Visual Art Colleges and Programs

College Majors Visual Arts and Film Majors
21

<p>that's what I thought too.people were having trouble with submitting the hometest, and I was wondering why mine was...not even that thick as I have expected it to be. I didn't send in ANY originals---Except for some digital form, I printed it out in as a picture form. size was 10x8. other than those two, it was all slide & cd. </p>

<p>yeah, I gotten the impression that cooper is a bit..too cocky? i don't know how to say, but I never wanted to contact them again after the first call. it was kind of a worry since first decision is a 'binding contract'...and that they kick out students from their apartments after first year. i read some comments that finding a place to live near campus(school buildings) is near to impossible. </p>

<p>no..i don't LOVE cooper. i think i just love the fact that it was FREE.......not...the school itself. (i just came to realize that fact couple days ago). haha.</p>

<p>oh for the early decision hometests. here they are! if you have your regular decision hometest, please post em also. i just want to see how it is different from reg w/early.</p>

<ol>
<li>a full length self portrait seen from view of an animal.---specify the animal</li>
<li>ephemeral </li>
<li>a map of a historical current event </li>
<li>a sequence or series of etymology-based on the word of your choice</li>
<li>a boundary between private and public space (was my favorite)</li>
<li>a composition of two objects observed from 6' and from 6" </li>
</ol>

<p>addtional things were..10 questions, replacement of an actual interview.</p>

22

<p>thanks for posting those....i'm so afraid i'm going to blank out when i get the home test.....i though this might get me thinking ahead of time (actually it's just frightening me)</p>

<p>so of those questions are really similar to the ones they asked last year (my art teacher show me the test)</p>

<p>by the way...what other schools are you applying to?</p>

23

<p>yeah, some of the questions are pretty much the same. well sort of. I had digged up 2 parts of the hometest from 2 years ago.. half of those had what is this year's, and the other half were new.</p>

<p>the schools I have ..and am planning to apply- </p>

<p>risd, pratt, parsons, fit and sva. </p>

<p>how about you? are you a senior high school student..or..?</p>

24

<p>yeah i'm a senior....</p>

<p>cooper is really the only art school i'm applying to ...partially because my parents are nuts and don't want me to go to an art school...</p>

<p>i'm attempting to use art as my hook for a bunch of schools that i'd normally never get into...like washington in st.louis, carnegie mellon, and u penn</p>

<p>some other schools i'm applying to are, syracuse, boston, delaware,and nyu</p>

<p>part of me is glad i'll be getting to experience a campus and receive a liberal arts education...but another part really feels like i'm missing out the whole art school situation...</p>

<p>anyhow
gl w. apps....i looked at risd...it's really nice</p>

25

<p>i sympathize with the parent...thing. mine are anxious about the art business.
and my mother regards the entire deal as the most massive and influential decision i'll ever make in my life...and i could be screwing up.</p>

<p>she doesn't take it well when i say i'd be happy anywhere. considers it a lack of motivation.
so i'm accumulating new skills...blocking skills, meditation skills...blanking-out skills. i practice at every lecture.
and there's usually no hardship. i awake from the trance rested, and she awakes from her ranting mood feeling much calmer. =)
liberal arts is good. you'll round yourself out. it's probably one of the more convenient ways to go for the artistically inclined. it's hard with our generation. we really have no battles to fight. i mean...we've got all the political dissent...but it isn't the 1960s. so...we've got all this energy that we can't figure out how to spend. so i suppose it leaks out in artistic angst. our fights are subtle, and that makes expression difficult, especially with critics and the media warping views and such. (did bob dylan want all that?) there are few melodramatic causes except to lend a hand to victims of recent tragedy.
i've had a hardship-free life.
i often wonder if i should join the peace-corps sometime...or stop being so selfish about the publication of my own expression and study medicine and go out to africa to distribute vaccines and help run hospitals. dunno...it's all insignificant really. though it's necessary (if that's not too contradictive).</p>

