<p>Full disclosure: My d applied to CU and was not accepted.</p>
<p>Pluses: Free tuition, art! art! art!, location, contacts</p>
<p>Minuses: no traditional college campus/experience, minimal academics, very small student body (approx. 60 art students per class), cost of living</p>
<p>If you are confident, independent, mature, totally committed to art and want to be in heart of things it is a great choice.</p>
<p>We visited Drexel today and my daughter was disappointed with the tour. It was very general and turns out their media and art design school is good if you're interested in fashion design, graphic design or architecture but there is really no major in fine arts. Our Pratt visit is Monday and she is now seriously considering the summer pre-college program. If anyone who participated in this program would be willing to share details of the program, please post. My d knows it will probably be a great experience but is nervous.
Nocalmom, your d was so nice to send my d a long email all about her freshman year experience. Lots of good, honest information which is what she needs to hear. It sounds like she's extremely happy there. Thanks for forwarding my d's email address to her. Hopefully we'll get to meet her on our visit.</p>
<p>mom of alex: I'm so glad to hear that my d emailed your d about her experience. My d really loves Pratt and her experience there even though she has experienced some of the downsides of Pratt. She is from a very small town here in CA and has simply adored the big city experience and loves meeting new people and being challenged in her art. I highly recommend a summer experience for your daughter - either at Pratt or somewhere else.</p>
<p>Mom of Alex, I didn't like Drexel either. It might have been the horrific food that was available in the cafeteria on the day of our visit, or it might have been the lackluster views of students that we interviewed, but we were turned off.</p>
<p>AS for Pratt, I loved Pratt's program. Personally, I feel that Pratt has some of the best course offerings that I have seen. I would have loved my daughter to go there. Alas, she didn't like the schools as much as I.</p>
<p>Nocalmom, what are the downsides of Pratt you were referring to? My d will be replying to your d's email tomorrow so I'm sure she'll have some questions for her!
taxguy, we never made it to the cafeteria at Drexel so can't speak for the food. Our bus tour wasn't much of a tour, saw the surrounding area and a dorm room and that was it so we headed to South St. where we had a great lunch then spent a couple of hours and lots of $ at Pearl Art Supplies. Anyone local to the Philly area, it's an amazing art store, 3 stories and students get a 10% discount. They also have great sales in the fall. My d is realizing after today's Drexel visit that she will need to go to a school with a good fine arts program to be happy. We were told to visit University of the Arts, Tyler School of Art, we've heard Towson has a good program, have to visit Univ. of DE since it's our state school, any other schools we should be considering? We had considered RIT and Syracuse at one point but based on everything I've read here, I think we're ruling these out.</p>
<p>mom of alex - non-art schools that came up on our radar for fine arts at one time or another included - WashU, CMU, Rutgers, VCU, RIT, UGA</p>
<p>TH21,</p>
<p>What school did you guys decide on and may I ask what criteria did you follow in ruling out the schools you mentioned...?</p>
<p>Just a quick note from a Mom who grew up outside Philly- Temple is in a very seedy area. I would never send my daughter to live North Philadelphia. Hope I don't offend anyone.</p>
<p>I have heard the area around Temple is kind of scary and we had initially ruled it out but I heard Tyler is in a totally different area and that it's not bad at all. We'll have to visit to see for ourselves. TH21, I've heard VCU isn't the best area, my older daughter is at WashU now (not arts but BME) and younger daughter has visited, too far plus extremely difficult to be accepted, same goes for CMU. Anyone know much about Towson?</p>
<p>As long as you are going to visit Towson, you should check out MICA. It is in a nice area of Baltimore, has high caliber academics, and a FAR superior reputation to Towson in Fine Arts. My son will probably go there (received a very generous scholarship) and major in Graphic Design or "Interactive Media"... MICA's tag for "New Media"........ The facilities are incredible and there appears to be a great esprit de corps among the students we met. Food and Dorms were excellent.</p>
<p>If your daughter is a painter, MICA would be an ideal choice.</p>
<p>Regarding Pratt summer pre-college.......... GO FOR IT! My son had a wonderful experience there, made many new friends, became more independent, got a good feel for college life.</p>
