@awaitingoffers My daughter and I attended the accepted students day last weekend. Some of my takeaways on Pratt-Brooklyn:
campus is urban and beautiful. Nice large green quad with sculptures and stately buildings and flowering trees. Lots of activity.
dorms are fine but a bit older and utilitarian. Freshman all in doubles with decent amount of room. New freshman dorm should be finished by this fall. There are some beautiful 'townhouses' for upperclassmen.
studios are also generally older. Lots of chipping paint and uneven floors and old hardware, but no one seems to mind.
artwork we saw was high quality and sometimes a little quirky (in a good way.)
Good presentations by President and other administrators. Career planning guy had great energy. I was able to mingle and talk with President and professors during the day. Friendly and welcoming.
Got the impression that campus is quite safe and security is good.
maximum 12 kids per class! Many of the professors are adjunct -- teaching a class or two while a practicing artist.
Students generally take 5 or sometimes 6 classes per semester. You typically would take two or three studio courses, each meeting once a week (MW or F) for 6 hours, with breaks. That would be the only class you have on that day. Other classes and electives might meet on T and Th for 1.5 hours each.
apparently 95% of graduates are employed within 6 months of graduating...93% in their field of study, and 80+% reporting 'happy' in their job.
The students and prospective students seemed happy, intelligent, and 'normal'. By 'normal,' I mean very little outlandish appearance or provocative attitude.
Athletic dept. was eager for students to join club teams or university teams, even with limited experience. Practices might be 3 days a week with meet on weekend. There is no pool for swimming however.
We walked a number of blocks around the outskirts of campus. Lively and safe, many cafes and restaurants, stately brownstones. Very nice.
There are a number of cats who live on the quad. They have tiny houses, are well fed, and they have the run of the place -- one even followed us into a 2nd floor studio. Our tour guide had nicknames for all of them. I know this is a pointless detail, but it really positively affected my D's impression of the school.
We had a terrific day at Pratt and D said it was the only school where she could picture herself happy and thriving. She felt she could never get bored there.
@pickpocket :WoW! Pratt should add that to their brochure! Thanks for the very detailed, informative summary of your day at Pratt! Sounds great and I just read it to my son who said "let’s send in the deposit already! " But seriously, appreciate the feedback! Now…how to deal with the high price tag :O…
It’s actually kinda stupid, I know another guy also applied to Pratt and got waitlist, and all I know is that his portfolio was a total garbage, and I’ve seen some portfolios that are well completed, but also got waitlist, I have no idea what is admission committee doing, I am bummed…Hopefully I will get accept anyway.
Actually @pickpocket I see this website does have an area to submit Campus reviews and the ones for Pratt are from 2006! SO if you were interested there’s a ‘College Vibe’ area on the home page of CC.
@capa1218 something has gone wrong at Pratt this time around. Many students who have multiple offers with scholarship from RISD, Parson and SAIC, have not got even regular admission. Rather, many who have got not scholarship at these places, seem to have got admission and scholarship at Pratt.
But that may very much be Yield Management. Meaning they may have given admission and scholarship to those who they “believe” won’t be picked by these competing schools. This “believe” may create lapses and miss potentially good students.
I think also, Pratt’s desire to show its high SAT/ACT score school (trying to imitate RISD) also partly complicate the fundamental issue of “artisitc” vs “smart artist”.
Hello everyone. I was waitlisted for the Brooklyn campus Communications Design BFA as a freshman transfer student. I was really bummed about being waitlisted, and I have to pick a school by May 1, so I didn’t have time to wait and * maybe * get in off the waitlist. As they suggested in the letter, I switched my major to the Graphic Design/Illustration AAS for transfer at the Manhattan campus and was accepted the next day! I’m going to call Pratt tomorrow and ask, but I can’t find ANY info on student housing for people at the Manhattan campus. Is there anyone else out there who applied to an Associate’s degree that has any info???
