Art College Admissions & Scholarships
Explore. Plan. Build. Apply.
Is Art College For Me?
Growing in a family or engineers, I always gravitated to art. It was clear that science was not for me. But, I saw art as only as a hobby, and not a career. In Grade 10 summer, a social responsibility project made me realize how much I enjoyed creating Medical Illustrations. That raised the question, is art college for me? So I researched art education and careers. Sounds familier?
My research taught me that for successful art admissions, we must answer questions like:
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what is my art focus and style?
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which school will be most suitable to my style?
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what are my safe, reach and dream schools?
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But wait, what do "safe", "reach" or "dream schools" terms efere to?
My research helped me to get early admissions in multiple top 10 art colleges and scholarships. A merit scholarship from two of these TOP 10 schools even exceeded US$100K+ each. (More in My Story).
I had never taken a serious visual art course before Grade 11. People always said I was artistic. But I couldn't find a single site or a book that could help me make a decision if Art College was for me. So I started to build a comprehensive resource for myself. Soon my classmates and junior class students were asking me questions. So I decided why not build a website that help you to find out - is art college for me?, if yes, which? can I get scholarship? What is the difference between a Fine Art College and a University Art College? Should I go to a college with foundation year or one without? And finally, how much to spend/invest in an Art School Education?
My intended audiences are: Prospective Students, Tiger Moms & Gibraltar Dads!
Please go through following resources. Also, for your suggestions or queries, feel free to use Feedback.
Prospective Art Students:
When I first looked at art as a career, I felt it was a bit amorphous. It is not as well defined as medicine and engineering, which are structured professions.
My parents pointed out how graphic designers are now integral parts of software development teams. Product designer are not restricted to creating slick designs for an iPad. I saw that many art colleges are responding with interdisciplinary and broader curriculum that leverage software.
Fine art (painting, sketching and drawing) is and will be always amorphous given its artsy nature (like basic sciences). Its applied offshoots, like animation, graphic design, and product design are now well defined disciplines and professions, just like architecture. We art students should therefore take an active, structured approach to undergraduate art education. This site offers such structured approaches as packages.
We offer following packages for prospective art students:
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Is Art School for Me? ($49 single time, $99 up to 3 times) (Available after November 15)
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A starting point or your current profile, from art-school point-of-view (POV).
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It is to get-to-know-yourself assessment and suggestions based on 20 Q&A + 3 art-works.
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A qualitative assessment of you on education, art inclination, potential and college cluster match.
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ArtCollege Portfolios ($499, 12 months). (Available after November 15)
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Key portfolio evaluation resources.
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Deep feedback of your portfolio, style and composition. Improvement areas.
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Matching Colleges for Your Style.
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Portfolio Strategy
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Early, mid and final Profile & Portfolio evaluations.
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3. DIY Explore2Scholar ($699, 18 months) (Available after November 15)
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Is Art School for me Quiz (Up to 3 times to track the transformation)
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Tiger Mom Resources
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ArtColleges Portfolios
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Custom Plan with Milestones
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Evolving School Match
Tiger Moms:
Where would we be without our moms? No wonder behind every successful student is a Tiger mom! We offer you a “Tiger Mom Resources” package.
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Tiger Mom Resources (US$ 249 first year, $99 next year) Introductory Special Price of $199 and an Art College For Me quiz free ($49 value). These resources offer you with a top level summary, and details on strategy, schedule, colleges, speciality references, profile development, college freshman profiles links and ranking. So your focus is on making strong decisions like finding fit, resume building and portfolio building.
I know you moms can do this all this research by yourself. The challenge is whether you want to spend 100s of hours understanding different aspects, sorting a hearsay and validated fact, or focus on using reliable data and tested views to make informed decisions. I know your time is very valuable and this package will save you at least 100+ hours. And you know who needs your time for tender emotional support during this time.
Gibraltar Dads:
My dad helped me through research analysis, points to consider and always insisted that final decision was mine. He was my sounding board. On down days, he reminded me of the progress and milestone achieved. For all those Gibraltar dads, I will soon bring a package for you and your budding artist!
Uma Kamat:
I am a Freshman at School of Art Institute of Chicago, US.
Born in Allentown, PA, my family moved to Pune when I was pretty young. I finished my IB Diploma from Indus International School, Pune, India.
I am an avid sport-person with few state-championships experiences in Basketball, and awards in Pan-Indian IB school track-n-field and swimming.
In 2017 Summer, I co-started a social responsibility project with my sister, Alka. eSymptoms is our way to bring crucial medical information on disease symptoms and prevention to Indian masses in native langues through easy-to-understand and easy-to-share digital illustration. This is where, I really started appreciating my interest, rather love for art and illustration.
I started on this website towards the end of my IB Diploma exams. My Mom helped me through gatghering information and she is now helping me make this website available to you.
Useful Links:
Following are some of the links I found useful. There are many resources, but idea is to give you meaningful ones.
Ranking:
While researching, I worried whether ranking methods had the resolution to differentiate between two or more consecutive ranking schools. So I came up with Cluster Ranking for my own usage. It took away a lot of stress.
Top Universities: University Rankings for 2018 art + design.
US News: Top fine arts schools for Masters.
Niche Fine Arts: 2019 Best Arts Schools in America.
Niche Design: 2019 Best Design Schools in America.
My Objective
Going to an Art College is a stressful decision- as it involves so many aspects. So I want to provide budding artists and their families with one-stop resources, analysis and tools, so they can make an informed decision!
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Is Art School for Me Analysis
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Tiger Mom Resources
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DIY Explore-2-Scholar
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Scholarship Winning Portfolios