if someone has great art skills but has never taken an art class and doesnt intend to be an art major can they still submit a portfolio? to show off a talent? or is that too strange
If a person has significant artistic talent, I wonder if an adcom might question why that person hasn’t taken any opportunity to develop that talent even further, through lessons, tutoring, competitions, etc.
Strange, wasteful, distracting, not advised. Unless you are Jackson Pollock reincarnate.
Yes you definitely can. I don’t think it is strange or wasteful at all. Not everyone who is good at art enters it in art shows and the like. But it should be of high quality if you are submitting it as a supplement, because they will evaluate it with the rest of your application.
Submit it. My son submitted both a cello and an animation supplement to schools where he was applying as a fine arts major or a game design major. His cello was the much, much stronger supplement, and I think it helped him in admissions. He’s attending Penn as a Fine Arts major.
@shawnspencer is right. Go ahead and submit it. At most schools, non-art major art supplements are not reviewed by art faculty, though, to be clear, but the adcomms might find it helps flesh out an applicant and it absolutely might help.
While visiting schools alongside my Ivy admissions rep, she said to an audience to submit art portfolios/recordings, even as non art/performance majors. She said if it’s important to you, it’s important to them.
Obviously, use judgment not to send horrible stuff… you should get an objective opinion first.
If the student is truly passionate about Fine Arts, and if the portfolio contributes to his or her identity, then I say defintely use it. Identity is a key word here – many applicants get caught up in stockpiling their applications with random ECs and end up missing out on telling/showing AdCom what’s most important to them as an individual.
Let’s see, I can admit this totally generic engineering student to our engineering school. Their file consists of a bunch of engineering classes, engineering clubs, and an essay declaring “gee I sure love engineering, please admit me.”
OR, I could admit this quirky engineering student whose file consists of engineering classes, but also art electives, membership in Science Olympiad, but also the boardgaming club, and an essay declaring “I want to be a Disney Imagineer, making robots for theme park rides.”
I know which candidate I think will make a better addition to my campus community. Your milesge may vary.
Whether or not it’s a good idea seems to vary by school. My D17 has art as a major EC of hers (she has taken classes at school and is officer of school art club) but she is a prospective engineering major so we are investigating this issue. Some schools seem to encourage you to go ahead and submit to give a sense of the applicant as a whole person. Some schools use language that sounds pretty discouraging about submitting unless you’re spectacularly good (like Yale). So I’d say once you have your list of schools you’re considering, look up what each of them says and only submit a portfolio to the ones where you get a good sense for how they will receive it.