<p>So, daughter is spending part of the summer at SAIC precollege. Before visiting, SAIC had been her top choice. But now that she's there, several factors are making her less interested. Originally, she was looking for urban schools, wanted an apartment-style housing situation, all that. But now that she's there, she finds that she doesn't like it as much as she expected she would. She's envious of her brother's LAC amenities: dorms, dining hall, large on-campus community. The problem is that she doesn't want to attend a LAC -- she doesn't want a liberal arts curriculum with a fine art major -- she wants a BFA program with a foundation year and only a few breadth requirements.</p>
<p>It's starting to look like you have to choose one or the other, though -- I don't see art schools that are like LAC's on her list, and with only one or two exceptions (like Syracuse) we haven't found non-art schools with strong BFA experiences. </p>
<p>Any ideas?</p>
<p>PS: It looks like RISD is this. It's on her list as a reach (because of her SAT/ACT scores if nothing else), so we need to also have match schools, too.</p>
<p>If I understand what you’re saying, I’m pretty sure that most mid sized to large art colleges would offer everything you’re looking for. Pratt has a nice traditional style campus in Brooklyn with dorms, as well as RISD and places like Ringling. I’m not sure what you’re requirements are for urban, but SCAD has a large community and several large dorms and dining halls, although it’s in a much smaller city. CCAD is on the smaller end but I know they just finished building another dormitory.</p>
<p>SCAD and Ringling might, but neither of my children will attend college in the South. It’s a hard limit for both of them. (They grew up there, and don’t care to spend any more time in school in the South.)</p>
<p>I like Pratt, though I don’t know if she’ll be happy with the off-campus experience. As for urban, she originally imagined herself going to school in a big city – NYC, LA, Chicago – but she’s realizing that some of her habits – like taking walks late at night, spending hours lying on the grass in parks – are not as easy to do when the school is in a “sketch” neighborhood, as she puts it.</p>
<p>Well most art schools are just too small to have much of a campus or housing. The only other relatively large ones I can think of are Parsons and SVA, which are both in Manhattan, so maybe not the environment she’s looking for, and UArts in Philadelphia which I don’t really know anything about.</p>
<p>My daughter and I visited MICA in Baltimore last fall and while it doesn’t have a true ‘campus’, there seemed to be quite a few dorms there, and most of the buildings are set in a 6-7 block area.</p>
<p>While it wasn’t a good fit for my daughter, the students we met there seemed to really enjoy it.</p>
<p>Alfred University in NY has a BFA within an LAC. Lovely campus and very good art facilities. MassArt in Boston is an art school, but has dorms and a dining hall and is part of the Colleges of the Fenway consortium that allows students to take courses at the other schools including Wheelock, Simmons, and Emmaunuel. There is no campus per se, but the area around the school is fairly green</p>
<p>I would second the MICA comments. It is pretty close to a true campus, and has an outstanding program. My D was set to go there, until she got into RISD off the wait list (her “reach” school). I would also recommend looking at SUNY Purchase, which is their fine arts “magnet”.</p>
<p>Joeschmoe: What are the ramifications of being an EFC=0 out of state student for SUNY Purchase? We’re mostly looking at private schools because of financial aid considerations.</p>
<p>Not sure, Trin. Purchase was by far the cheapest tuition, even for an out-of-stater, than any of the other art schools my D applied to. You could check with Purchase to see what funds are available for non-NY students. I would imagine you would still qualify for all federal funds, as well as your local resources, so your question is how much Purchase would need to fill the gap.</p>
<p>The RISD tour skipped the dorm rooms. But it is a beautiful campus. We looked at the National Portfolio schools and if a school had enough of a committment to BFA to host a NPD then it was worth looking at. Cooper Union is also a very urban campus. I know what you mean about SAIC my DD did summer precollege there.</p>
<p>Just a note on RISD housing: Freshmen and sophomores are required to live on campus, but on-campus housing is optional for upper classmen. About 75% of all students live on-campus with the rest finding off-campus apartments, usually within walking/biking distance.</p>
<p>Freshmen are all housed together, which establishes a great sense of community (as does the grueling Foundation Year!). Sophomores have varied housing options but most live in 15 West, a converted bank building that is on the National Register of Historic Buildings.</p>
<p>Although there is little green space (other than the “RISD Beach”), there is a definite campus feel. RISD has a great location – right on the riverfront park, in an historic residential neighborhood, next door to Brown (where RISD students can take classes and use the athletic facilities and libraries) and downtown Providence.</p>
<p>joeschmoe: Well, my son has a full ride at his LAC – no loans, no work study – and I worry that art schools won’t be as generous, so that’s a big concern. If by “local money” you mean state programs, the money that I’m aware of is for in-state use only, and may not be available by the time my daughter graduates. (California may end the CalGrant program before 2010 because of the budget crisis.) We have absolutely no family money to contribute to college, and I don’t want my daughter to have any loans if at all possible, so financial aid is a primary concern for us. My experience is that public schools don’t give full-ride aid to out-of-state students, which is why I asked. Basically, daughter won’t be attending any school that gaps her, because there won’t be anything to fill it.</p>
<p>Sorry for the delay in responding, but I really appreciate the responses. I agree that Pratt and RISD are strong choices for what she’s suggesting, though previously she hasn’t thought her style was a good fit for RISD. Both schools are reaches because of SAT/ACT scores (among other things), which makes them less likely to be strong aid award schools. </p>
<p>I don’t know that I had ever heard of Alfred and will be suggesting it to her; we’ll see about getting her on the mailing list. Oh, and her SAIC ECP roommate is going to MICA in the fall, so they’ve been talking about that, too! Will also look into CCAD, though I admit that the midwest is a hard sell for a unabashedly coast-centric person like she is.</p>
<p>Good luck with the tough constraints. My kids were lucky enough to be born into a situation that their inheritance from their grandparents will cover their tuition (but no more than that, and there will be nothing available for grad school). So my EFC is north of $30K–basically no help with grants. My son at a LAC got a small merit scholarship, and my D turned down a much larger scholarship at MICA to go to RISD, where she is getting nothing. In fact, if you have Facebook, you can surf over to the RISD Class of 2013 group, where there is a discussion about what kids turned down to go to RISD. Most of the chatter was about which colleges were turned down, but quite a few, like my D, noted they turned down $$ at other schools so they could go to RISD.</p>
<p>That said, RISD states that they are fairly generous with need-based aid, but not with merit aid. If your daughter is needy, she may get some decent aid. It sounds like some of the kids did.</p>
<p>Your mileage may vary.</p>
<p>With two kids in private colleges at the same time, and an empty nest, I tell people my wife and I are back where we started when we got married–no kids and no money. Just a bigger house and more furniture.</p>
<p>Check into Rutgers University in New Brunswick - They have a professional art school called Mason Gross that offers both BFA and BA’s in art - While the art school is in the downtown campus, dorms are on the main campus and the students can live with other art student or mix with the general student population. </p>
<p>About Mason Gross School of the Arts:</p>
<p>The Mason Gross School of the Arts is the arts conservatory of Rutgers. It is dedicated to professional programs in the arts at the undergraduate and graduate levels and to undergraduate and graduate instruction within the liberal arts curriculum. With approximately 85 full-time faculty, 1000 undergraduate students, and 250 graduate students in dance, music, theater arts, and visual arts, Mason Gross was ranked the 19the most selective school/college in the nation in a recent Kaplan/Newsweek survey.</p>
<p>Do not be discouraged by the SAT score if the portfolio is strong, you are still a desired candidate. I can speak first hand that it did not matter in our case and D also received some of the top merit money.</p>