<p>Liland,
As has been mentioned, my daughter graduated from RISD a couple of years ago with a major in industrial design (ID). She didn't enter college with that major in mind, but during her first year she chose to emphasize the applied arts (design) rather than fine arts. At RISD, as at most art programs, the "foundatioin year" (freshman year) program is identical for all students regardless of major.</p>
<p>Since your son is a high school sophomore, I strongly encourage him to attend a summer pre-college program. It doesn't have to be in ID. Important to all art majors are certain core skills including drawing (life drawing). My daughter attended the program at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and took courses in drawing and sculpture. There are good ones also at CMU, MICA, RISD, and other locations.</p>
<p>Once our daughter declared her interest in majoring in art in college and also that she wanted to attend a stand-alone art school, we had to throw away most of what we had learned when my son applied to college a few years earlier. We had to educate ourselves a lot about what our daughter needed to do to apply to art schools (all about portfolios, for example) as well as about the different art programs/art schools. We also looked hard for universities that had strong studio art programs, not just stand-alone art schools. As I've posted before, and Taxguy also alludes to above, there's a difference not just in the quality but also in the intensity of the studio art/design component of the curriculum at different types of school. Roughly speaking, at a stand-alone art school, a student will take 70% of her courses in art/design studios on the way to a BFA. At certain other universities with a strong or good studio program such as CMU, BU, and Syracuse (generally leading to a BFA), the student will spend 50-60% of her courses in studios. And at many more colleges and universities -- such as the typical liberal arts college -- the student will take about 30-40% of courses in studios (roughly half the percentage in a stand-alone art school). You have to look at the curricula at specific schools to figure this out.</p>
<p>My daughter never expressed second thoughts about her decision to attend a stand-alone art school or RISD in particular. This is a very demanding type of program. I think RISD's summer pre-college program is deliberately demanding to give students a taste of what it's like to be in an art program in college. But I'm sure several other pre-college programs are also very valuable, for basic training in skills and for "professional socialization" into the group/collective aspect of producing and critiquing art.</p>
<p>Toward the end of her time at RISD, however, my daughter sometimes expressed the wish that she had taken a few more courses in non-studio areas. This was mainly because she had developed an interest in "ecological" or "green" design. She was able take some courses at Brown (which is just up the hill from RISD) that helped to satisfy her interest in this area. Now, while employed full time doing design work in NYC, she's following up this interest as (volunteer) co-director of an organization called "O-2," an association devoted to the promotion of ecological design in NYC. She could yet go back to college for an MFA program in urban design or green design in a couple of years, though she hasn't mentioned this recently.</p>
<p>The question was raised above about whether a high schooler interested in art should continue to take a full "academic" college-prep program. My daughter did, including the sciences and math (4 years of each). While she didn't load up on as many AP courses as our son did, she still took several AP's and an overall well-rounded program. Some art-oriented majors such as architecture draw on math skills. And a broad "liberal arts" education can be helpful in many ways. As Taxguy has mentioned, an ability to write well and speak speak well is very valuable in the art/design world.</p>