<p>I will in all likelihood be attending the School or Art at Washington University in St. Louis next year. I've visited WashU, I've visited RISD, and although they are very different, WashU seems like it stands up pretty well in terms of facilities and everything. So...</p>
<p>where is it's reputation?! where are the rankings? I'm not a big rankings freak, but I swear I've never seen WashU on any "best of" art school list or in any ranked list at all, anywhere, ever. It's just never discussed in art circles. Does it secretly suck? Has it been completely forgotten? It's not because of the fact that it's within a university, because Carnegie Mellon is the same way and they get way more credit.</p>
<p>I'm asking this because I'm a very, very serious art student, but I like academics too much to go to a "stand-alone" art school. I thought WashU seemed like a great compromise, best of both worlds, whatever - am I the only one in the entire friggin' world who thinks this? I cannot think of a single reason why the school is being ignored. The more I think about it, the more frightened I am. Please help!!</p>
<p>For some reason, people seem to think that stand alone art schools won't give you broad based academics. For the better art schools, this ISN"T true! You can get a fine liberal arts education at RISD! They have some stearling liberal arts instructors, and you can take courses at Brown. MICA is also well known for strong liberal arts as is other schools. </p>
<p>That said, WASH U has a good reputation. In fact, the assistant Dean of CMU Design school attended Wash U. </p>
<p>You will, however, be forced to take more non art related courses at Wash U than at a stand alone art school. Thus, your indepth training in any one artistic topic will probably be less than that of a stand alone art school. </p>
<p>Frankly, I think that the liberal arts are going to be equivalent. What bothers me is the type of people that you will meet. Stand alone art schools are made of of....er... artists who are commited to their art.Liberal arts are secondary with the exception for those that want to major in creative writing. At places like Wash U or other universities such as Syracuse, you will meet a more varied student body than just artists. This has to be factored in as well.</p>
<p>Though I haven't tried to piece this together for WashU, here's a rough generalization that may be of some help.</p>
<p>At most colleges and universities, courses in a student's major will take up about 30-40% of all coursework. That would be about as true of an art major as any other. However, at some universities, the art program is a full studio program (e.g., CMU, Syracuse, BU), with a strong foundation year and so on, and at those the student will take 50-60% of coursework in art. Then you have the stand-alone art schools, at which a student will take perhaps 70-75% of coursework in art (studios). So one way to think about it is in terms of the total amount of studio coursework. A student who attends a stand-alone art school will have roughly double the amount of studio experience as a student who majors in art at a liberal art college or a typical university art program.</p>
<p>Of course, universities do differ from this "model" and so you have to check it out on a case by case basis. Not to mention, you may well want to take advantage of other experiences at a college, and to become an artist you don't have to have a BFA (though you could get one following any one of the three "types" or curricula that I've set out as models), though you may want to get an MFA.</p>
<p>I thought of that, and it seems to me that WashU does extremely well in terms of studio time. Out of 128 total required credits for a BFA, 75 are required for art and 8 can go for art electives (65% of total). 12% goes for art history, and the remaining 23% is academic. Again, it's an art school, not an art program or art department. And yes, a huge component of my decision to apply was the people. Being submerged in nothing but art 24/7 for four years would probably leave me a little burned out and socially bored. </p>
<p>Anyway, thanks to both of you for your replies. At least now I can assume that there's no glaring deficiency that I'm missing.</p>