DD is interested in a dual major or major/minor in science and art. Her art interests are purely representational, which is not the most popular on campuses at this time. Williams is her current top choice.
Can anyone at Williams give an opinion on the quality of the teaching in “traditional” techniques such as figure drawing from life, realistic portraiture, etc? We are heading back East for our first college exploration tour, and want to focus on schools who could feed this side of the art coin. Thank you!!!
Studio art is very well represented at Williams, and the courses are known to be quite rigorous. I’m a terrible artist so I’ve never taken one myself, but one of the great things about Williams is you can be quite confident that there are no bad departments, as it’s a liberal arts college and so must be excellent in every area. Many friends have taken those classes and I’ve heard no complaints about the professors, although there have certainly been a few about the workload!
Thank you so much, Jersey454! If you have a minute, could you ask one of your friends if they have a favorite prof for realism? I’m so glad that you like Williams - she has fallen in love sight unseen!
Hi OP, we looked at many schools for S #1 with strong math and art. He is also into representational, not abstract.
He liked Williams and did Math Camp there but ended up doing EA at another school and thus did not apply.
Top contenders:
RISD/Brown dual degree
WashU dual degree
Yale
Swarthmore has an amazing professor whose work he adored. Small department, tho. Carnegie Mellon has interesting programs but not a fit. He considered Cornell but it is just too big for him for undergrad. Wesleyan and Skidmore were interesting though more abstract. UVa has a mentoring program for which students submit a portfolio and come in as art scholars.
We looked at a lot of LACs but since the art depts were so small and course offerings so limited it seemed that there would not be enough critical mass. This was not our impression of Williams,however!
I suggest you look at the number of profs, their websites and examples of their work, where they got their degrees, how many and what studio classes are offered each year, and the flexibility of core classes/distribution requirements to see if students will have enough freedom to pursue studio art.
PS There are other programs but we looked at the ones mentioned above bc they have great fin aid.
If you can find out the number of art majors and profs and get a feel for exhibitions, art events, etc., it also indicates how strong of a presence studio art is on campus. Williams stands out in this regard. It was S’s top LAC too.
If your D is interested in Williams she might not be interested in bigger schools but BU and Temple have art schools. Even without admission to the Brown/RISD joint program, Brown is still worth looking at since its art is strong AND you can take one class a semester at RISD, anyway. Other posters will know of dual degree programs in Michigan, Washington state, Kansas. Tufts has a program with an art school but it is strongly geared toward abstract/conceptual. If her stats are strong enough for Williams she is a candidate for other selective LACs. Check out Wellesley (cross reg with other schools?) and Smith and Mt Holyoke (5 college art opportunities). Occidental has cross registration with an excellent art school in southern Cal, tho I am not sure how logistics of scheduling classes would work.
Wow - Momcinco, YOU ROCK!!! Thank you so much for your super specific advice - I have not found this ANYWHERE! As a Californian who is flying to the East on a very tight timeline, and can only see six schools, this advice is INVALUABLE!!! A thousand thank yous!!!
I was about to pm you, but then I thought that others would benefit from your wisdom as well. When you say “good financial aide” are you referring to merit or need-based? We are one of those families who won’t qualify for need-based. We’re looking for nickels under the sofas now :).
One thing that I have learned from talking to other people who have graduated with art degrees is to pay attention to whether there is coursework or emphasis on the business part of art, and whether the teachers you adore are full professors or adjuncts. Our daughter had a course last summer with a rising senior from BU. This student picked BU based on a combination of merit and some excellent professors, but said that both professors were adjunct, and were gone by her sophomore year. She also said that her program didn’t focus on marketing oneself at all, whereas the program at MFA (which has now been absorbed by Tufts) had their students work on this as a piece of a number of classes. Knowing this information is critical. I know in my profession I didn’t get counselling experience, which I felt was critical (surprisingly smart for 23!) so I insisted on designing an independent study for credits in social work. I see no reason why DD couldn’t do the same in a liberal arts school to learn how to market and promote her work. I have told both of our kids that it is your job to figure out what your education is missing, and fill it in. I did that both in undergrad and grad school, and it is very valuable both for the skills you learn and the attitude that you develop when you are thinking this way.
