HS Junior unsure where to look?

College Majors Visual Arts and Film Majors
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<p>This is my first post here, so forgive me if this topic's too common or whatever.</p>

<p>Basically, I want to go to art school, but I am overwhelmed by the sheer quantity of schools and lack of <em>helpful</em> information on them. Because of this lack of information, I have shamefully resorted to deciding how much I like certain art schools by how pretty their websites are. And while website prettiness is more relevant with art schools than it is with, say, law schools, I am sure there is much more to an art education than that : ).</p>

<p>I want to go to a college that has a BFA program. I want that college to be strong in the fine arts. I also want to be able to take classes in a variety of areas within the arts (focusing, of course, on fine art/maybe illustration). I want it to be in at least a somewhat urban setting, or near one. I want it to have a generally friendly attitude, but I also want it to be at least a little snooty/selective. I want it to be relatively small, people-wise, but to have a nice campus. And both merit-based and need-based scholarships would be real nice. (basically, I want to go to an imaginary dream school)</p>

<p>I went to a local college fair and was interested by what I saw from Columbia College Chicago and College of Santa Fe. Does anyone know anything about them, or have any firsthand impressions of them?</p>

<p>I have a very good SAT (for what schools it will count at), averagish grades, and a pretty strong portfolio. I've taken more art classes than you can shake a stick at (in school, at Academy of Art (which I didn't care for a whole lot), and at the UC Berkeley ASUC Art Studio).</p>

<p>Can I get some advice?</p>

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<p>UCLA is a bargain. Apply there.</p>

<p>Columbia College Chicago and College of Santa Fe are not real art schools. I personally haven't heard much about them, but in Columbia College's Chicago case it seems more like a fake college.</p>

<p>IF you're in california, i would think that if you're really in financial need, and qualify for a Cal Grant, attending an art school in california could really be cheap for you with the cal grant money you'd get in addition to the merit or need based aid a school might offer you compared to other schools in the country.</p>

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<p>yeah, the uc's are pretty good. </p>

<p>i'm a design student so i dont know way too much about fine arts programs but i know a bit. honestly, ask for the catalogs and ask around about specific programs. the reason a lot of art schools cant be ranked is because their programs are taught so differently. something may be more pragmatic elsewhere ie: i went to syracuse, my program was insanely commerical [ communications design ] but at heart i was a screenprinter.. my professor told me it would be better off if i did printmaking or went somewhere else because in that specific program, printmaking was unused, it wasn't neccessariy, where at calarts, which is where i transfered to, printmaking is a large part of the graphic design curriculum. </p>

<p>seriously though, look at individual schools. </p>

<p>for illustration, syracuse is actually really good. majority of the faculty are society of illustrators gold medal winners. most of the kids i knew were also super super talented. two examples would be brendon palmer angel [ brendonart.com ] and stephen lynch [ smlynch.com ] brendan was in the illustration prog. before switching to painting, and stephen lynch just graduated illustration and was recently in the cmyk illustration annual. </p>

<p>look into the typical respected art schools: risd, mica [ this would be a good one. ] parsons, sva, etc. </p>

<p>i would say calarts, but im not a huge fan of their fine art dept.. design there is amazing though. </p>

<p>ps. i totally need to apply for calgrants. i didn't before.</p>

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<p>If you go over to the Musical Theater Forum and look at the top, there's a listing of schools. College of Santa Fe is up there. ArtsyMom (I think that's her screen name) has a daughter who just finished up her freshman year there in Musical Theater. I know the major is much different, but perhaps ArtsyMom could get you in touch with her daughter to describe the school in general. As I recall from her story, the daughter also had strong visual arts talent and wanted to be at a school where she could nurture both.</p>

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<p>liek0806, what do you mean by "fake college"?</p>

<p>Columbia College Chicago and College of Santa Fe are not art-only schools, but you can get BFAs there, and the art departments are v. large parts of the schools.</p>

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<p>You can also think about Cooper Union. It's a very prestigious art school in NYC. It's also tiny, with about a 5% acceptance rate, one of the most selective schools in the country. The tuition is free for all accepted students, but while that's great you also have to keep in mind that there are living costs, book costs, and also the costs of just living in NY. When you apply, they send you a home test, which basically gives you assignments that you have to complete in a month. It's a really intense school, but wonderful if you think that art is something you could do for the rest of your life. (<a href="http://www.cooper.edu%5B/url%5D"&gt;www.cooper.edu&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/p>

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<p>College of Santa Fe meets some of your "dream school" criteria. It is a very small school (750 students in the "traditional" full-time program) with a beautiful campus in a small city/large town. The people are very friendly and the school is somewhat selective. The school is also fairly generous with financial aid. (My nephew did not qualify for need-based aid but he did receive a $15,000 merit scholarship -- based on his GPA and test scores.)</p>

