<p>It sounds like your son can succeed academically anywhere, and it’s the social aspects you are concerned with. I can tell you that Bard is very nurturing. He would find like-minded people there. Bennington is less so, but because it is so small, he would never get overlooked even though he is quiet.</p>
<p>My daughter graduated last May from Brown with a concentration in Visual Art. She really loved the department. She, like you perhaps, didn’t want to go to art school because she wanted a better-rounded and not one-sided education, as art schools often provide. She took a couple of classes at RISD (her friends from Brown often took more), and while it can be difficult because of different scheduling, which was still the case as of last academic year, it was not impossible. The dual degree program is extremely difficult to get into, as someone else mentioned. When my daughter entered Brown, the dual degree program had not yet been started. She may have applied to that if it had.</p>
<p>I would post your question on the Visual Arts forum. There are many parents there who have kids in art programs all over the US, myself included. You might get some other opinions. there.</p>
<p>M d graduated with a double degree in studio art from Brandeis and had a good experience and did well in her grad school applications for MFA programs. One of her friends from grad school is on the studio art faculty at Swarthmore. She did summer study in art at Skidmore, all good choices. Williams is a good choice, but I think that Bennington and Bard would be limited in both their facilities and their faculty as would Hamilton. Brown/RISD a very difficult admit, but other programs to consider is the Tufts/School of the Museum of Fine Arts (5 year program for double degree). BU has a strong art program. As an art student you do want to also be in a location where there is an art scene to explore in galleries, museums, visiting artists who do both lecture and are available for studio visits and crits. Yale also has an outstanding art school both undergrad and grad. I am not familiar with the programs at Wesleyan or Sarah Lawrence as we do not look at either school. Both schools are expensive and offer very limited merit aid.</p>
<p>I think first and foremost your son needs to prioritize on three fronts:</p>
<ol>
<li>Academics given his intellectual strength </li>
<li>The relative importance of a deep and broad studio art department with goal to pursue as a major vs. co-major or minor/concentration, and </li>
<li>His need for a special environment socially where he will find a niche allowing his non-mainstream personality to thrive</li>
</ol>
<p>Of the LACs you’ve mentioned I agree with GTalum and others that while the Williams stereotype certainly is at odds with the profile you present of your son, the school is more than its stereotype. It remains diverse and sports some of the best studio arts/art history opportunities anywhere, as already elaborated. It certainly deserves a look.</p>
<p>Deserved too, though imperfect fits, Wesleyan and Vassar. Swarthmore is on your list for a reason, with some of the best academics of any school you’d consider, though your son has to be ready to embrace its intensity as already pointed out. </p>
<p>I personally see Bates, Bowdoin, Middlebury as less compatible, Hamilton in particular, based on your profile, but still worthy of consideration.</p>
<p>I disagree about the reservations about Bard - the school lives and breathes the arts and while in a fairly rural area in the Hudson Valley, it is just a short train ride from NY and obvious city opportunities.</p>
<p>I have to disagree with Bennington as well. The school has wonderful alternative offerings for the right student, but its studio art program (and its size overall) are negatives, dwarfed by your other choices and academically weaker.</p>
<p>If willing to consider universities, the Brown-RISD program is a great suggestion (prepare for a very tough application). Agree also with Carnegie Mellon. The school is more than CS, math and engineering with very strong arts programs. While not exactly a powerhouse of the arts, University of Chicago should be considered as well. A potential good fit on other fronts with the Art Institute just down the road a bit.</p>
<p>Surprised you haven’t mentioned Carleton, a school that would seen a natural choice on multiple levels. With the opening of the Weitz Center for Creativity this year, their arts opportunities expanded exponentially. Definitely worth a look.
[Carleton</a> College: Arts at Carleton](<a href=“http://apps.carleton.edu/arts/]Carleton”>http://apps.carleton.edu/arts/)
[Carleton</a> College: Perlman Teaching Museum](<a href=“http://apps.carleton.edu/museum/]Carleton”>http://apps.carleton.edu/museum/)</p>
<p>bowdoin’s art program is wonderful. it’s small, personal, deep, and many of my friends from school are working or teaching artists today. i recommend investigating it. i think it’s the best thing about bowdoin actually, it’s food notwithstanding.</p>
<p>A word about Hamilton. Some time ago Hamilton absorbed Kirkland, an adjacent women’s college that focused heavily on the arts. Consequently, they’ve maintain a strong commitment to the arts. The former Kirkland campus is fondly called the “darkside” both for its creative aspect and its brutalistic architecture.</p>
<p>From their website.
