Pre-College Art/Design programs

I didn’t know until a few weeks ago that some colleges and universities offer summer pre-college progams, such as the intensive college-level programs for high schoolers offered by Pratt MWP. Are there other schools that have high quality design or art summer programs for high schoolers? Has anyone had experience with an actually useful and informative summer art program?

@Araene you don’t say what year you are but many students applying to art and design programs for college attend an intensive multi-week pre-college program of some kind at least coming out of their junior year in HS. Those programs are major portfolio builders, among other advantages. You would also get a real taste of what it’s like to be in an art and design program in college.

Check out the AICAD website for the list of independent art and design schools. Pretty much all of them will have a pre-college program during the summer. If you don’t like the idea of a stand-alone art school (on another thread you mentioned that you were looking more at LAC’s) then choose one within a larger university setting. What you want is the intense studio experience - ideally offering drawing, design, art history, and a studio in a chosen “major”.

The visual arts forum on CC should have some pre-college threads as well.

Good luck!

Look at mysummeradvisor.com and search under Academic Programs, Visual Arts. Many art schools have these programs and they help with portfolio development. Rhode Island School of Design has great programs.

In the last couple of days I’ve received e-mails from SAIC and UArts saying that their summer institute registration is still open. So at least a few programs still have availability for this summer.

Thanks to everyone who replied! mysummeradvisor.com was definitely helpful.