2023 uni applications for those pursuing art and creative routes

[Duchessofmuchness]

The other thread discussing Uni applications for RG and academic routes isn't so relevant for DS. He's considering Art Foundation year or direct entry to uni for fashion design.

Anyone care to join a thread on similar creative paths. (Not just fashion!)

He's looking at art foundation at Kingston, Central St Martin's, UCA,

For Fashion BA looking at Central St Martins, London College of Fashion, Manchester Met, Nottingham Trent, Liverpool John Moores, Leeds Beckett.

Most seem to accept without art foundation but he would need one to Central St Martin's so if he wants to try for that will need foundation.

Lots of open days coming up and hopefully school will give him some more advice next week. No start on his PS yet!!

@mondaytosunday yes, you understand correctly, my daughter is applying for CSM & KSA Foundation and UCAS at the same time. She’s not interested in Camberwell, she’ll apply to the CSM Foundation, although has well founded reservations along the lines of everyone’s prior discussion. Her top choice is Kingston and she’ll apply both to the FAD & the BA there, and same with Ravensbourne. She too was surprisingly impressed with the output from Raves when she attended the degree show last summer and we both went to the open day there today, as well as the open day for London Met, where she’ll also apply through UCAS for their Fashion BA.

@Duchessofmuchness very interesting to hear your feedback from CSM BA open day today, so sorry it was such a disappointment, but maybe that in itself was useful to experience? Just to check: is your DS thinking to apply to the CSM BA without a foundation, because I thought they didn’t accept applications direct from A level?

Funny, we nearly de camped to Tate Modern too! But ran out of time as we started our day at London Met open day (small, urban, passionate & committed faculty, really like course & teachers but lacking the fancy modern facilities and worldwide rep) then rushed across to Ravensbourne open day straight after (another Mum & her DS with us at London Met were racing off to CSM too!). Impressed with both we visited but for different reasons & v different experiences at each. Raves v digitally oriented/ modern/ great facilities and a smoothly run machine. Forward thinking. But a bit sterile, out on O2 peninsula, lacking trad skills approach if that’s something that matters to you. DD will apply to both but still first choice KSA.

We’ll see you at CSM Foundation open day in a few weeks! And meantime considering attending LCF next Sat too…. (Head spinning a bit now!)

And to add two things that were interesting to us about both London Met and Ravensbourne today: both really emphasized career readiness as a clear starting goal for their degrees, which appeals to us. V keen to detail industry connections and placements, citing all sorts of key players and collabs - we were suitably convinced each are committed to gearing students towards actually getting a paying job in the real world and intend to equip their grads with applicable skills and experience, which was good to hear. Second, every course leader we met had trained at CSM! And several still lecture there too. We can’t decide if this is a good or bad thing (!) but certainly interesting… DD said “well does that mean there’s so many CSM grads without industry jobs they all become teachers elsewhere?”! We also noted none of them spoke super highly of the place now…. Maybe biased but still.

@luluposs

Sounds good - we should have done Ravensbourne and csm together with hindsight. We are going to next one.

No DS only looking at fashion today for purposes of understanding next steps and alternatives. He would definitely need foundation for CSM.

He thinks he's going to focus on foundation applications for next year. In his case, think this is probably right decision. Too many options and alternatives overwhelm him and honestly feels like that already! Multiple foundation applications and portfolios will be a lot before adding in the same for ucas

Do Ravensbourne have separate pathway for fashion and textile foundation? I like KSA partly for the chance to try everything but I guess the specialism might be good also.

Just a little bit of info re KSA foundation. The students have had a week in each pathway then they produce a mini portfolio of all their work so far and will have lectures on each specialism before choosing for the rest of year ahead next week. It's been a lot of work to get through but DD has loved it.

@Duchessofmuchness if your DS didn't get the feels from CSM then just beware of using up a UCAS place for somewhere he's really not that keen on. I've not heard great reports of the student experience there.... even though it's reputation is amazing I feel it's really important to find the right fit. My DD applied to both Loughborough & Edinburgh based on their reputations but knew early on they weren't the right place for her so really wasted 2 options..... 😬

A busy few days! Nothing to add about fashion but I can confirm that the reputation of Ravensbourne within the illustration/animation community is that it's very heavily focused on digital work rather than traditional methods. Which isn't good or bad in itself but is something which DC might find appealing or not.

@TizerorFizz (apologies for the slight diversion from main topic) re Exeter - DD attended an open day at the Streatham campus for 2019 entry and entry to the talks for students then was by scanning of barcodes on their itineraries. Parents were told that they could only go in as well if there were spare places. DS2 and I happily left her to it.

@MarchingFrogs
I believe they learned from the chaos of previous years! That’s good. When we went parents were asked to leave and lots didn’t want to! No bar codes though, just bookings. There was also an assumption by some families that the whole family should go everywhere together. We really didn’t feel this was the case elsewhere. Except over invested families at Oxford!

I do think DC need to visit universities, do se sessions on their own, and feed back to parents for discussion. You don’t always get the info you need from an open day. DD couldn’t get near a single lecturer at Exeter due to the crowds.

On the topic here. I’m not sure why CSM would have an open day and not have students around to speak to prospective students, other than they couldn’t get any!

