Lightswitch

Yes, I second heyhey's recommendation. I spent a couple of weeks going through these lectures a few years ago, and loved them!

Goldsmiths is great! The only reason I didn't apply there is that my UK school search was, well, half-assed. (I am catching up though--my younger bro really wants to go to Goldsmiths for his BA in Design.) But I have my fingers crossed for SAIC for you, if that's what you'd prefer!!

£21,000 equals to under $32,000, which is still $10,000+ less than UPenn's full tuition. I guess with the cost of living in London vs Philly their full costs come out to be about the same, although I haven't done my calculations. I do happen to be an EU citizen, so my UCL Slade tuition is £8,250 or around $12,000, which is very hard to beat. To be honest, I didn't really consider London until my Slade interview, because I really didn't think that I had a shot. Now, I have to make up for all my missed UK grant applications, but thankfully their app cycles seem to be much later there than they were in the U.S. And there aren't many anyway, but I am not complaining after that huge difference in my tuition to begin with -- I am very happy! (Btw, I very much like Penn and it was near the top of my list throughout the process, but I was disappointed by the very little scholarship money they offered. I guess I was misguided in believing they were more likely to support international students. I got a significantly better offer from the SMFA, which is just strange to me.)

Congrats, lady rainicorn!!! There are plenty of fellowships out there, if you take the time to dig deep and identify the ones that fit your profile. By profile I mean, your citizenship, your hometown, home state, socioeconomic background, ethnicity, ancestry, gender, sexual orientation, undergraduate institution, exact area of study, research interests, international experience/language skills, etc. A lot of funds are restricted in one way or another, so I have found it incredibly beneficial to target my search and have had great results over the years. (For example, one year, my scholarship applications fell through and I was short about $4000 for summer housing and sent out letters to 15+ U.S. organisations based on my citizenship/ancestry, and within a few weeks I was offered free summer housing in downtown Manhattan, so I could do my internship. Sure, I come from a very low-income background, so I have done my fair share of begging throughout college--but have come across very-very generous individuals and organizations.) Good starting points are the lists of outside fellowships that most schools actually publish on their websites. I'm sure if you ask any of the financial aid offices you're in touch with, they'll be happy to help you and provide a list. Most large $10,000+ fellowships had deadlines in the fall, so you might want to keep that in mind for your second year of grad school. But I'm sure you'll be able to find a bunch of smaller awards to apply for now, if you aren't missing gigantic sums after your institutional grants. I am not a U.S. citizen, so I wouldn't know about the money out there that's restricted to citizens (most of it), but here are a few $10,000+ ones: Cooke, AAUW (for women), Kinley, PEO (for women).

Alright, who's going to end up in the UK? I'm still waiting on a few decisions, but I am almost certain the Slade's MA program is going to be a perfect fit for me!! Now my only problem is that most of the outside fellowships I have applied for in the fall are restricted to the U.S. only, so I'm having a hard time identifying new sources of $$. But even without, the Slade is by far my cheapest option. (Or so it seems right now.)

I'm also impatiently waiting for SAIC, SMFA and Pratt notifications. Meanwhile, I have basically made my decision, but it'd be a huge relief to wrap this process up and get a move on. What a ridiculous couple of months this has been.

Last year I was offered a merit scholarship but still couldn't have afforded to go, so I wrote a polite letter explaining my situation, put together all my financial info and documents into a tidy pdf (basically submitted my financial aid application again), and emailed it. They offered to increase my grant by third, which was quite impressive and generous, but in the end, I decided to wait another year. Someone in another topic has said it is pointless to reapply to a school once you have turned them down for financial reasons, but I did just that and so far so good. As long as you are honest about your situation and demonstrate that you have made or are making a genuine effort and applying for all available outside funding (so even if you are unable to contribute towards your tuition, you aren't fully expecting the school to take care of you), I think all is fair game.

Not that I am an authority on this at all, but *I* do think SMFA is the best in Boston. Its relationships with Tufts and the MFA are very, very hard to beat, in my opinion. MassArt might be an excellent art school but according to my understanding if you are looking to develop conceptually and academically, and to form lasting relationships, SMFA is better. I, for one, only applied to the SMFA in the Boston area, because I have worked with multiple amazing artists who have come out from there and have come across basically no one from MassArt throughout my 4+ years in the area. Of course, that may just be by circumstance and may be my own fault. Anyway, SMFA would be my top choice if I were eager to return to Boston.

Well, that was a ridiculous and bitter post. If you do a thorough search on this forum, you'll find plenty of excellent and helpful advice on SAIC's postbac program. According to my understanding, for many young artists it may in fact be a very ideal alternative to an MFA program.

I just got an email notifying of acceptance to UCL Slade (in Painting) and am totally over the moon! It's been only a week since the interviews, so I am very impressed by their speediness. I thought the interview was delightful (!) and so were the people I met. Slade is absolutely one of my top choices. It'll all depend on funding, so we'll see, but this is the best possible first news I could have gotten. Ok, maybe, I'll try to calm down now. I've been reading this forum for ~3 years now, so it is a total relief that for once I have some good news, too. PHEW. Congrats to all others with good news and good luck on those upcoming interviews!!!!

CONGRATS!!!!

I just got an SMFA interview invite via email. They actually sent out Paperless Post invitation cards -- what a nice and pleasant surprise! I totally appreciate a gesture like that in this crazy, incredibly stressful process.

Hey all those with SAIC interview experience, I am wondering whether you'd have any advice on compensating for not being able to attend the on-campus interview. I live overseas and there is no way I can make it to Chicago, so will be opting for a phone interview instead. Based on what I've been reading about the interview day, not going in person sounds a much bigger disadvantage than at other schools who don't mind Skype and interview on a smaller scale. Anything to keep in mind over the phone? (I'm interviewing through the Painting&Drawing Dept, by the way.)

Same here. No tears shed.

WELL--it looks like this forum has become my primary means of procrastination. And it's only the beginning of interview season... This will be tough, won't it? Best of luck to all!