MFA graphic design 2013: RISD vs. Cranbrook vs. VCU

[kraftig]

I am accepted at VCU with GTA covering tuition plus 10k stipend

 

I am accepted via email at RISD and doubt that my formal offer will include a ton of money but LOVED my interview, and they have the name to go with the price tag.

 

I am about to interview at Cranbrook.

 

 

 

thoughts? so hard to decide and I have whittled it down from 5 to these 3.

 

[miyamoto81]

Just to say this: no graduate of any top program, that I have ever met, has ever convinced me that going into $100k in debt for your MFA is worth it. If you have someone bankrolling you, then by all means, have at it. But I do not think crippling yourself with that kind of debt is ever worth it.

 

And VCU is a good school. See how much money RISD might give you. If you'd still have to take out loans just to cover tuition - not even considering living expenses - I would go with VCU.

[nirvana4me2]

anyone get into RISD with just under a 3.0?

[kraftig]

Just to say this: no graduate of any top program, that I have ever met, has ever convinced me that going into $100k in debt for your MFA is worth it. If you have someone bankrolling you, then by all means, have at it. But I do not think crippling yourself with that kind of debt is ever worth it.

 

And VCU is a good school. See how much money RISD might give you. If you'd still have to take out loans just to cover tuition - not even considering living expenses - I would go with VCU.

 

 thanks miyamoto81, its a rational argument you pose and it's what I think half the time. then just when I think it should be clear based on finances, someone convinces me that I should go with my gut and that "school debt" is different and there are ways to deal with it. part of me thinks that it is meant to be that I waited this long to go to school because I would have never applied to VCU when I was considering this before. RISD knows of my options, so I do plan to wait and see what they off in the formal acceptance and go from there. Of course by then I will only have a few days to commit to VCU but hopefully I can have it sorted. VCU is indeed a really good school, and I really enjoyed my exchange with them as well. I want to come out of this with decent teaching options, and there are a ton of RISD alums teaching in great places.

 

[miyamoto81]

Yeah, I totally hear you. It is a tough decision. It's good to hear that you're visiting RISD - I think once you do, you'll have a pretty good feeling as to where you want to go. 

[bots]

RISD was my top choice for undergrad, and I got in, but they offered me no money. I went with MICA who appreciated my high school GPA, AP and IB Art scores and all the hard work I had done. Never regretted it. Go where you actually feel wanted (the ones who put their $ where their mouth is)

[thirteenseconds]

I am accepted at VCU with GTA covering tuition plus 10k stipend

 

I am accepted via email at RISD and doubt that my formal offer will include a ton of money but LOVED my interview, and they have the name to go with the price tag.

 

I am about to interview at Cranbrook.

 

 

 

thoughts? so hard to decide and I have whittled it down from 5 to these 3.

Very cool, I am worried about $$ for the schools I'm interviewing at-- how did you go about bargaining for funding?

[dwise1]

I guess it's time for me to weigh in seeing how it is getting closer and closer to the time where we all will be making these decisions and I Seem to have found myself in a very similar place as the original poster...being that I have interviews and both cranbrook and yale while I'm still waiting notification from my third school, mica.

I applied to these school for in large part the same reason, an experimental, critical, and theoritical approach to the way design functions both as an industry and practice, meaning I didn't want to go to school to learn how to design a for sake of example a stop sign, rather Im interested in how the sign functions out in the wild, how can it be pushed past its present understanding in order to better serve its purpose in the cultural that its functioning in now rather than the one it is designed in. This question can then be used to also question the formal aspects of the object(which undoubtedly effects the function). I wasnt really able to find this sort of questioning and skeptiscm in anyother graduate programs

Now I am interviewing at cranbrook this Friday and I really, though I have done as much research as time allowed, have no idea exactly how the school functions and this sort of thing that entices me, but also sort of pushes yale ahead, and this may change after my visit tomorrow, who knows, but both programs from the outside seem very intelligent and offer what ever they can to push there student and the field alike.

(Tearing done my bfa show right now more in a bit...)