Hello!
I’m curious about schools which offer both a solid academic education as well as a dedicated art program. Besides delve into art, I’d love to explore a variety of subjects and be around a diverse student population.
I’m a mostly A/A- student with a 1450 SAT and am working on a community service art project.
Would love to be around a creative/passionate community and beautiful campus.
So far, I’ve looked into and liked UCLA, Vassar, Scripps, and Carnegie Mellon, but would love to know more!
Skidmore and Conn Coll are especially known for their fine arts programs. One factor to consider is the extent to which your preferred medium is offered within specific departments – check course lists on department websites to see how many levels of courses in various mediums (media?) are offered. I mention that because my LAC kid who wanted to continue advanced work in ceramics was surprised that some LACs do not offer ceramics as part of the fine arts curriculum – Vassar, Kenyon and Oberlin only have a kind of community coop program with fewer resources than my kid’s high school had.
Along with course offerings, consider facilities and resources. As suggested by @Midwestmomofboys, the workshops and studios that support varied media such as painting, printmaking, sculpture, woodworking, metals, ceramics and photography vary from each other, and will be available to different degrees at different colleges. In addition, the presence of an art museum can serve to center and energize an art department.
@thestarfish, My son was an art studio/art history major at Williams. The studio art program is small but dynamic and well funded with with a balanced focus on practice and theory. There are several accomplished artists on faculty. The studio art department is combined with Williams’ outstanding art history program which allows for a dynamic synergy. There are three excellent museums on or near campus – The Clark, MassMoCA and Williams’ own campus museum.
Other LACs that my son considered were Wesleyan, Hamilton, Kenyon, Conn College, Skidmore, Haverford, Brown and Yale. You should also look at Pitzer.
As mentioned different schools may emphasize different media. CMU (which I believe is the only school on your list that offers the BFA, is probably the most advanced in the tech side of art.
Thank you @momrath and @merc81 for all the detailed info! Those are great points to mention and I will take my time to look into each of your suggested colleges.
Regarding your appreciation for campus aesthetics, colleges from this thread such as Scripps, Kenyon, Vassar and Hamilton tend to be widely recognized for their beauty.
For the option of an East Coast women’s college with a nice art program, look into Smith. Smith also offers a notably flexible curriculum (similar to those of schools such as Brown and Hamilton) that would be suitable for academic exploration.