<p>feel free to bash my opinions. =)</p>

26

<p>wow yeah i have to agree with you there....art has always been something of a guilty pleasure for me....it seems so significant and yet really it's just a visual diary of a little girl in awe of the world....but you know it's just one of those things i have to do...it is selfish, but i can't help it...and don't want to...I only hope that one day someone besides me can benefit from my work</p>

27

<p>haha o ...i forgot...i too have mastered the art of blanking out</p>

28

<p>my parents, like any other, took alot of convincing for them to let me apply to any of those art schools I have mentioned. they agreed to let me go...when I get a full tuition. (which is...again, near to impossible.)</p>

<p>very aware of the fact that it is either you 'lose or win' in the competitive industry of art/design. i believe the best way to....get rid of the feeling of 'guilty pleasure'...is to make loads of cash, and lavishly give out to charity/donations. :D</p>

29

<p>lol..."loads of cash" isn't even part of my vocabulary....you could say i expect to be a starving artist....but honestly i have no problem w. poverty...art makes me happy.....assuming my ultimate goal of living off of my work falls through i'd really love to become a college prof....what r ur career asps?</p>

30

<p>my career asps. ? hmm.......</p>

<p>from most to least-</p>

<ol>
<li>architecture/interior architecture (offered at risd) </li>
<li>interior design (pratt, fit) ..which slightly differs from interior architecture</li>
<li>advertising..communication design (parsons...sva...)</li>
<li>film/video (coop poop)</li>
<li>fashion (i never care what I wear but this field is..considerable)</li>
</ol>

<p>after graduation from a art school with a degree, I am planning to attend a graduate school to further extend my education...in study of - art&design, art therapy and pyschology.(yes, it has occured to me that studying all of these field may take all years of my life)</p>

<p>my ultimate goal is to build and run the largest art therapy hospital center in the world. It may sound cliche, but that is what I will try to accomplish. </p>

<p>what are everyone eles's? I'd love to hear it.</p>

31

<p>LoveOfgod, you are the first person regardless of major to propose such as specific plan for yourself. I applaud your attemped foresight.</p>

32

<p>the spiritual starving artist approach has always been a potential objective for me. but i like warm showers and food a bit too much...
i'd have to join michaelangelina on the M.A. professor-ship plan...
but there are issues with job opportunity in that sect. you can't be picky about location, i've heard. my friend's mother was a univ. prof and she verges on genius in many intellectual aspects. but...job security for her...is not good since she left the univ. to be with her husband and family.</p>

<p>i guess it can be unstable for people like me who paint and do print and collage. i'm hardcore fine arts. i wonder if i'll be able to make a transition into more commercial areas. gotta be flexible i guess.
i suppose you wing it as you go with internships and volunteerism. it's seems good to get the mix of things.</p>

33

<p>thanks taxguy :)</p>

<p>can anyone list out some of the popular/well known program all art schools offer?</p>

<p>(ex: parsons&fit is Fashion..etc etc)</p>

34

<p>l0ve0fgod, take a look at this site, which lists the majors and degrees available at specific art schools: <a href="http://www.aicad.org%5B/url%5D"&gt;www.aicad.org&lt;/a>. Beyond this, it's possible to get rankings of MFA (but not BFA) programs in specific areas such as painting, sculpture, industrial design, ceramics, photography, and so forth, in the graduate school rankings offered by the USNews.</p>

35

<p>Thankyou mackinaw! that helped alot.</p>

<p>critique my portfolio at <a href="http://sksskek.deviantart.com/%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://sksskek.deviantart.com/&lt;/a> and click on 'gallery'.
it's only a partial of what I have..but thought I'd get some feedbacks from others.</p>

<p>what is the general difference between slides and CD-Rom?
how are they viewed differently.
some schools perfer, or require slides over CD.. (sva, fit)<br>
are there any specific reason for that ? hmm....</p>

36

<p>O my you are really talented! (Then again, I'm no artist, just the parent of one...and brother of one....)</p>

<p>I doubt there's any reason other than practical ones or traditional ones for a school preferring slides rather than a CD. But I can't say for sure.</p>

<p>I had the impression anyway about portfolios that the apparent differences between what schools specified weren't very important in reality. There seemed to be some things that would work especially well no matter what the school. We were advised that it's a good idea to include at least one self-portrait, for example.</p>

