SAIC vs. MICA

Hey y’all!

I’m currently a high school senior who applied to SAIC and MICA. I got in to both schools, but I’m not sure which one I want to attend.

I applied to SAIC with interests in Painting & Drawing as well as Visual Communication Design Illustration Concentration. And for MICA I applied as a Painting major with Illustration as my concentration.

I got a 75k scholarship from SAIC, and I got an initial 55k from MICA.

While SAIC gave me more scholarship, I would still like some insight on what SAIC and MICA are like before I decide. Because either way, I still have a TON of tuition I would pay @ either school.

If anyone can tell me what their experiences are like at SAIC/MICA that would be great!

@tagalongcookie I’m in the same boat as you in terms of scholarships for those schools. From what my art teacher (who went to MICA) has told me, saic and mica are both especially strong in fine arts, but mica has more resources if you’re specifically focused on illustration. I went to the mica precollege and absolutely loved it there, I’m also interested in drawing and painting in case you were wondering. The professors are insanely nice and down to earth and the people there are great too. In terms of dorms I think saic and mica have the same apartment style which is really nice but one thing I think saic has over mica is that saic dorms have a studio on the first floor that students can work in for most hours of the day. Saic has a very open curriculum (kind of like brown) so it’s a great place to attend if you’re interested in interdisciplinary classes or a mix of liberal arts and traditional arts. One reason I like saic a little more is because, unlike mica, they have language classes there and the curriculum isn’t pre decided for freshman. However, mica still has yet to jury their competitive scholarships so it’s possibly you could win more money at mica. Both schools have appeal processes so if one offers significantly more you can try and get them to match it.