@oolybuzzle I was accepted into the AAS Program for Drawing and Painting and I’m pretty sure that our housing would be on the main campus in Brooklyn, so that would be about a 20 minute transit via subway every day for the classes in Manhattan. I recieved the 13,000$ scholarship and all, but I still think tuition would be too high for me to attend sadly because it’s the same price as the main campus’ contrary to PrattMWP’s whole thing.
@SatKam : How are you coming to these conclusions? How can Pratt believe these applicants will not be accepted at other schools and therefore are offering them acceptance? How would they even know if the applicants applied to other schools and if so which ones? And are the scholarships you are referring to at RISD 'need based" ? Because I thought they were well known for NOT giving Merit based scholarships?
@awaitingoffers … so colleges get thousands of application and thus data points with multiple parameters (portfolio style, focus, sat, GPA, state, school, applicant’s interest, financial’s, etc), every year. Then they make offers and get back acceptance data. All this data is analyzed to get major trends. Sorry for the statistical bable. So colleges do know who will come and who won’t on a % basis. % are for groups and not on individual basis. And that’s where the challenge I mentioned. Hence good kids match is few times missed out. There is some overlap of college styles and student’s choices, which are the grey areas that complicate admission offerings and acceptance yield. (Hence the term yield management).
How do they know who will apply where and join which school? Again data and knowing college focus- RISD looks for strong Drawing, Design & Spatial Dynamics skills of old masters. SAIC looks for evidence of conceptual, risk taking and exploration. Students with these portfolios will naturally gravitate to corresponding schools given the feedback they get.
You are right about RISD - it only offers need based with may be a very few merit, if any.
Hi everyone! I was recently waitlisted in Pratt (Brooklyn), so I emailed the MWP campus to apply there. It has been a month and I have not gotten any response (though I did email them what else am I supposed to do-- they reponded with nothing else, and my decision will be coming soon). Should I email them again for my decision? For whoever that applied to the MWP campus, did you guys get your decision?
@krostyv Until now MWP has been the most responsive of all the schools D applied to. How long back did they say “coming soon”? You can email them back asking by what date or week you should expect the decision maybe? I dont think they would mind that.
D had applied early back in October along with when she applied to Pratt and heard back from them just before winter break. She is going there BTW.
I’m so anxious yet excited because the deadline is almost here! I am thinking of committing to Pratt MWP at this point! We are still looking at options but my whole family agrees that Pratt MWP would be a better option for me than a close by university due to networking and PRATT/ Pratt mwp has a better art program than the universities near me.
@SomaRathore well I applied around March 20th and they stated that it’s coming soon at April 11th… Thanks for your response though! I’ll email them. I really wanna attend MWP but I am unaware of my decision, and I gotta give my deposit to another school by May 1st…
Hey so I committed to Pratt about a week ago!! I was wondering if anyone else has committed and if so, did you receive an email about your housing preferences yet?? And how soon after making your deposit did you receive the email? I got my onekey username and password but I’m still waiting on the housing email and I’m a little anxious because I know what hall I want to be in but I’m afraid I won’t get my first choice if I don’t get it done ASAP. Hopefully I’m not too late lol. Thanks!
@ArtHead We sent deposit on 04/15 for my daughter, and haven’t got the email. We did contact the housing office just today and got this reply:
If you are a new student and have not yet received a housing preferences email from our office, please wait until you receive that email. We usually send out the preferences email within 1-2 weeks of paying the deposit. Please note, your place in the housing assignment order is dependent on when the deposit is paid and not when preferences are filled out.
All correspondence will be sent to your @pratt email address.
We are still looking at options but my whole family agrees that Pratt MWP would be a better option for me than a close by university due to networking and PRATT/ Pratt mwp has a better art program than the universities near me.
I was wondering if anyone else has committed and if so, did you receive an email about your housing preferences yet?? And how soon after making your deposit did you receive the email? I got my onekey username and password but I’m still waiting on the housing email and I’m a little anxious because I know what hall I want to be in but I’m afraid I won’t get my first choice if I don’t get it done ASAP. Hopefully I’m not too late lol. Thanks! 