atrawickb
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Posts posted by atrawickb
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Anybody adventurous enough to try to take their career to Europe might want to think about the various German HDK programs.
They are next to free compared to US programs, and also tend to have later application deadlines (early March). They claim to require proficiency in German, though at what actual level is in question--inasmuch as many of the programs have prominent American and/or British faculty. Frankfurt, Dusseldorf, and Hamburg all have very strong programs. For example, have a look at some of the faculty at Hamburg: Matt Mullican (Sculpture), Ingo Offermanns (Graphic Art), Dr. Michaela Ott, Anselm Reyle (Painting), Andreas Slominski (Sculpture), Pia Stadtbäumer (Sculpture), Wim Wenders (Film)
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sadly, i don't have any recommendations for programs just yet. but, i just found this page, & i wish i had found it earlier:
Ten Tips for Those Considering MFA Programs
also, to add to littlenova's list of tips -
before i began researching programs, i contacted alumni from my undergrad who are practicing artists and asked if i could shadow them for a while, to see what their day to day life was like. by having a real visual of where i'd like to be one day, i got a better sense of what i needed to learn from an MFA program. i hope that makes sense, i'm feeling a little tounge-tied
As it seems there is a persistent east coast/west coast divide, I'll offer up USC's program for the east coasters who don't know that it's gone from nowhere to basically the top, challenging UCLA for the pole position out west. Their program is highly funded, many students receiving not only a full-ride but also stipends on top of that. Their program is small, ensuring plenty of contact with a faculty studded with all-stars as Andrea Zittel, Charlie White, and Sharon Lockhart.
Plus the Los Angeles art scene is always growing in terms of both size and influence, it's a lot cheaper to live in than New York. Gets a lot of sunshine too, if you like that.
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The "Alternate Schools Ranking" post was a good idea that went sideways, and then got hijacked by people writing about totally different stuff. Part of the problem with it from the beginning was that most of the attempts to re-rank the programs amounted to a re-organization of what were already considered to be the top schools. (I too, am guilty as charged.)
But there is a reason for that. The top schools don't go down easy.
Most of the top programs have earned a great deal of respect in the art community over a long period of time. Of course there will be some shuffling up and down, and even though some of us may think that many of the private, pure art colleges will fade in the sun of the big universities, it's not like RISD is about to become irrelevant anytime soon.
That said, there are a number of other programs out there that are up-and-coming, and/or offer and interesting alternative to the classic MFA model--like New Mexico's new Art and Ecology MFA, http://art.unm.edu/ecology/
I am thankful for all the opinions and information I've read on this forum, and only wish I'd found it earlier so that I could have been better informed when I was applying. So that's what this thread is for--it's a gift to those that are applying in 2011, from those of us who have already gone through it.
I'll start it off by bringing up PennDesign's program. Their facilities are not top-notch, but the university it's attached to certainly is.
Joshua Mosely is the acting chair and so if you're into stop-motion you should have a look. Terry Adkins is there for sculptors, Luis Gispert for photography, and Jakie Tileston for painting. Interdisciplinary-thinking Matthew Ritchie is already on the faculty and is rumored to be taking over the chair, and so it looks like Penn is making a run for it. http://www.design.upenn.edu/fine-arts/faculty-fine-arts
You can hop a bus right from campus and be in downtown New York in less than 2 hours. Philly is cheap, has a growing art scene, and Penn has the endowment to throw a lot of money behind a burgeoning MFA program with a major art star about to take the helm. Check it out.
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what did people think of CCA after they visited on the 4th?
Yep, I'm wondering too. What DID people think of CCA after visiting on the 4th, and where else are they considering going?
I'm on the fence right now between CCA and Penn, but leaning towards Penn as it looks like Matthew Ritchie is getting primed to take the chair.
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(seemingly) final results:
yale: interview, rejected
saic: interview, rejected
risd: interview, (haven't heard back, assuming rejected)
--must be doing something wrong in these interviews...
ucsd, cornell, usc--simply rejected
cca: accepted, with some funding
penndesign: accepted, with some funding
all torn up and on the fence about it. east coast/west coast, major university versus pure art school. anybody with any thoughts or ideas about it, i'm all ears. thanks.
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Hi everyone,
I was just accepted to Calart's 3-year program in Graphic Design and they offered me a scholarship of about $15K/year.
This still means that, upon graduation, I will have accumulated about $100K in debt.
I realize that we're all obviously biased toward MFA degrees, otherwise we wouldn't be here. But I was just wondering, how are all of you planning to pay for it? Is everyone just hoping for big scholarships? Is my scholarship considered "big" or "generous"?
