<p>RISD, then MICA</p>
<p>i've been to risd, don't bother - the people are too snobby and arent actually all that talented, most work is quite polished and boring - the place is full of overachievers rather than rebels.</p>
<p>jabberjocky, why do you hate risd so much?</p>
<p>What schools are full of rebels?</p>
<p>Actually... I would not say that your reasons for Pratt were "bad".</p>
<p>Location & atmosphere is actually HUGE. Don't pick a school based largely on reputation, believe me you will regret it. My brother is regretting it. He is not an art student, he goes to Wesleyan, but still this point is valid. Go where you fit in. I cannot stress this enough. I have to say that it is fairly true that with a good reputation comes kids who are quite snobby. It's one stereotype that I really believe to be true. Hell, I live in Princeton and I see it everyday with the kids who go to the University here. Anyway... any of these schools on your list are great and will get you far, if you do the work that is. No one school will hold your hand to help you "make it" though, it really is all about the effort you put into it. I know that MICA, Pratt, and RISD all have excellent career centers to help you find a job. Anywhere you go you will make connections, so that's really not an issue.</p>
<p>As for the RISD/Pratt debate...
I went to Pre-college programs at both RISD and Pratt. I liked both for different reasons. RISD had some cool buildings (and wonderful food... mmmm) but some were not exactly up to par. Same with Pratt, but Pratt's food... not so much (but Bergen Bagels and many of the local eateries around the Clinton-Hill area are fairly cheap and excellent if you really do need some good food once in a while). I majored in Drawing at RISD and Painting & Drawing at Pratt. I can say the same thing for both schools about my teachers: some were good, some were bad. This is true absolutely everywhere... you are ALWAYS going to have some teachers you like and some you dislike. However, that being said the teachers who taught my majors in both pre-college programs were amazing, truly. I learned so much from both of them. Their approaches were both very traditional, but I had a teacher at Pratt for foundation drawing who was very experimental and he encouraged playing around with materials. In contrast, my teachers at RISD were extremely strict and narrow in their approaches to art. They all seemed very OCD. It was all about regimented figure drawing the entire 6 weeks for my foundation class, and my basic design class was a harsh slap in the face every period. The teacher assigned us very strange tasks and only accepted really one way of completing them. She was a big fan of clean, organized lines (which is NOT my strong point). So it depends on the kind of art you like. Both institutions are fairly traditional, but at least in my experience, Pratt encourages stepping outside the box a little more than RISD does. Does this mean if you are incredibly wacky and abstract that you won't do well at RISD? No, you will probably connect with some professor who loves your work and you will still go far, your type of work just might be in the minority. </p>
<p>Okay onto other issues: I HATED Providence. Okay okay, I didn't hate it. But after three weeks, I was SO bored. The good news? The train is a short walk away from RISD so if you ever need more excitement, Boston isn't too far. In contrast, I LOVED Brooklyn. Pratt's area really is not that dangerous, as long as you're not stupid. Clinton-Hill is actually becoming a great neighborhood. I talked to a restaurant owner in the neighborhood and he explained just how much the area has grown in the past 4 years, even. It really is tremendous. There are hip clothing stores and boutiques cropping up, and trendy places to eat. It is becoming more of a hipster area, I'm sure to the delight of Pratt students. The subway is so close and with that, you have cheap fare to pretty much anything your heart desires. Just think of all the museums in New York! Really, Providence cannot compete with that. We took field trips to The Met, MOMA, and galleries in Chelsea. Seeing the work in person... I cannot stress enough how much that impacts you as an artist. & I love Manhattan, but I really couldn't live there I don't think because it is quite hectic and completely opposite the "traditional" college campus (read: lack of a sense of community), so Pratt's location in Brooklyn was perfect for me. Pratt has a campus! A real, live campus! Grass and trees!!! That was one thing I despised about RISD... there's basically ONE patch of grass on the entire campus for students to hang out. It's nicknamed "The Beach"... but don't let the name fool you, it is TINY. I mean tiny. I was quite disappointed that there was nowhere to really just chill out outside. Meanwhile, every single day at Pratt there were soccer games going on on campus. It was definitely more of a traditional college campus feel, and I loved that. I also liked how Pratt's buildings were all so close which made getting to class easy, not to mention having everything contained within the gates made me feel really safe. RISD's buildings are much more spread out all over Providence (which makes lugging all of your art supplies home a nightmare), and I really did not like walking to classrooms at night if I needed to do extra work. Angel Street (I think it's called), right behind the Homer dorms at RISD... not a very nice place. There are some sketchballs there at night, we even had some drunkards yelling at us from the street at 3 in the morning... & what some poster on here said is true: people DO get mugged at Providence. It's really not that picturesque. In fact, Burnside Park, one of the few parks in Providence, is extremely sketchy, and home to many drug dealers/homeless people. My skin crawled if I was there past 5 pm.</p>
<p>Lastly, the people. I really cannot stress this more: what you hear about RISD is true. I had so many annoying snobby kids in my class at RISD, and being the shy person I was at the time, it did not go well for me. They were not even that good coming into the program! During critiques I felt like a lot of kids were B.S.ing everything they were saying, and during art history classes pretentious students talked with the teacher about completely unknown artists in order to sound hip. Totally not my thing. I'm not saying everyone is a jerk there, I actually made some amazing friends on my floor. I loved my experience. But I really did feel a lot more comfortable at Pratt. Everyone is really chill and no one is trying to slit your throat and stab your back... Critiques seemed so much more honest and my classmates weren't afraid to admit that they didn't know something; they asked questions so we could all learn. No one really "showed off" and everyone was quite friendly. It really is a laid-back atmosphere. That's not to say that students aren't serious about their work, though... I remember at Pratt just as at RISD, many students worked on their pieces until the wee hours of the morning, or even pulled all-nighters. Now, if you are extremely intense about your work and can deal with pretentious, cutthroat people on a daily basis, in addition to loads and loads and loads of stress, RISD will work for you. But if you are like me, and you really have a chill attitude about life, and want to be maybe a LITTLE less stressed throughout college, Pratt might be a better choice.</p>
<p>It's pretty obvious, but I will state it out here plainly: I actually liked Pratt better than RISD. I think the environment at Pratt will foster me into becoming a much better artist, as well as a better person. I'm applying to both colleges this year, but in all honesty I really think given the choice I'm going to go to Pratt.</p>
<p>cherrycrush, I'm curious as to why you are bothering to apply to RISD. From your detailed comments above, it seems like you are very familiar with both the school and Providence and that you really don't like either. It doesn't seem to be a good fit for you at all.</p>
<p>Brown is the draw.
