Does VCU ever award in-state tuition to promising out-of-state students? And in particular, arts students?
Does their website have a section on residency? Their rules should spell out who qualifies for in state tuition rates and what the requirements are to get it.
You can find residency requirements, of course. Some universities offer a sort of ‘scholarship’ by granting in-state tuition to out-of-state students who would not normally qualify for in-state tuition, for example of recruiting to specific departments, athletics, or needed musicians. Does VCU (or the Virginia school system in general) ever practice this?
My daughter got accepted into VCU Arts and got a Provost scholarship plus an additional $8,000 because we were OOS. That came to $22,000 a year. The Provost scholarship is the cost of tuition but only in-state. If you are OOS you have to pay the difference. The $8,000 made up for it so in a way, yes they will give OOS students in-state costs.
That’s exactly what I wanted to know, DBY, thanks! My daughter is attending the pre-college summer arts intensive this summer and I am just trying to determine how seriously we can evaluate VCU as an option or whether it would break the bank.
VCU is an excellent program and we were quite suprised and happy with the offer. It was ultimately between VCU Arts and University of Michigan Penny Stamps School of Art and Design. We even got a more generous offer from UM and we just fell in love with Ann Arbor. UM also offers summer programs, my daughter did a 2 week portfolio prep program at UM the summer after her sophomore year. Is your daughter strong artistically and academically? If yes to both it will open up a lot of opportunities for her as that combination is not seen as often with Art students. Good luck!
Yes, we’re really excited about VCUArts and her teachers are really encouraging about her considering the school, though we are still VERY early in the process of exploring colleges. She’s just finishing 9th grade now, but she attends a selective statewide magnet for the arts as a Visual Arts specialty (Which she started in 8th grade and will continue in through 12th.) So far, a 5.0 out of a 4.0 - I’m sure that will drop some over the coming years as she only has kept it that high by the skin of her teeth - she has some academic weak areas, but she’s committed to keeping her grades as high as possible. All honors so north of a 4.0 is still definitely possible.
She’s really excited to be admitted to the summer intensive as this will be her first experience at a college. 
She’s doing the sequential storytelling intensive.
Her interest areas right now are broadly in working in the entertainment industry (film, character design, animation, storyboarding, etc), so the VCU Kinetic Imaging program made it on her radar something of interest to her as it’s a program that would allow her to broadly explore a variety of topics related to those fields.
Right now she’s at a place where she sees two paths… going to a school like SCAD or Pratt and specializing for professional training in a specific area, or going into a program like VCU where she can develop broad skills. She doesn’t know which path yet but that’s the goal over the next year or two; to narrow it down.
What arts area is your daughter studying? Penny Stamps hasn’t even made it onto our radar yet but we will definitely check it out!
My daughter wants to do painting and Art history with possibly some illustration. UM is extremely flexible. She ultimately decided she wanted academics along with art and ruled out just Art schools. If your daughter continues with her high academics and has a lot of talent she will be a very sought-after Art student. Remember the really good schools like VCU require a portfolio. Make sure you daughter works on that now. We visited VCU Arts early last summer and was fortunate enough to sit and talk with the admission director. My daughter brought a usb drive with her work on it and we were able to get some feedback directly from the admission office. Good luck!
Calabama great to hear the interest in VCUARTS. Its a terrific program , one of the best in the nation (including privates). Our D attends as GD major and has had a tremendous experience and so many opportunities. Feel free to pm me if you have any questions. Good luck
Thanks! Yeah, it does look like a terrific program.
And regarding portfolios: Yeah, one of the reasons we’re investigating colleges so early is learning what the portfolio requirements are … and she’s been looking up successful (and unsuccessful) portfolio and sketchbook submissions on YouTube at various competitive art schools. It’s been really enlightening to her to see what other students have submitted, both the accepted and rejected work. I so respect students who put their work out there - especially the rejected ones. That takes courage to share your rejection with the world, but it can be so helpful to others - much of the ‘rejected’ work submitted to top art schools is still great work, but when you see enough rejections you can pick up on patterns of why they were rejected and others can learn from those mistakes.
One of the great things about the statewide arts magnet is that there is such an emphasis on portfolio development. She had to submit a 25-piece portfolio just to get into the school (and she was rejected once, so she had to do that process twice!), all art students have 3 hours of art a day, take AP Studio Art in 11th grade and create an independent student show in 12th so she should have lots of portfolio material when the time comes. But it all is very time consuming so thinking enough in advance to steer her artistic/stylistic direction towards what she wants will pay off for her, I think.
its a great idea to be out ahead and have some idea of what to present . I can tell you from our experience with many top design schools that our D was accepted to, the portfolio had a good amount of drawings from real life and in different mediums. Good luck, feel free to pm any questions on VCUARTS.