Any help would be very much appreciated!!!
well 100k is a lot.
on the other hand, you'd be coming out on the back end with a degree from a top program, and ready to launch (or continue) your career in the commercial art world where your job opportunities are much more likely to make a lot of money (as a graphic designer) than, say, someone coming out of calarts with an mfa in performance art, or video--areas in which it is very difficult to make money beyond garnering a teaching post somewhere.
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Hey thanks for the response! I've visited Yale a bit too much over the past week
I had to take my work to Yale last monday for the interview, then I drove to RISD on tuesday for another interview, then drove back to Yale on Wednesday to drop off the work again, and so today I just went to pick it up. RISD called me at 10:00am on March 29th. My interview was on the 23rd.
I was also accepted to MICA, but tomorrow I'm going to send them my notification that I won't be attending.
Just waiting on Yale now.
well i guess that means crapola for the rest of us who interviewed at risd but didn't get a call...
good luck and congrats on your acceptances.
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congratulations.
i'd recommend that you visit both, and go with your gut.
--how and when did you hear from risd?
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oh, and ps. does anyone know if yale waitlists for any other genre besides graphic design?
hey. i haven't heard back yet either (painting, interview).
i don't think the painting department bothers too much with a wait-list. everybody who's accepted, goes, basically. when i was there i asked about that stuff and they said that one person has declined their offer in the past two years--deciding on columbia instead.
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oh, i forgot about bard. of course, they're going to take over a lot of other programs...and soon. i disagree about saic though, i think they're fading. cranbrook too. i think in general the small, pure art schools are all going to suffer, especially in a down economy, because they're so expensive and don't offer as much funding.
about cornell perhaps you're right that it's going nowhwere--i never visited and so never saw what was going on there with my own two eyes. but you can't deny that it is strapped to a world-class university with a massive endowment, and that they seem to be serious about making their program competitive with the decision to make their entire program fully funded for all students--and everybody knows what that's going to do...strip some of the best candidates away from the top programs.
look at usc ten years ago, where were they on the mfa landscape? (ask an older artist)--nowhere! they funded up their program, offered a bunch of top artists nice paychecks to come around and presto! rock n' roll program. they're even stealing people away from ucla these days.
anyhow, this is fun. more fun anyways than chewing my lower lip off waiting to hear back from risd and yale.
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I was thinking, we have such a great resource in this forum, to communicate with so many other applicants, we could create our own school ranking system.
Let me know your thoughts on this. If it is something worthwhile, I could compile the data.
Each person could rate schools they have spent at least one day touring/meeting faculty/seeing facilities/meeting students etc, excluding the schools they have attended or will definitely be attending.
It could be stuctured for an all-in-one category like US news, or grouped by approach (figurative painting, video, public sculpture, etc.)
Maybe we dont need another system of ranking, or maybe we would be offering a different relationship. Instead of the ratings only being determined by two top admins at each school, probably based mostly on reputation, we can make our rankings based on actual visits, from a students perspective.
Let me know if your interested or if it would be a waste of time.
It could be fun.ha. great idea.
--i only disagree with the exclusion of schools that people are going to go to, or have already attended--those are the schools that students would know most about!
my two cents, from what i've seen (i didn't apply everywhere i've been)...plus of course a bit from what i've heard from recent mfa grads who are seeing and feeling the real effects of graduating from this program or that, and talking about it.
--my list is in terms of primarily 2-D stuff
--this is also in terms of trying to project how seriously are people in the art world are actually going to take you when you get out, in a couple of years.
1. yale
2. columbia
3. ucla
4. risd
5. calarts
6. mica
7. saic
8. usc (free)
9. hunter
10. vcu
and then so on and so forth. watch out for stanford (free), cornell (free), ucsd, and upenn to drastically increase their relevance in the coming years.
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I've called columbia and heard the same nonsense - yes, they let people in without interviews into the school of arts - but NOT in the fine arts department. And unfortunately, if you're waitlisted - you'd be waitlisted from the group of people they selected for interviews. If you haven't heard by now, it's most assuredly a rejection. It blows. This is my *third* time applying.
My scores this year
rej:
yale (photo)
columbia (photo)
bard (although the letter said I was "too advanced and had progressed too far" for their program. (photo)
Very, very frustrating. My third year applying to schools. I got into the RCA last year, but had to decline due to cost. I had a piece in the new museum and was awarded several grants this year, but I can't even score an interview at a single north american institution. Go figure. Don't know if I'll try again for a fourth year. Very disheartened.
i understand how you feel in some ways and want to commiserate and tell you that this whole grad school thing is a big mafia charade. last year i had two solo shows and 9 group shows, including a museum show, across 4 countries. and so far i've been rejected from several programs that i considered to be my 'safety' schools...
in several of my interviews i was asked if i was going to be 'teachable'. and maybe that's kind of the point that they're making. you know, maybe bard is right, maybe you have gone too far already. it begs the question: 'why are you applying to grad school'?
maybe it's for the best.
