WoodAndClay

Personally, I think a lot of schools have bad administration with poor organization. MICA is the biggest hire of their grads, and I do not think that all art students make good administrators. SAIC hires a lot of SAIC grads as well.

Carolyn Case is a MICA Mt. Royal graduate who is having a solo show in Chelsea opening this week http://www.asyageisberggallery.com/index.php However, I'd really caution people against choosing a school based on how many grads are showing in Chelsea. That's really a poor standard to measure the worth of a graduate program.

There are plenty of MICA students in NYC and they are showing in galleries. Maybe not Gagosian (except for Koons), but definitely MICA alum are represented in the smaller galleries on the LES, Chinatown.

"For a school that is charging $43,000 for one year in post-bacc, they sure were being careless and unprofessional. Of all the schools that I have applied to, I have never dealt with a school that was like this" ​I had a really nasty experience with SAIC post-bac program as well and heard of similar stories from other SAIC post-bacc applicants. I've heard their PB program is good, but after dealing with how disorganized and unprofessional I found the director to be, I was turned off by the school for both PB and MFA.

Never mind. I called financial aid and worked it out.

Do you mean there is no other funding available in terms of scholarships/merit-based aid? Or does that include loans too? I received an email instructing me to fill out my FAFSA, but I have not received a financial aid packet regarding the loan amounts I am eligible for. Does that mean that Mt. Royal does not offer Stafford-based loans?

PS- I posted all the details in the "What makes MICA so great?" forum

Hi I was accepted to Mt. Royal via phone on 3/11 and received snail mail packet postmarked 3/11. I visited the school when I interviewed, and had a very positive experience with the faculty (including support faculty and people in administration). The studios where Mt. Royal students are placed is undergoing renovation (though, sadly it won't be complete for 2 years). I also thought the director of the program was really dynamite, and she seemed not only interested in my work, but supportive of the direction I wish to continue pushing my pieces. I found this thread about MICA/Mt.Royal from last year to be very helpful: So, in short, I think MICA is pretty great. Now in terms of the drawbacks, the main one I seem to hear is regarding funding/high cost of tuition. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I had the sense that MICA's tuition- while certainly high- is about the same as what other private art grad programs like SFAI and SAIC are charging. I also thought that MICA was a bit more generous with funding than other private art schools and the Ivys, but maybe I'm mistaken on that as well. (I'm basing this off someone I know who chose Mt. Royal over Columbia because of funding issues. I've also heard from other people that in general Columbia's funding offers are rather dismal.) MICA offered me approx 13K/year (which covers about 1/3 of tuition costs). For those of you who were accepted/offered funding to other comparable art schools, is this a significantly smaller financial package than what other schools in the MICA-league generally offer? The second argument seems to be the one outlined in the thread of reputation vs. cost and whether MICA is "really" worthy of its U.S. News Ranking as a top school and whether MICA graduates are successful post-graduation. Obviously, this one is a bit more subjective. I have noticed that MICA graduates don't have as visible a presence in the NYC Chelsea gallery scene, so if that's the measure of success, that's a fair point. However, I do know of MICA students who showed at Armory while still in grad school and a MICA Reinheart (sp?) grad was awarded a MacArthur Genius Grant last year-- so I would consider both of them very successful. So....I haven't signed on the dotted line, but I am leaning towards attending. But I am interested in hearing others' feedback and thoughts on these issues.

For those wondering about MICA, my understanding is that for MICA's top 3 programs (Mt. Royal, Hoffberger, and Rineheart) each admit about 5%

I was accepted to Mt. Royal