<p>Yes, I live in Maryland. MICA's reputation in any area of visual arts is vastly superior to that of Towson. However, Towson just built fabulous, brand new facilities. They may be up and coming.</p>
<p>College-ish ---- our story.</p>
<p>Some of the original debate in our family centered around an art education from an art school, or an art dept within a univ or college. We had done both, my wife from an art school, and me from a college. We met in WashU's MFA program, and we returned to our contacts there for recommendations of schools to look at for D.</p>
<p>D ruled out small LACs right off the bat. Money was a factor, 40-45k can't be afforded and we don't believe that starting out with an art degree and a stack of loans is a good life plan, but we weren't going to qualify for need-based aid either. So a lower price tag and/or merit $ were required to make any school work.</p>
<p>Strong photo programs were also a requirement, which eliminated WashU among others. D has very strong portfolios in both photo and fine arts (Scholastic silver portfolio winner in each, and gold winner in each for individual pieces.) At the end of the day, she applied to only three schools, an insanely low number in this day and age; RIT, UGA and Cooper Union. </p>
<p>UGA has a good school of art within the university (their dean was just hired away by WashU and they have new facilities under construction) The instate price tag is about 9k per year after the hope scholarship (gpa>3.0) break.</p>
<p>D was accepted at all three schools, and will matriculate at Cooper Union.</p>
<p>I think it would be helpful for you and your daughter to compare/contrast Pratt and MICA. The schools have alot of similarities but also clear differences . Mica also has a great EC summer program.</p>
<p>I have heard MICA is more along the lines of schools like RISD and CMU as far as difficulty in being accepted. GPA and test scores may not be high enough. Also, I grew up in Balto. and parents still live in the area. I was told the area is not good at all. Someone on this forum posted that their d would not leave the campus at night, even with friends.</p>
<p>Comparing GPA/SAT MICA is not as difficult as either RISD or CMU, MICA may be a tad more competitive than Pratt, but really I think pretty equal. I don't know anything about the neighborhood.</p>
<p>//Yes, I live in Maryland. MICA's reputation in any area of visual arts is vastly superior to that of Towson. However, Towson just built fabulous, brand new facilities. They may be up and coming.//</p>
<p>Facilities do not teach.</p>
<p>momofalex and others - the downsides of Pratt are probably the downsides of all art schools. We've had a few (mostly minor) paperwork issues with the financial aid office and a paperwork mess up by the housing folks for next year's housing. The students really need to be on top of paperwork issues which is not always an art student's greatest strength! Or, at least not my d's greatest strength. The other challenges include hours and hours of work - very little sleep - many distractions (NYC) and the cost, although Pratt is good with scholarships. These are things I perceive as downsides of Pratt but right now I think my d would mostly only say good things about the school. She is dreading leaving in May for the summer. All in all, it's been a great freshman year and she has been challenged academically and artistically. Her profs have mostly been reasonable and certainly dedicated to sharing their knowledge. There's nothing better than writing an art history paper while sitting in the Met. Or, doing life drawing in the museum of natural history. My d says everyday is an experience in exposure to art since everywhere you go there are art galleries or stores displaying art. Anyway, we are big Pratt fans these days.</p>
<p>Visit, visit, visit! I visited MICA with my daughter. The area did not seem bad to me. It's in a city. You have to be careful in any city...Providence, Brooklyn, Philadelphia. See for yourself :-)</p>
<p>my d is a sophmore attending an arts high school in DC so we are eager to know more about life after. she is an OK not great student, has a strong portfolio that she already has shown to schools. so - how good does a GPA have to be for pratt, rsd, cooper and mica - her choices of the moment?</p>
<p>I can only about RISD based on what admissions' officers have stated. They generally want at least an unweighted GPA of 3.3, not counting art, gym,music, health, etc. If she took a lot of honors courses, they will bump up the GPA a bit. They also want SATs of 1150 or more.</p>
<p>However, that said, they will lower both the GPA and SAT somewhat for extraordinary portfolios. Obviously, you have to have one heck of an amount of talent and a fabulous portfolio for them to somewhat lower their GPA requirements.</p>