Anyone do MICA preliminary online portfolio review? If so, what feed back , if any, have you received?

[orangetrousers]

I recently submitted work to MICA's slideroom for a preliminary portfolio review. I am so anxious and can not stop checking my email to see if they have responded. Anyone else heard back? If so, would you be interested in sharing on how they responded?

[orangetrousers]

The anticipation is killing me. I just received this.

----------Greeting from the Office of Graduate Admission at MICA. You recently requested an online portfolio review from our Hoffberger School of Painting (MFA) faculty. Due to a high volume of participation, Joan Waltemath, the program's director, has requested additional time to finish her responses. As a result, they will not be available today.

We will be forwarding the feedback along to you as soon as the faculty make it available.

Thank you again for your participation and your patience!

Sincerely,

Chris Harring

MICA // Office of Graduate Admission

[colbz]

The anticipation is killing me. I just received this.

\haha I just got this too...like 5 min ago!!! Yes the suspense is killing me. I also got feedback from the Low residency program...I figured it would be good to get suggestions from both. It was helpful, yet made me realize I have sooo much work to do on my artist statements.

----------Greeting from the Office of Graduate Admission at MICA. You recently requested an online portfolio review from our Hoffberger School of Painting (MFA) faculty. Due to a high volume of participation, Joan Waltemath, the program's director, has requested additional time to finish her responses. As a result, they will not be available today.

We will be forwarding the feedback along to you as soon as the faculty make it available.

Thank you again for your participation and your patience!

Sincerely,

Chris Harring

MICA // Office of Graduate Admission

[colbz]

I recently submitted work to MICA's slideroom for a preliminary portfolio review. I am so anxious and can not stop checking my email to see if they have responded. Anyone else heard back? If so, would you be interested in sharing on how they responded?

I haven't gotten my feedback from Hoffberger yet...I did get it just now from the low residency program though. They used a lot of big words...I felt dumb having to use a dictionary to read it. They said I needed to address things such as where I want to go with my work, as I kind of just talked about my work conceptually without mentioning what I want to do when I get to grad. They seemed to want to know specific ideas of what I want to evolve or build on in my work. They also said I need a more in depth explanation of why I want to go to graduate school, although I kind of put my statement together last minute, so it needs a lot of tweaking. They gave me a list of a lot of great questions to think about and address in my statement, also. They didn't really give much portfolio advice except to make sure I only include work that represents what I want to continue working on, if that makes sense.

[orangetrousers]

I haven't gotten my feedback from Hoffberger yet...I did get it just now from the low residency program though. They used a lot of big words...I felt dumb having to use a dictionary to read it. They said I needed to address things such as where I want to go with my work, as I kind of just talked about my work conceptually without mentioning what I want to do when I get to grad. They seemed to want to know specific ideas of what I want to evolve or build on in my work. They also said I need a more in depth explanation of why I want to go to graduate school, although I kind of put my statement together last minute, so it needs a lot of tweaking. They gave me a list of a lot of great questions to think about and address in my statement, also. They didn't really give much portfolio advice except to make sure I only include work that represents what I want to continue working on, if that makes sense.

Writing has never been my strength but I did work on my statement for a long time. I did not discuss where I wanted to take my work in grad school either. Do you have pictures of your work that I can see? Did you have 20 pieces? I only had 14 but my work is gigantic, ranging from 5-9 feet wide. This is an intense experience. Please update when you get feed back. I wonder if they will send the feedback out as a group or individually.

[colbz]

Writing has never been my strength but I did work on my statement for a long time. I did not discuss where I wanted to take my work in grad school either. Do you have pictures of your work that I can see? Did you have 20 pieces? I only had 14 but my work is gigantic, ranging from 5-9 feet wide. This is an intense experience. Please update when you get feed back. I wonder if they will send the feedback out as a group or individually.

I did discuss why I wanted to go to grad school, but only in a brief sentence, haha. We can compare pictures sometime later this week if you want, I'm about to make a two hour drive, and haven't updated my website with any of my new stuff. What kind of work do you do? I didn't submit 20....I think I put in maybe 16 or so, but I also have some big 6 and 7 footers., so I put in a few detail shots. I also have work that is underway that was not complete enough for me to include two weeks ago. We also still have more than a month to continue working on our portfolios....so I feel a tiny bit better about that, but yes it's way too intense. I think they are sending out the feedback individually, but maybe we are getting ours later because we submitted later? I sent mine like 2 hours before the deadline.

