countchocula

Edit: Sorry, you only asked about Steinhardt. Please feel free to disregard my comments about Hunter, I am old and bitter Steinhardt is great, strong faculty and student work. The studio spaces are okay from what I remember but nothing particularly amazing. It's a small exclusive program so you get really close with your cohort. Very expensive so depending on your financial circumstances you might go into significant debt for it. I really do not like Hunter as an artist working in New Genres. It's disorganized and terribly underfunded. Faculty are spread super thin and students rely heavily on each other but everyone is broke/living off of loans so resources are scarce. You will have to fund everything yourself, from thesis shows to lecturers and studio visits. The only thing guaranteed is studio space for three years and participating in a handful of student shows on campus. I think it's better for painters and sculptors than interdisciplinary/New Genres artists.

UC Irvine interviews are taking place this week. They emailed a schedule to all applicants who have been invited for interviews. I don't think they are extending any more interviews at this point

I have an interview with UC Irvine next Friday, they informed me via email last week. Nothing from UCLA yet.

Hunter's Spring 2020 class is only 4 students, which might be an indication of how many they will accept during this round of interviews. They accepted 13 in Fall 2019 for a total of 17 in the 2019-2020 school year. They're either being much more selective or are not receiving as many applications. Best of luck to those waiting for interviews!

Received invitation for interview from UC Irvine MFA Visual Art via email today

I spoke with one of my current professors about transferring into UCLA's Interdisciplinary Studio and he told me not to because Andrea Fraser is no longer teaching in that area of study. I haven't seen or heard this info anywhere else but my professor graduated from UCLA's MFA and keeps in touch with their program regularly.

Meleko was my undergraduate advisor when I was at NYU Gallatin! He is very thoughtful and radical in his pedagogy and had a huge impact on my experience. It's been hard to stay in touch with him since graduating, but I really enjoyed working with and learning from him.

Unfortunately I've had an awful experience at Hunter and recently applied to transfer, but it is an excellent program for painters who just want to make paintings. You get a studio in Tribeca for 3 years and most of the other students here are painters so you will have a big community to join. Painters here are typically abstract expressionists or figurative painters. Some people say they make "sculptural paintings" but for the most part, people make work that is intended to be hung up on a wall in a gallery. Hunter's MFA program does the absolute minimum for its students and does not listen to their needs or complaints. Faculty are spread super thin and often managing their own careers in addition to teaching, so they are frequently unavailable and hard to get a hold of. Some of them only teach one class every once in a while, so there might be someone that you really want to work with and they won't be available for 1-3 consecutive semesters. I've found that students make great work in spite of the program, not as a direct result of it, which is pretty disappointing because the school will take credit for your artistic growth after making it incredibly difficult for you to make your work. It's also super racist and students who have come forward with complaints of racism from peers and faculty have been ignored and dismissed because no one in the program office wants to deal with it. There are no scholarships so if you need any funding it has to be external. They also don't offer health insurance and tell students to apply for Medicaid. Most classes are during the day so you need a job that has a flexible schedule or will let you work nights, and you are expected to adjust your work schedule according to the class schedule. The curatorial certificate is just okay. Basically you read a lot about curatorial theory from the 60s and 70s and put together a few shows with your peers. It's an extra 4 classes + $7k in tuition or something like that. It's only marginally useful in curating contemporary art because the Art History department doesn't have any contemporary courses and focuses on the Italian renaissance, Duchamp, and early modernism. All that being said, Hunter is an ideal program if you know what you want to do and just need time and space to do it. If you are a black or brown person or color, be prepared for the additional obstacle of racism from people who don't think they're racist and will get very upset if you tell them that they're being racist.

I'm transferring from Hunter and spoke with my mentor and professors about where I should apply and they all encouraged me to avoid Yale and UCLA for the kind of work I make (I work in New Genres with a focus on text, installation and performance based works). I also know people who are currently pursuing MFAs at Yale and UCLA or have graduated from those programs. Yale's reputation in the NYC art world is obnoxious as they focus on style over substance and let the prestigious degree do most of the heavy lifting. The people who graduate from there make work that is aesthetically pleasing but has no social or cultural impact, and they are more interested in selling their work and joining the art market circus than anything else. Yale's painting, sculpture and photography programs are the strongest that they offer, and they have a lot of great visiting critics, lecturers and faculty. Not the best program for anything outside of those mediums by far. There's also a serious problem with racism in the art department in general and no one is trained to mediate those kinds of issues sensitively, so if you are a black or brown artist of color you will experience micro-aggressions from your peers and faculty especially if you make work that addresses racial issues. Andrea Fraser no longer teaches at UCLA so their Interdisciplinary Studio/New Genres department is severely lacking at the moment. They also only accept 3-5 students per year and the people I know who currently go there graduated from NYU Tisch and similarly prestigious schools. It's a very isolated and secluded campus, so there's not much foot traffic at exhibition openings or Open Studios. The new program director actively dislikes work that addresses political issues like race and gender. One of my current professors graduated from UCLA's MFA program and told me not to apply. Their strongest programs at the moment are photography and (maybe) printmaking. The best thing you can do is adjust your expectations of what you will get from your MFA. The perfect program does not exist, so you can make a list of the things that you ABSOLUTELY need to make your work and if the program has some or all of those things, go for it. 24 hour studio space, technical facilities, teaching opportunities, health insurance, living stipends, diverse student communities, accessible faculty who can actually make time for you, individual mentor/graduate advisor, etc., are all things to take into consideration.

Current MFA student at Hunter, happy to answer questions about the program but to be totally transparent, it is extremely flawed and I have had a negative experience during my time here. Can also answer questions about Yale, UCLA and other MFA programs in the city.