Another

Here's a question: if you do get admittance from a waiting list, is there any chance of getting funding?

Whoa there — save some exclamation marks for the rest of us ...

I got an acceptance email from UC Berkeley today! They're mailing me an official letter with all the details of their offer, but according to the website it's fully funded and they even give a small stipend to some students — plus there are paid teaching opportunities. I'm still waiting to hear back from 4 other programs, but it's going to be tough to beat that.

Heh, thanks guys! There's still a long way to go, but it's nice to celebrate the little victories here. I'm in San Francisco. Fiber & Material Studies was postmarked 2/9 and Painting and Drawing postmarked 2/10, but the letters are both dated February 7, 2011. Now I'm expecting Sculpture to show up tomorrow, we'll see. Waiting Game, congrats on the CalArts interview — that's huge!

Whoa — I got a request for an interview with SAIC's Painting and Drawing department in the mail today. I was expecting a rejection since that's their most competitive department. What a surprise! I'm really excited (and more than a little intimidated) at the thought of talking about my work with Michelle Grabner. Still waiting to hear back from Sculpture.

I'm not trying to start a political discussion here, I just thought this link might be relevant to all you potential grad students:http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/02/13/graduate-students-higher-debt-obama-budget_n_822603.html

The departments actually ask for different numbers of pieces in the Slideroom portfolio, so you can't really repeat the same portfolio for all of them. I also re-ordered the work for emphasis. At SAIC it's the same price to apply for up to 3 departments and all the supporting materials are the same (e.g. you only submit one SOP), so I figured I'd increase my odds and go for 3. The only potential downside I could see is that I had to address specifically why I applied to each department in the SOP, so I worry that talking about all 3 may have watered down my statement. We'll see if it pays off ...

I submitted mostly the same work to all three departments. It's hard for me to fit into any one department because my practice is naturally interdisciplinary. My work is basically process oriented and very tied up in exploring materials and their various properties. I'm an object maker, but the things I make tend to defy categories. My portfolio includes a lot of what might be thought of as drawings, but I tend to describe them in traditionally sculptural terms. All my work is formally very tightly controlled, and even the work across different materials is clearly related. Anyway, if I got accepted to any one of those departments I'd likely be working in all three.

I got a rejection letter in the mail today from SAIC. I applied for 3 different departments, but the letter specifically says it's from the Fiber and Material Studies department. I guess that means I'm still waiting to hear from Painting and Drawing and Sculpture. Anybody else in the same boat?

Thanks for sharing. I pulled out all the useful info. Multimedia: 1. RISD 2. Yale 3. SAIC 4. MICA 4. VCU 7. CalArts 7. Carnegie Mellon 7. UCLA 11. Art Center 15. SVA 15. UCSD 21. RIT 30. NYU 37. USC Sculpture: 1. RISD 2. Yale 3. SAIC 4. Cranbrook 4. MICA 4. VCU 7. CalArts 7. Carnegie Mellon 7. UCLA 10. Alfred U. 11. CCA 11. Columbia 14. Temple 15. Bard 15. U. of Texas – Austin 21. Hunter 21. Ohio State 21. U. of Wisconsin – Madison 37. U. of Georgia – Athens 50. Syracuse U. Photography: 1. RISD 2. Yale 3. SAIC 4. Cranbrook 4. MICA 7. CalArts 7. UCLA 11. CCA 11. Columbia 14. Temple 15. Bard 15. SVA 21. RIT 30. Arizona State 30. SFAI 37. U. of Georgia – Athens 45. U. of Arizona – Tucson 50. U. of New Mexico – Albuquerque Painting: 1. RISD 2. Yale 3. SAIC 4. Cranbrook 4. MICA 4. VCU 7. CalArts 7. UCLA 11. CCA 11. Columbia 14. WUSTL 15. Bard 15. SVA 15. Temple 15. U. of Texas – Austin 21. Hunter 21. U. of Iowa – Iowa City 21. U. of Wisconsin – Madison 30. Indiana U. – Bloomington 30. Rutgers 30. SFAI 37. SMFA 37. U. of Georgia – Athens 37. U. of Illinois – Chicago 37. USC 37. U. of Washington – Seattle 45. U. of Pennsylvania – Philadelphia

I went to the National Graduate Portfolio Day at CalArts this year. It was almost all private art schools, so you're not going to find a lot of universities or state schools there. Like Zaquon said, it's a great place to practice talking about your work. You can do 6-8 reviews in a day if you get there early. For me it was also a great motivator to get my work documented and my artist's statement written. I just printed the documentation of my work and bound it nicely in a binder. Go to an art store and look at their presentation materials — you'll get some ideas.

Thanks. I think I did alright — no major blunders that I'm aware of. With a program their size, I think the biggest concern is to find a set of students whose work is unique and varied but still complimentary. Meeting that criteria really depends on who else happened to apply this year.

I got an email from one of the professors on Saturday, scheduled the interview through email, and then talked to her tonight. She told me that they are only interviewing 15 finalists out of over 200 applicants for the 7 spots.

I hate to be the one to break the news, but I've got a phone interview with UCB tonight.

At least we have plenty of company for our misery here at the cafe!

I always think of those rankings as more of a measure of a school's influence and reputation. It's important to find a program that suits your own practice, and there isn't a survey out there that can tell you which school is best for you. Still, going to a school with a good reputation has its benefits and shouldn't be entirely discounted. Which of these rankings do you find the most misleading?

You shouldn't be a doctor.

This is my first year applying (after 8 years out of school), so I'm sure that if I take the time to refine my applications I'll have a better shot next year. I'm not in a rush. The programs I'm applying to are ridiculously competitive. There are countless reasons why my work could be rejected or simply overlooked this year. It would be silly to take not getting accepted as a complete denunciation. Plan B is to try Plan A again.

I'm doing strangely fine. Of course I could've kept working on them, but I feel like my applications are a fair representation of who I am as an artist today. I'm sure I made some mistakes here and there (I cringe a little bit when I think about my SAIC statement), but overall I'm really proud of what I put together. As far as I'm concerned, it's out of my hands. I'm just prepping and rehearsing answers to those interview questions, doing some reading, and really enjoying being back in the studio. Oh, and eagerly checking my mailbox every afternoon. Keep your chin up!

That link didn't work for me.

What about Ann Lauterbach in Sculpture? What's her role there? I find it really fascinating that she's teaching in the Sculpture Department, but she's primarily a poet. I'd love to work with her.

Not only is it competitive, but there's also an insane amount of randomness involved. I hope everybody keeps that in mind as the rejection letters arrive.

She didn't specifically say that it is really important. I'm not exactly sure what they do with that representative image. I should've asked.

I called Yale and spoke to a woman who said the representative image isn't actually required on the statement. She told me that I only need to check the box on the online portfolio. Overall I think this is a pretty trivial issue. I doubt they would disqualify a strong candidate simply because you put an image on the same page as your statement, put it on a separate page, or didn't include it with the statement at all. It's in the school's interest to admit the best applicants.

Are you talking about SAIC? I think it's worth noting that Jan. 10 is their deadline for most studio art departments. The USC application has to arrive by Feb. 1 — that's not a postmarked deadline. Cranbrook is Feb. 1.