One other question - were Carnegie Mellon and UVA too abstract for your son, or were there other fit issues? CMU seems really abstract on paper.
@shoot4moon, We communicated on your other thread, but I’ll recap here. Williams has a terrific studio art and art history program. That the two disciplines are combined in one department widens and deepens the scope of each. The studio facilities are excellent and access to three world class museums on or near campus enhances the experience.
From the website:
The studio professors are all accomplished, working artists. There are visiting lecturers and assistant professors, but as far as I’m aware, no adjuncts. The instructors’ backgrounds and styles vary, but for sure, they are there to teach undergraduates, not to foist any particular style on their students, or to limit the way they express themselves artistically.
Williams focuses heavily on technique, though it’s important for students to be able to articulate the concepts behind their work. The professors are skilled in a wide range of media and help students master materials and technique. Studio art majors are required to take at least one course in three different media. My son, who chose the History and Practice major, started out concentrating on drawing and painting but was able to branch out into architecture, print making and photography. He ended up in architecture.
My observation is that some schools are more focused on theory and concept, some more on process, but it’s difficult to detect the difference in teaching styles from school to school. I’d suggest your daughter look at some of the course descriptions to see what appeals. http://web.williams.edu/admin/registrar//catalog/depts/arth.pdf
(The studio courses begin on page 28.)
I don’t think that it’s necessary that a professor produces representational art him/herself in order to teach a student who is interested in realism. What they are teaching is creativity, mastery of media and understanding of the theory behind the work. The ability to articulate that theory is important and will be challenged in critiques.
My son’s experience was that there was a fair amount of representational art coming out of Williams art department, covering a wide spectrum from portrait, to figures and objects to landscape, and involving a wide range of media – drawing, painting, sculpture, photography, print making. Studio art tutorials, in which one professor guides two students as they create and analyze each other’s work, are a unique Williams feature.
Williams doesn’t have minors, but double majoring in disparate disciplines is common. Be aware, however, that art studio and lab sciences are both labor intensive – at Williams or any other academically rigorous school.
Some other northeast schools that have good studio art programs: Yale, Brown, Haverford, Wesleyan, Skidmore, Hamilton, Conn College, Smith, Vassar. Other than Brown, which is highly conceptual, my impression is that you will find support for representational art at all of these art departments. Again, look at the course catalogs for specifics.
I would highly recommend Smith for the trifecta of strong studio art, strong sciences and generous merit aid! The others, with the exception of Skidmore I believe, are all need-based.
Momrath, you are simply amazing. I read and reread every piece of advice that you give me!!! Thank you!!!
…focus on technique… so critical!!! Will keep my eyes peeled for that as we go out next month. She has no problem separating Williams from the others as a superior choice with Brown as a second choice, but if we are visiting 6 schools I want to help her pick six diverse ones with a variety of characteristics and admissions statistics. Of your list, I think she is leaning toward Vassar, Yale, and I’m into Conn College. Skidmore and Hamilton might be good for a different trip (along with Rochester). I’ll suggest Smith again - she didn’t initially feel a fit there or at Bard, but who knows…
I would try to visit Smith. A lot of young women who are initially resistant to the idea of an all women’s college change their minds after considering the positives, not the least of which are topnotch academics and generous merit aid. It is, however, a very liberal, activist campus.
For visiting, I would give the less selectives (like Conn College, Skidmore, Smith, Rochester) priority over Yale and Brown. Your daughter is probably right that she will like Yale and Brown a lot. If she gets in, she can visit then.
I know that Williams is also highly selective, but I would leave it on the list because she may or may not respond positively to its rural environment.
I’ve lost track of what her safeties are, and I’m not sure which schools on your list would qualify as true admissions safeties (not to mention financial safeties).
To me, visiting safeties is critical, and finding acceptable options can take some trial and error. Northeast safeties are hard to come by, but seeing a campus and interacting with students and admissions personnel can make a difference in how a student views a potential safety – for better or for worse. I think you should review the suggestions you’ve received and add in one or two to your visit list, even if you have to sacrifice the Ivies this trip.
