<p>My top choice is UVA and i know art is an under prescribed major there. My gpa is good but i don't think it's up to UVA's usual standards. My SAT is really good but again, just average for a UVA applicant. How much of an impact could my art portfolio have on the admissions decision? I've been taking art classes for about 9 hours a week most of the summer. My teachers have told me I have talent and that it really shows through my portfolio pieces. I really have a passion for it and intend to make it my major in college.</p>
<p>I'm not trying to slack off or anything, believe me i've been working my hardest lately(brought my SAT score up, plan on bringing my gpa up) and will continue to because i truly believe I belong at this school. The only thing is i feel i can work my hardest and it still won't be enough because UVA is such a great school.</p>
<p>So i'm wondering, how much of an impact will my art portfolio have on the admissions decision? I heard they want to expand their art department but would they overlook a few points on a gpa for that and possibly the applicant's work load for that? Would they overlook anything even by a little? I'm really willing to do anything to improve my gpa and course load but i feel that time has come and gone :(</p>
<p>PLEASE any insight, info or advice on this at all would be helpful and most appreciated!
Thanks so much for your time!</p>
<p>We just went through this with my son. He applied to ten top fifty colleges and was accepted to three of them: Rice, Emory and UVa. It is absolutely impossible to know if he was accepted because of his portfolio, in spite of his portfolio, or if they never got around to evaluating his portfolio. Unless of course you can interview the adcoms and they tell you the truth. Which we couldn’t do.</p>
<p>Of course, the safest thing to say is that if they ask for a portfolio they’re probably going to look at it and consider it. </p>
<p>But still, I’ll never get how seven out of ten rejected him after seeing how good a student he is and how good his art is. But, then again, I’m the dad and I might be a bit biased.</p>
<p>One thing I will warn you about is that getting the portfolio together is a lot of work. Every college wants something a little different: DVD, powerpoint, slides, 10 samples, 15 samples, etc. IIRC, Stanford was the worst.</p>
<p>I think we almost missed the deadline for Rice - which is where he is now - because none of us are computer literate and we couldn’t compress the files. I think I was googling “compress images” two hours before the deadline.</p>
<p>Good luck!</p>
<p>OH WOW i completely wasn’t paying attention - i meant under SUBSCRIBED not prescribed lol </p>
<p>thanks so much for the response! Just out of curiosity, what was your son’s gpa/sat like? (stanford’s a biggie!) And did he submit his portfolio to all of them before their specific deadlines? i know all of them are different and UVA requires 20 pieces! I’m also applying to emory 
so they accept portfolios too? (i wasn’t sure if they did) And by the way, was he in-state for UVA? (it makes a big difference)</p>
<p>We are not in-state for UVa.</p>
<p>I don’t remember what Emory wanted or accepted; my guess is that these things could change each year. I think only one of the schools said they would only look at a portfolio for BFA applicants. Can’t remember which one it was.</p>
<p>It’s hard to say what my son’s GPA was because in New York they grade on a 0 to 100 system. And his school refuses to rank students.</p>
<p>I’m pretty sure his SAT total was 2180. Maybe 680, 770, 730 or something like that.</p>
<p>Well since he chose Rice, we don’t know much about it. But my impression is that UVa is heavily loaded with students from the Washington suburbs so it shouldn’t be much of an issue.</p>