</p>
<p>I"m surprised that you’ve only mentioned schools in the Northeast. I thought your S is interested in other regions as well. If it were me, I’d figure out which schools were good fits in other ways, and then take a look at the facilities and curriculum for art at those schools to see if they meet your son’s needs. </p>
<p>I do know that Grinnell recently built a whole new building for the arts. You can view the facility and get other info about the program here:
[Department</a> of Art - Art | Grinnell College](<a href=“http://www.grinnell.edu/academic/art]Department”>http://www.grinnell.edu/academic/art)</p>
<p>We come from the East coast, and I have to say, we thought the midwestern LACs were wonderful (my S goes to Grinnell). Unpretentious, friendly, “come as you are” attitude.</p>
<p>Another Eph here, just want to caution you to judge for yourself and not buy too deeply into Mini’s outdated stereotypes of Williams. Williams used to be a majority white, majority preppy, intellectual jock factory, to be sure – but that was 25 years ago. But Williams has deemphasized athletic recruiting relative to its peers to the point where it has not won a single NESCAC team sport (those are the heavily recruited sports) title yet in 2011-12 and, sadly for Eph fans, has yet to beat Amherst this year in a single head-to-head team sport. Williams has invested huge sums in arts and academic facilities, and nothing in athletics facilities, over the past 20 years, and spends less per capita on its athletic budget than any of its primary peers. It still kicks butt in individual sports like cross country and swimming and diving, but those hardly create a jock culture the way the major team sports do. </p>
<p>Williams now has one of the most diverse student bodies (essentially tied with Amherst for the most economically diverse when measured by first generation students, Pell grants, percent on financial aid, etc., and, again along with Amherst, has the highest percentage of black and latino students) of any top-ten liberal arts college. Williams, year in and year own, is near the top of the liberal arts pyramid in terms of students entering the peace corp. So, the dramatic changes to the demographics of the student body undermine a lot of Mini’s outdated generalizations. More than 40 percent of the class of 2015 was non-white or international. Heck, even Wesleyan, despite its well-deserved alternative reputation, has emphasized high-profile athletic recruiting more than Williams in recent years, including stealing away Williams’ football coach and bringing in massively talented recruits in football, basketball, and lacrosse. </p>
<p>What others have said about arts at Williams is true – the facilities (check out the studio art building in particular), reputation, and in particular alumni network for the art department at Williams is hard to top, and it benefits from having a sizeable artist community in the viscinty (for such a remote area) and two world-class museums within ten minutes of campus (MassMoca and The Clark), plus one of the top college collections anywhere. Williams, like Swarthmore, Amherst, Midd, etc. is strong across the board in most academic areas. Each, of course, has particular strengths relative to its peers, and in Williams case, I’d say those strengths lie in math, the arts (particular art and theater), economics / political economy, and the science departments. So if your son visits Williams and gets a bad social vibe, by all means cross it off, but if you want a liberal arts school with an intellectual student body and featuring a tremendous art program with a huge percentage of the student body engaged in the arts in some fashion, you should at least give Williams a close look.</p>
<p>Great post above by ephman. My only quibble would be to the assertion that Wesleyan “stole” the Williams football coach - he (Mike Whalen) is a Wesleyan alum, and returned to his alma mater to be coach and eventually athletic director there, so you can understand why he would want to make the move.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>That, and, the fact that he’s doing it at a fraction of the per capita cost that Williams is able to, attests to the desire many athletes have to attend a competitive DIII college that isn’t necessarily located at the end of the world. :)</p>
<p>Just to add to the confusion, Middlebury has an ever-improving arts program. Like most of these schools, it has changed dramatically over the past 25 years. The great thing about Midd is that it doesn’t have any kind of “attitude”. I think the students are some of the most well-rounded in the NESCAC. Often the artist sitting next to you in the studio is also the Quarterback, or the Lacrosse/Hockey goalie. We still have incredible athletic success, but the arts are equally respected. There tend to be few “groups”, everyone just gets along.</p>
<p>Given the low acceptance rates at a number of the LACs you mention, I would recommend that your son apply to ones that most interest him, based on preliminary research, and then visit ones at which he has been accepted. On those visits, he can attend a couple of studio art classes at each school and get a sense for the fit of the school. For example, the atmosphere at Williams is vastly different than Swarthmore’s. From your description, I think Swarthmore would be a good fit for your son: it is high intensity in terms of students’ passion for learning (more than matched by an amazing faculty) but low intensity socially. </p>
<p>My daughter is a senior at Swat and has studied with Randall Exon for the last three years. He has a website on the college site and also this Youtube which does a great job of introducing him: [Randall</a> Exon’s Art: Where The Beauty Is - YouTube](<a href=“Randall Exon's Art: Where The Beauty Is - YouTube”>Randall Exon's Art: Where The Beauty Is - YouTube)</p>
<p>My daughter cannot say enough positive things about her experience working with Exon. A characteristic of students at Swat is that they are typically multi-dimensional in their interests as are faculty. The environment enables them to blend all of their strengths and passions into sustained inquiry and exploration.</p>
<p>Bennington is very strong in the arts, but just as strong in more traditional subject areas such as science, international relations, language, etc. It is also no longer the most expensive school, sorry to say! It began as a more creative/arts oriented school, but has evolved many times over. The new Center for the Advancement of Public Action is evidence of that. Additionally, there is a reciprocal arrangement with Williams College, 15 minutes away, through which students can take classes, with certain restrictions, at the other school. The most important aspect of Bennington is that it requires a student who is independent thinking and a self-motivator. Outgoing or shy, brazen or reserved – all types of students can be found there – the unifying characteristic is they are self-advocating and passionate about what they are studying.</p>