. She chose to do a one week workshop at SCAD and the two-week portfolio camp at Temple. We also decided to visit RISD in the summer just to get a feel for what happens at a top art school.
She had fun at SCAD but decided she did not like Savannah. But she loved the portfolio camp at Temple and it was a huge success for her. She came away with 9 pieces for her portfolio and also the knowledge that she was as good as some of the kids who had been taking private lessons, had AP art in high school, etc. We ended up visiting 9 colleges and looking at about 5 more seriously. Spent many hours on websites and reviewing materials. She also entered the Scholastic competition and won a regional honorable mention. She attended National Portfolio Day and got portfolio acceptances from all 6 schools she visited. She was accepted at all the colleges she applied to, and will be attending Temple this fall.
It is not too late to sign up for many of the summer programs. SCAD has a late one that has an application deadline of May 15 I believe. Temple’s deadlines are much later depending on the session you want to attend. I cannot recommend these summer programs enough! They give you college level instruction and you get a chance to measure your ability against other prospective art majors.