Visual Arts Awards and Competitions

My S’18 is interested in pursuing an arts major and attends our local arts high school. I have read of the importance of visual arts awards and competitions and was wondering if you could suggest any top and local ones. We are in Connecticut, so any in New England area as well as national ones would be welcomed.

My D’14 entered the National YoungArts competition (www.youngarts.org) and the Scholastic Art and Writing competition (artandwriting.org) and received $$ from both (actual $$ from youngarts, and the college she attended awarded her $$ based on her performance in Scholastic). Those are both national competitions, although Scholastic has a regional competition first.

I think the YoungArts deadline is in October, and the Scholastic deadline is in December.

@GrnMtnMom Thanks so much! Started to research these and this is the perfect time to get going. So is your D’14 in college? Did she pursue visual arts? Which concentration? Which schools did she apply to and choose? My S’18 is interested in animation thus far. I am also looking at summer programs for the future. This summer he will be attending the Center for Creative Youth at Wesleyan University. He is interested in CSSSA Innerspark but the $5k price tag for out of state residents is too much for us.

You’re very welcome, @magnetnh Yes, my D is at SAIC, pursuing fashion design. She applied to RISD, Pratt, FIT, and Drexel and got into all. They all offered substantial merit $, except for FIT (comparatively affordable, anyway) and RISD. She’s very happy at SAIC.

There are quite a few parents on here whose children are studying animation. They have lots of great advice.

My D went to precollege at Pratt, and she liked it enough that she knew she wanted to attend art school. I hear the precollege programs at RISD and SAIC are also good, and SAIC and Pratt both offer merit aid. But I don’t know how strong they are in animation. The other thing worth mentioning is that some colleges accept precollege credits. For example, my D received credits from her Pratt experience towards her degree at SAIC, which actually made the summer program a really great deal.

Also, if your S enters the Scholastic competition, I believe there are scholarships to help with summer programs.

I know there’s also a Congressional Art competition, but I don’t know much about it. Worth googling.

The Congressional Art competition ended last month. You can visit your county representative’s web page next year if you’d still like to join. Also, there is the Reflections Art Contest, and the Holocaust Art & Writing contest (includes film)