<p>The downside is the school's small size. Although the school is very arts-oriented (particularly in fine arts and film), there are very limited course offerings. For example, you can get a BFA in general "studio art," painting, sculpture, or photography, but there is no "illustration" major per se. The course offerings in other areas -- science, history, etc. -- are also limited.</p>

<p>After a year and a half at CSF, my nephew transferred to UC - Davis. He thought he wanted the small school with personal attention from his professors (and he did like that aspect of it) but in the end, he found the school to be just too confining for his interests. By the end of the first semester, he knew everyone in the school (students, faculty, and staff!) and felt like he was back in high school.</p>

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<p>Kamaro,</p>

<p>Let me put in a good word for the Kansas City Art Institute. It's not a very well known school, probably because it doesn't have an MFA program, but it's the school I'm going to and I'm pretty picky. And I feel like I should tell you that the Columbia school, although located in an amazing cityl, is an "everybody gets in" school, so you're stuck with lots of people that aren't as dedicated, and motivated as you. Anyhow.. KCAI...</p>

<p>It's everything you just described you wanted. A small campus - around 600 dedicated artists & designers attend, the student to teacher ratio is very small, and each and every student gets lots of individual attention.
They hand out of loads of scholarships. I got 60,000 from them over 4 years, and my total expense yearly is around 15, with room and board. They used to be ridiculously selective, which is the reason why it's so tiny, but recently they've slackened a little bit, but won't award any scholarship to weaker applicants. It's in a beautiful semi-urban setting (about 3 minutes by car to downtown) in the most flourishing part of Missouri, on the state line between that state and Kansas. I'm an urban person myself, I spend most of my time.. and consequentially.. money, in downtown Dallas but I've been to bigger cities like Chicago. Although Kansas City is no Chicago, it's a beautiful city that overlooks the Missouri river, that has a vibrant arts scene and great shopping and entertainment scenes. The school is also situated between two amazing art museums, The Kemper Museum of Modern art, and the the Nelson Atkins Museum of Art. The historic Plaza shopping center, and Westport are just down the street.
The campus is beautiful. The college is nestled in refurbished mansions built in the late 1800's. It has a campus library, larger than normal dorms, campus bookstore, everything that bigger colleges have. They've recently built a new painting building, and the campus green is beautifully landscaped with flowers and old, sprawling trees that haven't been touched since the time the mansions were built.
Most importantly, however, the faculty is outstanding. Gray Brockett Horne, the graphic design professor went to RISD and Yale and is an international Rotary Scholar. Another is an olympian. The school's foundations program was one of the first, if not the first set up in the nation, and if you still dont know what you'd like to specialize in after your first year, you can apply for the interdisciplinary major, which explores all area of fine art and design. It's facilities are impressive, it has the second best printmaking facilities in the nation, it has a large mac computer lab, an amazing array of books, studios, even a full service woodshop open all the time for students of any major.</p>

<p>Let me know if you have any more questions, and check out their website at <a href="http://www.kcai.edu%5B/url%5D"&gt;www.kcai.edu&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

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<p>Ramzy,</p>

<p>Glad to hear you are so happy at KCAI. We visited there this past April and were very impressed. It was our first college visit and we went because we were visiting relatives in KC. My daughter said "I could see myself going here" - she was a freshman at the time. Do you know anything about their animation department and do you know if they offer any courses in illustration? </p>

<p>Thanks.</p>

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<p>Kamaro, any good art program should be able to give you strong skills in drawing and illustration.However, different schools have differing emphasis such as classical approach vs. modern. You really need to visit the schools and ask questions about their emphasis and types of work that their professors specialize in.</p>

<p>That said, there are a couple of schools that have bigger names for illustration and fine art that that of other schools. Some of these names would be RISD, MICA, SAIC. Since you want city schools with a campus, you should look at Pratt Institute and RISD. MICA is a city schools with about 8 buildings, but I am not sure that this qualifies as a campus. </p>

<p>As noted, UCLA has a strong program as does Syracuse University. University of Hartford also has a repudable art school too as does Tyler, which is part of Temple University.</p>

<p>This should get your started.</p>

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<p>Would add Carnegie Mellon Univ. and Washington University St. Louis to the list...</p>

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<p>Kamaro-
Check-out the Midwest Art Schools thread. We took a turn off topic and there is a list of some of the first Art Schools (or art schools within a U) listed there. Maybe if we all request it, CC will list these at the top of this forum like they did for the MT forum???</p>

<p>Here is the link: <a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=233931%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=233931&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>