2010 MFA Visual Arts admission replies and results

[zepher]

Found my snail mail letter from RISD. Wait-listed as well. Many of us on this forum seem to be wait-listed; I wonder how long that list is?

I'm excited to start at VCU painting/printmaking in the fall.

I know it's not grad school, but did anyone else apply to Skowhegan this year? Just curious. Think we're supposed to get admissions decisions this week.

Probably, of the 30 people they brought to campus for interviews at RISD, they accepted 10, rejected 10, and put the other 10 on a waiting list, which they've ranked 1-10. Nationwide, those accepted to graduate school have until April 15th to accept or decline the offer. After that, the schools will know how many places they still have to fill. It could be 2, and so you'd think if you're #5 on the list you have no hope. However, some of the people ahead of you on the waiting list may have already committed to going to other schools by April 15th. It's completely up to chance at this point. Best not to stress. (As if. . .)

[Californiapinkpainter]

Has everyone heard from VCU painting? I'm still waiting on a reply...

[iswans]

Probably, of the 30 people they brought to campus for interviews at RISD, they accepted 10, rejected 10, and put the other 10 on a waiting list, which they've ranked 1-10. Nationwide, those accepted to graduate school have until April 15th to accept or decline the offer. After that, the schools will know how many places they still have to fill. It could be 2, and so you'd think if you're #5 on the list you have no hope. However, some of the people ahead of you on the waiting list may have already committed to going to other schools by April 15th. It's completely up to chance at this point. Best not to stress. (As if. . .)

First post on the forum. I'm waitlisted @ RISD too. Debating whether to call on Monday or not and find out my place on the list.

[stofo]

Congrats to all the people getting into RISD and Yale! That's so amazing!

I have a question for you guys...I had an extremely unpleasant time with one school I applied to. I regret paying the fees and putting in the effort to send my application there, and I really want to send them an email saying something about it because I really don't think it's right. I don't want to burn any bridges with people I might want to work with someday, but they were just really awful. Any advice?

I had an unpleasant application experience with one school at well with Cal State Long Beach. I sent all my application materials in one package. They emailed me and said they lost my portfolio so I mailed another one. Then they said they didn't have my transcripts, so I had to send them again. They sent me TWO rejection letters! one from the department and one from a grad admissions office. I have a friend applying there who STILL has not heard if they are rejected or accepted. Are schools still making decisions?

I think you could send them an email, but it probably wont make a difference.

[waiter]

First post on the forum. I'm waitlisted @ RISD too. Debating whether to call on Monday or not and find out my place on the list.

Im Waitlisted as well, A bit nerve racking, I dont think there is a numbering system from reading other posts on differnt blogs, the entire selection process is a bit obscure, I wish I had known What I was getting into, ZEPHERINE, are you guessing they chose 10 for the waitlist or have you had admistrative experiece in one of these universities, Ive been told they selected a small number for the wait list.

[iswans]

Im Waitlisted as well, A bit nerve racking, I dont think there is a numbering system from reading other posts on differnt blogs, the entire selection process is a bit obscure, I wish I had known What I was getting into, ZEPHERINE, are you guessing they chose 10 for the waitlist or have you had admistrative experiece in one of these universities, Ive been told they selected a small number for the wait list.

I'm pretty sure I recall one of the current grads saying they were interviewing around 40 people. My best guess would be that 10 are accepted, 20 were rejected, and 10 were waitlisted...or something along those lines. However, I could just be forcing some optimism on myself that I will get off the waitlist. The letter does say that it is a SMALL waitlist, though.

[bgboo]

i got into yale for painting! im going there!!!

Congratulations. What does your work look like? I'd love to see...

[patience]

I had an interview on Thursday last week and I did not hear anything yet. Its sucks I thought my interview went well. do you know any thing regarding wait list?

I don't, but if you were accepted or if you are on a waiting list you should definitely hear from them no later than mid-April. Good luck!

[rama]

Congrats everyone for trying so hard and getting through the schools. This is my first year applying to schools and I really appriciate the very effort of going through it. Hats off to all of you who have been able to apply for more than ne year. It takes a lot.

