<p>My daughter, a sophomore, has applied to the first five programs listed in the message title: MIAD,MCAD,KCAI,MECA,NHIA. We're waiting to hear on acceptance and financial aid. Any observations on these, pro or con, would be appreciated.</p>
<p>We thought she was done, but looked last week at the Cleveland Institute of Art's program, which has some really intriguing-looking courses that we didn't see elsewhere. Of particular interest is Pre-College</a> Abstraction + Expressionism through Drawing | Cleveland Institute of Art College of Art | 800.223.4700. She has fabulous technical skills in drawing, but needs an original angle/shtick/-ism/something-to-say for work to be entered in Scholastic or YoungArts, and it looks like this course might help her find one. Any experiences or information on CIA or this class would be great to have, before we go back to her teachers for additional letters of recommendation and pay another application fee.</p>
<p>My D is currently a junior at MCAD and loves it there. That being said, she went to NHIA’s summer program and enjoyed it. She stayed in the dorms and they had food catered in (Panera Bread, which was awesome the first week, and they were sick of it by the second week). She learned a lot and got some nice portfolio pieces out of it. At the time, we found NHIA to be the most reasonably priced program out there. In addition, she got a scholarship to attend, so it was a win-win for us. At the end, she got a nice scholarship to NHIA. We visited all the schools except Cleveland, and it was a hard choice (came down between KCAI and MCAD, but ultimately chose MCAD. Feel free to pm me if you’d like my impressions of the above schools.</p>
<p>Thanks for the feedback. We got a flurry of responses this week. She’s accepted to MCAD and KCAI but without any scholarship. At MIAD she got a partial scholarship, but reading more about the school and looking at the course instructor’s artwork on the web is not enthusiastic. MECA has accepted her but won’t have an aid decision for a week or two, and her materials just got submitted to CIA on Friday. She got a partial scholarship at NHIA; it’s interesting that they requested neither a tax return nor samples of her artwork; the award is described as based on her transcript and recommendations. At this point I’m thinking that the decision will come down to NHIA or CIA.</p>
<p>I’m not able to send a PM because I’m new (<15 posts) but if you could send me one, I’d like to know more about Cleveland and how it came to drop off your list.</p>
<p>Yep, looks like NHIA hasn’t changed their procedures. I don’t remember sending in a tax return, but I do know she had to get an art teacher’s recommendation. There was a thread a ways back that argued summer pre-college program acceptance based on portfolio - when kids are sophomores or juniors, often they have just decided that they might try art school and don’t have a portfolio together or even the first clue about how to put one together. And that’s what the summer programs are supposed to help with. </p>
<p>Check your messages, I’m going to try and remember how to do this!!</p>
<p>PS another school we went to was Columbia in Chicago.</p>
<p>My daughter recently returned from NHIA, so I thought I’d report back here. Overall, it was a great experience. Nice facilities, program well organized, impressive skill level of her fellow students. One of her two major courses was Advanced Portfolio Drawing, which she thought was very good and out of which she got a nice series of drawings for her portfolio. The other was graphic design, and it was not well run. The teacher changed halfway through, and there was often not enough to do and the kids were left to noodle on their computers or listen to music for long stretches. Only one real piece out it, not portfolio-worthy, and nothing substantially new learned about Photoshop or Illustrator.</p>
<p>The shorter early afternoon ‘liberal arts’ course was Visual Storytelling, and it was wonderful. Lively and engaging teacher, lots of interesting tips and ideas, and she sketched out 8-10 pages of a very cool-looking graphic novel.</p>
<p>So it wasn’t perfect, but nothing is. In a two-week stint at SAIC two years ago, the painting teacher was fabulous and the drawing teacher awful. So percentage-wise, NHIA worked out much better.</p>
<p>For next summer she’s going to apply to Marie Walsh Sharpe and we’re not sure where else.</p>
<p>We’re planning on visiting MCAD at some point next year on a Twin Cities trip. Though she wants to go to an LAC or university rather than an art school, both Macalester and St. Olaf have relationships with MCAD, which is a plus for her for those schools.</p>
<p>Thanks for the info and advice!</p>
<p>Yep, like all schools I guess, some instructors are better than others. My boss’s son attends Macalester and my great niece went St. Olaf, both are excellent schools. Macalester holds the dubious honor of being the 2nd most expensive college in the state, with St. Olaf 3rd. That being said, MCAD comes in at #11. Rankings are from </p>
<p>[Most</a> Expensive Colleges & Universities in Minnesota by In State Total Cost](<a href=“Most Expensive Colleges & Universities in Minnesota by In State Total Cost”>Most Expensive Colleges & Universities in Minnesota by In State Total Cost)</p>
<p>Includes room board, supplies, books etc.</p>
<p>I just came back from visiting my D. I will Pm you with the name of a good hotel that won’t break the bank!</p>