That is the one huge thing about Pratt that I wish I could change: I wish Pratt had a partnership with some liberal arts school similar to RISD's and SMFA's. I don't doubt that Pratt's gen eds are adequate, but Pratt lacks a decent language program. While I love art, there are other subjects I am interested in possibly pursuing, namely Spanish and Latin American studies, or Creative Writing. Pratt does have Creative Writing, which is great, but in terms of Spanish there's only a Conversational Spanish class. As a student who took AP Spanish during junior year of high school... that class is not really at my level. Given I am in no way completely fluent, but one day I really hope to be close to it. I applied to the Brown/RISD Dual Degree Program, despite the incredible odds. I don't expect acceptance but hey, might as well try. Worst case, I can always just take classes at Brown if I get accepted to RISD.</p>
<p>I'm not positive yet about what I'm going to do, but I figure I will see where I get in and figure it out from there. My post wasn't meant to voice my confusion, just to show my experience with the two schools in hopes of helping someone else, although given I suppose it is a bit biased. All in all I personally think the actual art education at either school is comparable. I find it interesting that people rarely seem to compare RISD and Pratt (at least in my experience... RISD always seems to be compared to MICA or Yale).</p>
<p>It sounds like you do need some more challenging classes, so most of the independent art schools are not going to satisfy you with their limited non-art offerings. The RISD/Brown and Tufts/SMFA programs would be great though. Good luck to you!</p>
<p>If I didn't apply to Brown this year to get into the Brown/RISD program would I be able to enter the program by applying and being accepted my sophomore year?</p>
<p>Great computer animated films come from SVA. Though it may not be your interest, many traditional artist evolve into CG film makers so ask yourself what lies ahead in the future.</p>
<p>To brianm02: Sorry, but the Brown/RISD program only accepts applications for incoming freshmen.</p>
<p>[url=<a href="http://risd.brown.edu/faq/index.html%5DBrown-RISD">http://risd.brown.edu/faq/index.html]Brown-RISD</a> Dual Degree Program FAQ<a href="see%20Question%20#7">/url</a></p>
<p>^^ Thanks for the reply.
I guess I should have started my whole application process.
For some reason I'm just not motivated to apply places</p>
<p>I don't really doubt that RISD people are pretentious, but they are one of the least pretentious schools I visited. The jerks I met were professors. Partly because of those professors RISD has caused a hell of a lot of problems for me and I took a year of academic leave which is now going to become two years. I'm often tempted to transfer to an easier art school but part of me thinks I won't be doing myself any favors by making things easier for myself. RISD is supposed to be modeled after the kind of work you have to do in the real art world and I want to be prepared for the real art world. I'm not trying to convince you that RISD is great, just sharing my indecision here. The problem with art is that technically you don't need any education, you only need the skills, and the skills can be acquired anywhere.</p>
<p>I have to admit I love the prestige of RISD. When I tell people I go there they often react by saying "oh, that's a great school, my brother/mother/whatever went there." Nobody's heard of Pratt. The self promotion RISD does means something. I have often heard that you shouldn't pick a school based solely on it's image but honestly I don't know what else to pick a school by.</p>
<p>nobody's heard of pratt? who do you talk to?</p>
<p>Yeah, Pratt is very well known</p>
<p>I really shouldn't post stuff at night, the next day I read it and it just looks like mindless rambling.</p>
<p>Not many people around Boston have heard of it. I'm into illustration and for illustration SVA and Ringling are more well known than Pratt is.</p>
<p>So I really need to start applying to art schools.
Knocking out some because of the deadlines I've come up with a list of five being:
RISD
UArts
SMFA Boston
SAIC
Corcoran
Any thoughts on the schools?</p>
<p>what are you going for? uarts is super easy to get into. saic is really intense and lets a ton of people in but then everyone drops out/transfers the first year. i dont know a ton about corcoran in general. smfa seems pretty nice, risd is the harvard of art schools.</p>
<p>Yo spruce! How hard is it 2get into parsons cca or ccs</p>
<p>Spruce, I'd like to be an art teacher, so art education would be a great major. But I also wouldn't care to major in painting or ceramics, or maybe sculpture.
I think I'll take Corcoran off the list because I just read that it's a very small school.
I may also apply to MICA and maybe to Pratt as a late applicate.
RISD would deffinently be my choice school.</p>