For me its been mixed results

Yale (photo)- rejected April 2nd

RISD (Photo) -rejected by snail mail

Columbia University - accepted with some aid

ICP-Bard - accepted

MassArts - aceepted with some grant

I am inclined more towrds MassArts or ICP-Bard. Columbia Univeristy dept is very small and I am not sure if thats enough interaction also, the Chair seems to be coming from the Old schools of thoughts and I am looking to try out new things. Would love to hear thoughts on these schools -it would be greatly helpful.

I am also wondering if I should wait another year and reapply :-/

[oh_how_absurd]

Hello everyone,

Was wondering if anyone knew how final decisions are made after interviews? I had an interview on the 19th and have not heard anything at all...I heard people got calls a week later..so I'm thinking it might be a rejection, but I also heard about the deadline people have to accept or decline offers. Think there's still hope?? I applied to Mass Art for photo. Not sure how many people were interviewed and how many they would accept...It was my #1 choice as well as the only school I applied to that I got an interview. nervous! I wish rejections would come as quickly as admissions do...the waiting is horrible!

[gretta]

Something kinda similar happened to me. I applied to 8 schools:

SAIC

CALARTS

UCLA

UW(Seattle)

Hunter

Yale

Columbia

Slade(Uk)

The only place I got an interview/accepted was Slade. I heard from them really early on(didn't think I had a chance) so was excited thinking I'd get interviews at other schools as well. Ha! I didn't even get into my 'safe' school. The only school I haven't heard back from yet is Columbia and it seems they're just slow at sending out rej letters. It would have been nice to have a choice...however, I'm just really happy that I got into one of my top choices and am going to accept it as fate.

Getting an interview at Yale is a big deal! I hope you get in. It just seems that no matter how schools rank etc, in the end there are so many different factors that affect the outcome, you just never know.

So you are going to Slade? I'm torn between Slade and New Paltz... want to nudge me into Slades direction? I'm afraid of all the loans!!!

[mnchick]

OMG, I can't believe I got into Yale. I thought for sure I was rejected.

here's my list;

CCA: accepted with funding

SAIC: accepted with funding

U of MN: accepted with funding

Yale: accepted

[rama]

@mnchick Many congratulations! You are rocking with 100% acceptance.

When did you get to know about Yale?

[zepher]

Im Waitlisted as well, A bit nerve racking, I dont think there is a numbering system from reading other posts on differnt blogs, the entire selection process is a bit obscure, I wish I had known What I was getting into, ZEPHERINE, are you guessing they chose 10 for the waitlist or have you had admistrative experiece in one of these universities, Ive been told they selected a small number for the wait list.

This just comes from one of my profs from undergrad--how the admissions process usually works.

[mnchick]

@rama: I found out this past Saturday. THANKS!!

Edited April 5, 2010 by mnchick

[ATumble]

@gretta:

Yes, I'm going to Slade and I'm afraid of the loans too! I don't know anything about New Paltz so I'll just tell you why I'm looking forward to Slade despite costs.

1) It's in London! so much culture.. there are lots of great museums which are basically free. you would get to experience a different culture/people. AND living in london means traveling to the rest of europe is so much easier/cheaper/faster. you can even do a daytrip to paris! and if you buy tickets in advance or look out for special rates and deals, you can really travel for much cheaper. my friend currently lives in london and she says one of the best perks of living in london is easy travel to the other european countries. i think that in itself is pretty amazing.

2)with a student visa you can work up to 20 hours during term and full time during break. of course it won't cover tuition costs but it'll definitely help with living costs or spending money.

3)you don't have to pay for health insurance. if you are studying for more than 6 months in the uk, you can see a doctor etc for free(small cost for medicine) through the nhs(national health service).

4)student housing is pretty reasonable. have been looking at prices and you can have a single room for as little as 94 pounds a week. that works out to about 570 dollars for a month. and that's in CENTRAL london. when i lived in nyc, i knew friends who paid around 500-600 but they had to live out in queens or brooklyn. and also 1st year grad students not from the uk or eu countries are pretty much guaranteed a spot if they apply.