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I was accepted to New Paltz as well but for painting. Have you gone for a visit yet? How did you like it? I need to go myself either this Friday or Next. I want to see the studio space.
i don't know if you realize this or not, but you are responding to a message from 2009.
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anybody been to djerassi? somebody cancelled and i was the first alternate. heading there on april 20th and would love to hear about what it's like.
thanks.
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Don't worry, for Yale they aren't doing their final crit with the full faculty until Monday. So we won't be hearing from them until Monday at the earliest. It's been a really long weekend, but surprisingly, I've come to a real peace about it. As much as Ive fallen in love with Yale and would love to go in a heartbeat, if I don't make it in i'll be happy with one of the other schools I was accepted to. Whatever was meant to be, will be, I guess. And I don't have any regrets with the outcome of anything that's happened in my life so I'm totally fine with whatever the outcome will be for this. What day did you go to interview? Maybe we crossed paths at one point?
don't think we crossed paths as i interviewed early. was on the east coast heading west when we got the invitation to interview, and they let me come in right after that as i was leaving the area.
if yale and risd don't come in for me, i'm looking at a choice between cca and upenn. you?
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interviewd at yale and risd (painting), but haven't heard a thing back yet.
anybody, anybody?
going nuts all about it.
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What exactly is the rule for deferring your acceptance to a school? Do you have to go after a year or else be subject to some penalty? I guess I dont quite understand it. Im thinking about the possibility of deferring at CCA and getting residency in California. Anybody have thoughts on this matter?
cca is a private school. getting residency in california wouldn't change a thing about the cost of going there.
getting residency in california would only help you to reduce your tuition at their state schools, many of which have strong reputations.
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Mine is even less than that. I got confused when I was at the financial aid office and thought I got more...then when I actually got my letter, I was sad.
hey,
it seems like we have some similarities in terms of school interests and background. i went to yale undergrad and read philosophy, and went into art from there, we both got into cca, but not calarts or ucsd, etc.
i'm curious to know which way you're leaning at this point in your decision-making, or if your risd acceptance makes it a no-brainer?
i interviewed there (painting), but have yet to hear back. personally although i would much prefer to be in the bay area, risd's reputation is i think just so much stronger on the national level that i'd have to choose their program, if the money was the same.
did they offer you any funding?
good luck and allbest
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Hello everyone. I've been reading all the posts, and I can't say I've had much luck so far. I've been out of the country for the last couple of weeks, and won't be back for one more. So, after reading what everyone else has said, it looks like those decisions are waiting in my mail box for me right now-- which is making me tear my hair out. I feel the NY Studio School is definitely my best fit- I really hope I nail this interview.
I applied to 10 schools thinking it would increase my chances... I'm beginning to think I should've spent more time on fewer apps.
Good luck to anyone still stuck in my boat.
Been rejected by
Yale
Hunter
NYU
Bard
Waiting On--
SVA
Pratt
Columbia
MICA
Waitlisted--
NYAA
Interview next week for NY Studio School
don't get down. i think it's good to apply to more rather than less schools--as long as you have a genuine interest in where you are applying. i see it fatalistically in the sense that the people who want to work with you are going to say yes and that's where you want to be. in a way, it's really quite obvious. this is art, you know, not math. there is no 'right' answer and if everybody loves what you're doing as an artist, then you're probably pretty boring. you want to work with the people who dig YOU, and you don't need every program to dig you.
so keep your chin up. things will turn out for the best.
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I have to say I disagree completely. Of course you have to worry about money. Are you not an adult who plans to support yourself and pay your own bills? Then yes, you always have to think about the money. This is not some romanticized storybook of the artist starving for their vision. This is your life.
In my own humble opinion, NO it is not worth it to take out so much debt, especially for a painting degree. Painters' primary income comes from teaching. The educational system is already glutted with painters scrambling for the few teaching jobs there are, and those are disappearing at a brisk clip. Have you had much interaction with post-MFA students dealing with mountains of debt and a shrinking job market? I have. It's not a pretty picture. The fear and worry in their eyes actually pushed me away from getting an MFA. Even without any loan payments to make at all, a painter would be have to struggle constantly. WITH such loan enormous payments, I ... I just don't know.