37

<p>loveofgod,
those were very well executed. what did you reference for the body portrait?
i've never worked in colored pencil before...it's such an effective medium...if you think about it...
i think cooper will definitely have an incentive to take a closer look at your work event if you didn't quite send it in the "traditional way"...or whatever they wanted.</p>

38

<p>thanks for the replies, mackinaw and palpableint! (critiques on art works are always welcome :D)</p>

<p>the reference for 'figure study in color' was from a random textile ad in a magazine. color pencil is the only media I ever gotten around to use. it is an effective medium :)</p>

<p>cooper union...ah.. I am betting myself to think that I was disqualified from the moment I sent my ed packet. don't want to get my hopes up...(afterall, it's 60 out of 2000 or so) :P</p>

39

<p>...i just got back an acceptance letter from pratt.
it was sudden. does anyone have any insight on how pratt compares to risd?</p>

40

<p>Palbabeint, regarding what area of art? Pratt, 20-30 years ago was the "big dog" in the art and design world. Many major artists and art professors attended Pratt. In fact, if an artist or design hasn't heard of Pratt, they must have lived in a barn that was isolated in the desert.</p>

<p>Today, I am not that sure. There are a lot of other top schools. RISD certainly is one of the top, if not the top, school in art and design. In fact, it seems to be the "in vogue" school of the 21st century. I am sure that Pratt is still quite good however.</p>

<p>Pratt also isn't that hard to get into, which is interesting considering its top quality. However, they always had a reputation for weeding out the less determined or less talented with unbelievably tough, hard work. </p>

<p>RISD is tough to get into and also has a reputation for working their students very hard. However, from what I can ascertain, there isn't as high or tough a weeding process in the school itself as there is with Pratt. However, I could be in error on this.</p>

<p>According to the 2005 US News rankings for colleges: Pratt has a 55% graduation rate, while RISD has a whopping 90% graduation rate. RISD also has a 10 point edge over PRATT in keeping fresmen 93% (RISD) vs.87% (Pratt).</p>

<p>Pratt has 32% of its faculty as full time vs. 64% of faculty of RISD is full time. However, this may not be so bad since Pratt draws from the NY area where many faculty may be currently in jobs or own companies. Based on reputation, Pratt seemed to give a more practical education vs. RISD, which is a bit more conceptual based. However, as I said, RISD programs are very well rated,especially in Industrial design, graphic design ( top school in the nation) and even photography ( which is rated number 2 in the nation).</p>

<p>As far as design, RISD is well known for both graphic design and industrial design. Pratt also has strong programs in this area,but it isn't as well known or as well rated as that of RISD. Pratt, however, has an accredited program in Interior Design by FIDER ( the interior design accreditation group). RISD is surprisingly not accredited by FIDER. In fact, I think Pratt is rated in the top 3 for interior design.</p>

<p>RISD has every area of art and design ranked in graduate ratings in the top 10 by US News and World Report. The same can't be said of Pratt,although some programs are certainly in the top 10,but they are almost always lower down than that of RISD. Based on some input from designers, Pratt is NOT well recognized for fine art such as painting and sculpture. RISD is well- known for these as well. Pratt's main claim to fame is in design, architecture, and a newly developed program in media and digital studies. They may have other strong program that I am not aware of. For example, I am not aware of how strong Pratt's program is in Fashion Design ( yes, they do have a program).</p>

<p>Pratt is in Brooklyn. You need to see the area. RISD is in charming Providence. </p>

<p>I also can't compare facilities of each institution. However, I do know that RISD has 43 buildings for a student population that is almost half that of Pratt. I also don't know how many cameras, computers etc. per student existon each institution. Those would be good questions to ask several people and students. Other facilities to compare would be looms, Kilns ( if you are going into glass), sculpture facilities etc. </p>

<p>For what it's worth, I will be checking out Pratt in April in more detail and will submit an indepth report on my visit. I did check out RISD; however, and you should read my review in the RISD college listing here on CC.</p>