[colbz]

Writing has never been my strength but I did work on my statement for a long time. I did not discuss where I wanted to take my work in grad school either. Do you have pictures of your work that I can see? Did you have 20 pieces? I only had 14 but my work is gigantic, ranging from 5-9 feet wide. This is an intense experience. Please update when you get feed back. I wonder if they will send the feedback out as a group or individually.

Have you heard back yet? I'm still waiting on hoffberger...so maybe Monday. I checked out your website, orangetrousers, your paintings are really beautiful and remind me of Dutch still lifes.

[orangetrousers]

I have not heard back. I hope to hear back soon. I wish they would have given us a date. I love Dutch still lifes. Thank you.

Have you heard back yet? I'm still waiting on hoffberger...so maybe Monday. I checked out your website, orangetrousers, your paintings are really beautiful and remind me of Dutch still lifes.

[colbz]

I have not heard back. I hope to hear back soon. I wish they would have given us a date. I love Dutch still lifes. Thank you.

I just heard back today. They gave me very brief advice unfortunately, but I'll take anything. Firstly, I had asked them if it was ok to include earlier work that differs in style from my current work as a way to show development. To this they said yes, that is good because they like seeing development. (I don't think all schools would be ok with this though...I think some schools would rather see everything very cohesive.)

Secondly, I had asked them if they take dimensions into consideration, or if it is important to photograph work showing scale, like in a gallery. They said it's not necessary to do that, because they consider the written dimensions. (once again, I don't think all schools would be the same way).

Then the only advice they offered me was that in my artist statement I didn't need to go on and on about my work, I should just explain it in 100 words. Of course they aren't going to say if your work is strong or not....they would never discourage someone because they want that application fee money. Unfortunately it's a business.

[orangetrousers]

They contacted me today as well. My review differed. I am really excited. I am going there this weekend for the open house.

[colbz]

They contacted me today as well. My review differed. I am really excited. I am going there this weekend for the open house.

I went to the open house last year, it was a good experience.

[Payne]

Hey guys, I did the online portfolio review too for Hoffberger & the Low-residency MFA. The Low-residency feedback was encouraging. It said pretty much the same thing about explaining why I want to go to grad school. And that I should include more work (I think I only put 13 or 14 pieces). I'm still working on my portfolio..Both feedback said I should include detail shots of my pieces b/c they are large and complex. I didn't really think of my pieces as large (they're just around 3 feet by 4 feet) but there are plenty of details. I thought schools were annoyed w/ detail shots so I didn't do that. So I guess I'll do that for the real thing, but I'm not sure if there's a limit to "detail shots".

Hoffberger's feedback was very short. It said my statement is fine and my portfolio has potential (don't know if this is enough?). It also said I shouldn't include mixed-media work..About half of my work are mixed-media paintings. So I don't know if Hoffberger is right for me. Too bad Mount Royal didn't participate in the review..

[orangetrousers]

I went to the open house last week and it seemed like Hoffberger was referring the artists working with collage and mixed media to apply with the Mount Royal School. Hoffberger focuses on artists working with in the tradition of painting.

Hey guys, I did the online portfolio review too for Hoffberger & the Low-residency MFA. The Low-residency feedback was encouraging. It said pretty much the same thing about explaining why I want to go to grad school. And that I should include more work (I think I only put 13 or 14 pieces). I'm still working on my portfolio..Both feedback said I should include detail shots of my pieces b/c they are large and complex. I didn't really think of my pieces as large (they're just around 3 feet by 4 feet) but there are plenty of details. I thought schools were annoyed w/ detail shots so I didn't do that. So I guess I'll do that for the real thing, but I'm not sure if there's a limit to "detail shots".

Hoffberger's feedback was very short. It said my statement is fine and my portfolio has potential (don't know if this is enough?). It also said I shouldn't include mixed-media work..About half of my work are mixed-media paintings. So I don't know if Hoffberger is right for me. Too bad Mount Royal didn't participate in the review..