ATumble

@gretta: Yes, I'm going to Slade and I'm afraid of the loans too! I don't know anything about New Paltz so I'll just tell you why I'm looking forward to Slade despite costs. 1) It's in London! so much culture.. there are lots of great museums which are basically free. you would get to experience a different culture/people. AND living in london means traveling to the rest of europe is so much easier/cheaper/faster. you can even do a daytrip to paris! and if you buy tickets in advance or look out for special rates and deals, you can really travel for much cheaper. my friend currently lives in london and she says one of the best perks of living in london is easy travel to the other european countries. i think that in itself is pretty amazing. 2)with a student visa you can work up to 20 hours during term and full time during break. of course it won't cover tuition costs but it'll definitely help with living costs or spending money. 3)you don't have to pay for health insurance. if you are studying for more than 6 months in the uk, you can see a doctor etc for free(small cost for medicine) through the nhs(national health service). 4)student housing is pretty reasonable. have been looking at prices and you can have a single room for as little as 94 pounds a week. that works out to about 570 dollars for a month. and that's in CENTRAL london. when i lived in nyc, i knew friends who paid around 500-600 but they had to live out in queens or brooklyn. and also 1st year grad students not from the uk or eu countries are pretty much guaranteed a spot if they apply. 5)meet people from all over the world!! is it just me or did it seem like there were LOTS of international students at slade? did you visit for interview? anyways, of all the grad programs i've visited in the states and from friends in various grad programs in the states(uw, hunter, pafa, brooklyn college, sfai, rutgers, sva), there seem to be some international students here and there but mostly american. of course this is just what i've encountered and i could be wrong. 6)there are some famous notable alumni...jenny saville, rachel whiteread, antony gormley... sadly, i'm kinda out of the loop so i don't know too many artists that aren't dead. there's a whole list of notable alumni on wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slade_School_of_Fine_Art#Notable_alumni 7)a chance to be 'discovered' by saatchi? haha...you never know! some kid from slade won the school of saatchi contest and is getting some crazy prize. http://www.ucl.ac.uk/news/news-articles/0912/09121502 honestly, i didn't know that much about slade when i applied. i just knew that one of my undergrad prof's got his master's there and another professor told me it was a great school. so i looked at their website and saw past student work and really really liked it.(both undergrad and graduate levels) based on just that, i knew it would be a good fit for me...more so than the other schools i applied to. i also talked to friends of friends who attended slade for their mfa's and they really enjoyed studying there and had only good things to say. i don't know how it 'ranks' or whatever but i feel that since i like the work coming out of slade, and the faculty seems to like my work, what more can you ask for? also, there have been a lot of applicants/competition for spots so it's not like the school is completely unknown and there seem to be opportunities for showing and stuff after graduation as well. obviously i'm totally biased and think you should pick slade. however, it is a lot of money and time that will be spent and it seems you've got to decide what is right for you! luckily, i only got into one school so i don't have to think about it. HA!

Something kinda similar happened to me. I applied to 8 schools: SAIC CALARTS UCLA UW(Seattle) Hunter Yale Columbia Slade(Uk) The only place I got an interview/accepted was Slade. I heard from them really early on(didn't think I had a chance) so was excited thinking I'd get interviews at other schools as well. Ha! I didn't even get into my 'safe' school. The only school I haven't heard back from yet is Columbia and it seems they're just slow at sending out rej letters. It would have been nice to have a choice...however, I'm just really happy that I got into one of my top choices and am going to accept it as fate. Getting an interview at Yale is a big deal! I hope you get in. It just seems that no matter how schools rank etc, in the end there are so many different factors that affect the outcome, you just never know.

After living on the West Coast for my whole life, I moved to New York after my BFA. It was so intoxicating. I was on a high for the first six months. I visited every museum/gallery I could find and went to every party, event, show etc. And then I CRASHED. I was so tired of everything and got depressed. I was living in an artists' collective and felt the need to move out into a regular(quieter) apartment. I stayed in nyc for another year but my life was totally different. I still visited art shows and went out with friends but my life was a lot less crazy. Even though I had managed to slow things down a bit, I was having a hard time with my art. I finally decided to move back to Seattle. Now that I've been here for almost 2 years, I've been able to focus on my work and reflect on my experiences in nyc. I think if I hadn't completely burned out in the first 6 months there, I might have stayed. Anyhow, I'm moving to London for school this year and am excited but also anxious. When I visited it was as exciting as when I first went to nyc, but I knew that I had to be careful. Although, I think this time around it will be better since I'll be in a MFA program and I'm a lot older(almost 30!). So my advice to you would be to pace yourself. You're going to have lots of time to experience all the new things. Also, your work and the way you work will probably be affected. Embrace it! Don't put too much pressure on yourself. Give yourself time to adjust. I think moving for school is a great way to experience a new place. You'll have something to keep you from straying too far. Good luck!

CONGRATS!!!!!!!!!!!

@turnip: thank you! i really can't believe it...

got into Slade! yay!

@bandini: thanks! it's a bummer you missed the deadline! as for 'paying for the locals', i don't think that at all! i paid practically nothing for my undergrad education since i happened to live in the same state while international students were paying crazy amounts. of course it would be nice to pay less... is there any way i could borrow your EU passport?

got into Slade! can't believe it!

@sophiab: thanks! i'll definitely check her out. i can email the statement if you like.

you should try to find some life drawing classes/informal sessions. sometimes the more informal ones are really cheap. artists just pool money to pay for the model. you already have some impressive skills but i think you could benefit a lot from drawing from life. for example, i noticed the skin color on your figures are the same. if you work from life, you'll see that the color on the belly is different from say..the hand or face etc. also, your work has the same smooth surface all around. the texture of hair vs. skin vs. jeans. could really be varied. there is so much you can do with oil paint and i just feel that you could definitely explore a lot more. one of my undergrad professors is a wonderful figure painter: ann gale http://www.hackettfreedman.com/templates/artist.jsp?id=GAL you can also google her name for images. anyways, best of luck and don't give up!

@turnip: thank you so much! i don't know if my statement is so strong. i haven't written anything so serious about my work since undergrad and that was almost 5 years ago! but if you still wanna read it, i can email it or something... @upper deck: i did! i went to U of Washington for my undergrad. I actually studied painting and drawing. it was a really intense program. let's just say there was a LOT of figure drawing/painting. however, a year after i graduated, i moved to New York and was part of an artists' collective and I worked at an art museum. seeing soo much art was really overwhelming and for about a year i was just making some bad ink drawings. i finally started focusing when i moved back to seattle. it's weird because i think a lot of what i learned about color etc as a painter is still very evident in my work. i feel like i'm occupying this weird space between painting and sculpture.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/48480591@N04/

SWEET!

@animal handler: yay for London! Living in London is expensive. However, FAFSA is available like you've said and also if you end up attending school there, you can be eligible to work part time during the school year and full time during the summers. Also, when I was visiting London, I met a friend of a friend who was paying 400 pounds a month, which is comparable to cheaper rent in nyc(yes, she had to look at like 20 different places but still!!) And by the way, I don't know about Goldsmiths or Royal College but for Slade, the tuition was actually cheaper than say Columbia or Yale even with the exchange rate. Besides, you'll be in LONDON, not some middle-of-the-boonies-cow-town. And all the museums are free!! There are lots of ways to have fun without spending loads of money AND ways to cut costs here and there that add up in the long run. It's sad but regardless of whether or not you stay in the states or go abroad, you'll probably end up with loans. But hey! we're not studying fine arts because it makes sense financially...right?? So good luck with your interview and enjoy your trip! Cheers!