5)meet people from all over the world!! is it just me or did it seem like there were LOTS of international students at slade? did you visit for interview? anyways, of all the grad programs i've visited in the states and from friends in various grad programs in the states(uw, hunter, pafa, brooklyn college, sfai, rutgers, sva), there seem to be some international students here and there but mostly american. of course this is just what i've encountered and i could be wrong.

6)there are some famous notable alumni...jenny saville, rachel whiteread, antony gormley... sadly, i'm kinda out of the loop so i don't know too many artists that aren't dead. there's a whole list of notable alumni on wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slade_School_of_Fine_Art#Notable_alumni

7)a chance to be 'discovered' by saatchi? haha...you never know! some kid from slade won the school of saatchi contest and is getting some crazy prize. http://www.ucl.ac.uk/news/news-articles/0912/09121502

honestly, i didn't know that much about slade when i applied. i just knew that one of my undergrad prof's got his master's there and another professor told me it was a great school. so i looked at their website and saw past student work and really really liked it.(both undergrad and graduate levels) based on just that, i knew it would be a good fit for me...more so than the other schools i applied to. i also talked to friends of friends who attended slade for their mfa's and they really enjoyed studying there and had only good things to say. i don't know how it 'ranks' or whatever but i feel that since i like the work coming out of slade, and the faculty seems to like my work, what more can you ask for? also, there have been a lot of applicants/competition for spots so it's not like the school is completely unknown and there seem to be opportunities for showing and stuff after graduation as well.

obviously i'm totally biased and think you should pick slade. however, it is a lot of money and time that will be spent and it seems you've got to decide what is right for you! luckily, i only got into one school so i don't have to think about it. HA!

[littlenova]

@Mnchick: Congrats, lovely!!!!!!! What an exciting moment. I love your work and I can believe it. KIT and let us know about all your adventures.

[tomtom]

Regarding the UC's I thought that's kind of interesting

http://www.hastac.org/blogs/caseyalt/letter-support-professor-ricardo-dominguez

[zepher]

This just comes from one of my profs from undergrad--how the admissions process usually works.

OK, so I just talked to a RISD grad who said this is completely wrong--they do have a very small (like 5 person) wait list and it's unranked...they're interested in crafting a class, not just getting 10 excellent students, so if a person who does X type of work declines, they'll go to the wait list & pick someone from there who does X type of work. But it's still so much up to chance, driven by what the 10 who were offered admission decide to do, and which of those 10 decide to do it, and which one of them you're the understudy for...

Also she said the wait-list is in play until pretty late. She got in from the wait-list in June.

[iswans]

OK, so I just talked to a RISD grad who said this is completely wrong--they do have a very small (like 5 person) wait list and it's unranked...they're interested in crafting a class, not just getting 10 excellent students, so if a person who does X type of work declines, they'll go to the wait list & pick someone from there who does X type of work. But it's still so much up to chance, driven by what the 10 who were offered admission decide to do, and which of those 10 decide to do it, and which one of them you're the understudy for...

Also she said the wait-list is in play until pretty late. She got in from the wait-list in June.

Damn. So, it's pretty much up to luck at this point whether any one of us would get in over the other? Stressss.

[waiter]

Damn. So, it's pretty much up to luck at this point whether any one of us would get in over the other? Stressss.

Zepherin, did she mention how many people got in from the waitlist?

[zepher]

Zepherin, did she mention how many people got in from the waitlist?

She didn't know.

[kewpies]

Regarding the UC's I thought that's kind of interesting

http://www.hastac.org/blogs/caseyalt/letter-support-professor-ricardo-dominguez

thanks for this! very, very interesting

[beep]

Applied to Tyler, Risd, and OSU.

Tyler: accepted w/ fellowship

risd: snail wait-list

osu: phone call wait-list

The deal and vibe at Tyler were so far ahead of the others I accepted without waiting to hear the other schools' final decisions.

[mnchick]

@Mnchick: Congrats, lovely!!!!!!! What an exciting moment. I love your work and I can believe it. KIT and let us know about all your adventures.

thank you soooooOOO much. It's all so surreal right now.