I plugged your hypothetical debt into a payment calculator:
Loan Balance: $70,000.00 Adjusted Loan Balance: $70,000.00 Loan Interest Rate: 6.80% Loan Fees: 0.00% Loan Term: 20 years Minimum Payment: $50.00 Monthly Loan Payment: $534.34 Number of Payments: 240 Cumulative Payments: $128,240.42 Total Interest Paid: $58,240.42
You would have to make a payment of over $500 a month for TWENTY YEARS. 500 bucks a month is no small number. That will have a huge effect on where and how you will be able to live. Do you plan to have children? Buy a house? Save up for emergencies? Travel? That 500 bones coming out of your wallet every month won't make any of that easy.
I would recommend finding a compromise: don't enroll at Claremont now. Take a year off, work on your portfolio, and next year apply to more middle-range schools that would be more likely to offer you assistance. Find a happy medium between a good painting program and the price. I know it feels like you're at a precipice now and have to jump, but you don't. A year spent working on your portfolio to get more assistance is a lot easier to handle than two decades paying off a loan you didn't have to take out.
This is all, of course, just my humble opinion. If you're okay with all of that, and you WANT to sacrifice for your work, then go for it. No one can tell you what to do.
Then again, Obama has enacted a lot of new student-loan legislation, including a bill that would forgive student loan debt if they agreed to teach in under-funded schools for 5 or 10 years. That's an option. Look into that.
i have to say i agree about ditching any romanticized view of some art school trumping all cost.
for a couple of programs, like yale, columbia, risd--the schools with really the best reputations, it may be true that you just go and have faith that the power of those programs reputation will help you work things out on the back end. but even if you go to one of those types of schools there is no guarantee of anything at all. it's just your chances for seeing success in terms of shows and/or getting a teaching gig are significantly higher.
but if you not going to one of those very top programs, and you're not being offered funding, you may put yourself in a very bad way by going to a private program.
i'd recommend looking more into state schools, especially in the state where you already reside. there are a lot of strong programs in the california state school system for example, where you can get residency after one year and significantly chop down your overall costs without sacrificing much if anything in terms of the quality of your experience.
then there are the fully funded programs. the word has gotten out, and they've subsequently gotten extremely difficult to get into because of it, but cornell, usc, and stanford all offer fully-funded programs. it's free to go. you need to take the gre's for stanford, but just do it and apply. obviously their plan to steal away top students from other programs is working and all three of those schools are on their way up the list, in a hurry.
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Nope nothing about funding yet. At this point Im pretty into going but I have yet to visit CCA or Madison. I guess I kind of reall like the idea of being in a more metropolitan center and I like SF aloit. I like CCA (from what I can tell) because they seem very open to students employing whatever medium they choose. I dont like feeling like I have to only paint or be careful about keeping a painting language if you will.
What made you feel it wasnt very strong?
maybe i shouldn't have said that about cca, especially as it may well wind up being the best program i've been accepted to!--but it just felt to me that the quality of work i saw around wasn't quite as high as some of the other places i visited. the students seemed younger--and so did their work. and it just felt like there were maybe too many students, like they were just cranking them out, rather than really developing a smaller bunch. that said though, cca is very open and loose and you can get in for painting and spend two years making video if you want. plus the bay area is great, and oakland is cheap for living and gets a lot more sunshine than madison...
if funding were the same either way, i'd recommend going to school in a place that you'd like to see yourself staying for a while, after school. most people will wind up sticking around because that's where you'll be dug in and already connected, most likely to get a job, get a show, etc.
good luck.
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Thank you, everyone!!!!! My brain is totally unable to parse this information right now.
congratulations sophiab, that's great news. it's a great program.
did you get a letter, an email, a phonecall?
i interviewed at risd (painting) and am still waiting to hear back...
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On 3/22/2010 at 12:23 PM, nathancotephoto said:
Dear Mr. Cote:
Welcome to the School of Design at the University of Pennsylvania! It is my pleasure to confirm that you have been admitted to our 2 year Master of Fine Arts program, beginning in September 2010.
Online letters have been sent for Photo.
That puts my list at:
Accepted: Penn and U of Nevada Las Vegas
Rej: WashU
good for you. me too.
now i'm at:
accepted:
cca
penndesign
rejected:
usc
ucsd
cornell
still waiting:
saic (interview)
yale (interview)
risd (interview)
calarts
good luck everybody.
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New list
REJECTED
SAIC
BERKELEY
HUNTER
ACCEPTED
CCA
UW MADISON
WAITING
VCU
PRATT
i'm into cca too. have you heard anything about funding?
do you think you're going to go? --and if so, why?
i love the bay area, though i'm not convinced that cca's program is all that strong after visiting...
Artist websites/opportunities/etc
in Visual
Posted
If you're doing more experimental work, especially in sound or video, and you want to find a way to get over to Europe to do it, check out: http://www.mondaynews.net/c
A lot of good calls on this primarily Berlin-based information station, with great links to the rest of Europe (mostly Continental, and Northern), and Turkey as well.