As far as advice for a career as a working artist, I think you’ll find that art schools and BFA programs will be stronger in this area than art departments at academically focused schools. I know that many of the studio professors at Williams have solid reputations in the art world and regularly show at highly regarded galleries, but ultimately they chose careers in academia.
let me just add the top fine art school in the country is Yale. #2 is VCUARTS. However, being that there seems to be interest in the marketing/business of art I would at least look at the VCUARTS program as it is very unique though difficult to get in. It has perhaps the best interdisciplinary programs via the DaVinci center and at the graduate level the Brandcenter. The greater university VCU, is also know for science , specifically in the medical and research fields.
@marvin100 - She is referring to USN&WR graduate art programs. There are no generally accepted rankings for undergraduate art schools of which I am aware.
@marvin100 - It also seem readily apparent from the OP’s initial post and responses that she is targeting small to mid-sized Liberal Arts colleges for her daughter. Williams is perennially in the top 3 of classic LA’s, along with Amherst and Swarthmore. Schools such as Skidmore and Smith certainly fall into this category as well. VCU is totally antithetical. Even when the OP goes a bit larger it is to super-elite schools such as Yale. Cannot imagine that VCU is a serious consideration in this case.
@shoot4moon - From my recent experience with D1, Connecticut College and its parallel number, Trinity College in Hartford, have become glorified prep-undergraduate schools. Lots of rich, spoiled kids have substantially diluted what used to be, at least at Trinity, a top-notch, small-school LA education. If you are visiting Hamilton (which for some reason is in Clinton, NY), you should definitely visit Colgate (which is actually in Hamilton, NY). Beautiful, small private school. If you are heading to New Haven to see Yale, you may also want to check out another classic LA school, Wesleyan, in Middletown, CT.
actually the OP asked very directly for schools where it would be possible for a arts degree and science. One of the finest in those two areas is VCUARTS?VCU. , by mentioning that
VCUARTS is both a top #2 art school and VCU is a renowned science/research school just perhaps I have shed a light on some new information that the OP is welcome to explore further.
The OP also makes mention of the business of Art, sales etc and VCUARTS is excellent for this.
The OP’s daughter is focused on small to mid-sized liberal arts schools with Williams and Brown as her first and second choices. She and her daughter are flying East on a very tight timeline looking to visit a max of 6 schools. Nearly every school mentioned by the OP or in which she shows interest is in New York or in New England. There are many schools around the country that offer both art and science programs. However, in responding to the OP and providing truly useful information, it is probably best to target the OP’s interest rather than to provide a more subjective one. VCU is a large school (more than 24,000 undergrad students) in Richmond, VA, a more than 12-hour round trip to the OP’s central focus area. The OP is looking at undergraduate schools for a high school senior. VCU’s #2 ranking is for a graduate degree in Fine Arts, not as an undergraduate school.
Since there is some insistence on citing VCUarts’ USN&WR ranking, it is best to understand the nature and detail of this particular ranking. The rankings are based solely on peer reviews, 1 per participating school. Less than 1/3 of prospective participants actually responded to the survey. There is no student input, no statistics regarding job placement post-graduation, and no measure made public other than the peer’s opinion of the subject schools’ art programs. Since the OP’s daughter mentioned Brown as her second choice, several posters above noted the Brown/RISD dual degree program or at least the ability to take regular classes at RISD while attending Brown.
RISD was ranked in 7 of the 10 fine arts categories used in the USN survey, including Top 5 in all but one category and Top 3 in 4 of the 7, including #1 in the OP’s expressed interest in Drawing & Painting. The full rankings are: Ceramics (#5); Graphic Design (#1); Painting & Drawing (#2); Photography (#7); Printmaking (#3); Sculpture (#5), and Metal & Jewelry (#1).
In contrast, VCU was ranked in only 5 of the 10 categories, always in the bottom half of the rankings, with the exception of a top rank in Sculpture. The full rankings are: Ceramics (#9); Graphic Design (#7); Painting & Drawing (#7); Printmaking (#10), and in Sculpture (#1).
How VCU’s substantially lesser rankings across the board resulted in a tie for #2 overall is beyond me without further information as to the metrics of this ranking system, although I would note that the list of schools, individuals surveyed, and rated concentrations were determined by George Mason University in Virginia.
As far as the sciences or any other undergraduate academic program offered by these schools, Brown is the #14 ranked national university in the United States. VCU is ranked #156.