We saw UCA Farnham yesterday - lovely small campus and very approachable staff and students. Think it will be on the shortlist for dc along with Bournemouth and Norwich. Plus accommodation very affordable!

@Localher0 Thanks for the info on KSA. It sounds intense but a good structure.

You are right about needing to get a good feel for where they are going to live and study.

I'm also aware that DS will likely find the transition from school to uni more of a challenge than some with regards to additional freedom, less structure etc. All unis will expect more from students in that regard but seems like CSM may expect significant independence. I'm not sure that will work best for him at this point,

Anyone got views and expertise of foundation at local FE colleges? Have found one which is 15 mins from us doing the UAL level 4 diploma.

I've heard people say it doesn't matter where you do FAD and they all the same but that doesn't seem credible.

We might go take a look as a point of comparison. Would welcome any opinions

Hi @Duchessofmuchness, had our DD not got a place going into first-year degree, she would have gone to the local FE college for FAD, as the only "local" uni which offers it is an hour's commute. So no direct experience, but we did some research (not as much detail as our uni research).

As always, the devil's in the details; our local FE place has "progression partnerships" with UAL, Glasgow, and Kingston which I believe means access to information and portfolio advice. Worth digging to see if yours has anything like that?

@OneFrenchEgg that's good to hear about UCA, it's one on the list.
We are struggling with the open days schedule - even though it's not until 2024 entry the unis are far enough away that one or two will require an overnight stay (Falmouth for example) so we are looking at them sooner than we might have. This strategy worked when looking at sixth forms as if we hadn't started going in Y10 she wouldn't have gone to any open days due to lockdowns a year later!
I see a couple have open days in January and I assume they will have them early summer but after A level exams.
My thoughts on foundation at local FE colleges @Duchessofmuchness is the same - I can't really believe that it doesn't matter where you do it, and doing it someplace that also offers degree courses in the subject will offer more of a uni experience and probably be better equipped? But good to have a back up plan if applications to the really competitive places fail.
We were discussing my daughters portfolio last night (I went to Parsons School of Design so not totally out of my expertise). She's chosen four of her 'five final pieces' with one yet to do, but not sure where she's at with the rest of it (working progress will be from her sketchbook I imagine)? How are your lot getting on?

How lovely to find this thread. DD is looking at comic and concept art (anyone else?) without foundation as she's very sure on her specialism. Sixth form has been a struggle and we're all looking forward to the end of that and just focussing on the art. Like pp, I'm ex RG Science myself so a bit lost! I hadn't ever heard of dd's uni choices a year ago....

Just back from DMU - MUCH better all round than I was expecting. Dept staff were very nice, approachable, gave good info and good general 'vibe'. Facilities good and DMU campus much, much nicer than I was expecting.
Then we've got back-to-back (didn't get organised last year...):
Herts (dd keen - me a bit )
Falmouth (so lovely but so far though - taking a day off work will double as a weekend holiday break)
Leeds Arts (maybe too 'city' for dd)
Farnham (looks very dd-friendly - but maybe a bit small - does it have the breadth and resources - will see)

Dd doesn't likes cities and won't consider London. If like a pp's child she gets to spend her time drawing and playing D&D with other fantasy geeks lovers she will be in heaven.

Her friends are keen on illustration (ARU and Leeds Arts) and animation (Herts, Bournemouth, Brighton, Falmouth).

Hi @Acinonyx2, that was me! Your DD sounds similar to mine in every respect (including cities). I am a teacher who helps with UCAS applications, and had scarcely heard of any of these places... at my school, artists get handed over to our art teachers for the process.

She originally wanted to apply for Games/Concept Art but decided that Illustration was broader so a sideways move would be easier from I to G/CA as a career than the other way around. Also she fell in love with Cambridge.

She's still loving life, playing D&D, and has found classmates who write and illustrate their own fantasy stories. According to the family WhatsApp, she's eating lunch in a sunny park with a BIG book of British Folklore to browse through, and her sketchbook. For her, that is a bit like a dream come true.

Wherever any of your DC end up (everyone) I just hope they're as happy! The place is super important for that, as well as the course.

DD is really enjoying her foundation at a local college ( Bristol school of art). We didnt do a lot of research into foundation options, as she was initially just wanting to do it as as a fun gap year before studying history, and we knew of friends kids who had enjoyed that course. She has now changed her mind and is applying for illustration.We went to their foundation show last year, and most of the students seemed to be going on to study art in various locations. Im a bit clueless about art options ( i did phyics at a RG uni) so its useful to have this thread to hear about others experience.

Dd doesn't likes cities and won't consider London. If like a pp's child she gets to spend her time drawing and playing D&D with other fantasy geeks lovers she will be in heaven.

Are you considering UCA?

Inspired by some comments on another thread! I'm sure that you all know this, but accommodation costs can vary hugely between places and that might well be important in your considerations.

What did surprise me is that some universities allocate accommodation as "first come, first served" (so you can plan a budget) but others only assign rooms very late in the process, and you can end up in a much more expensive place that you wanted.

@PhotoDad yes Id noticed quite a few of the places DD2 is looking at are on the expensive side compared to what DD1 paid for halls at Warwick.
She's now in second year and in a shared house in Leamington, which is more expensive than halls, but still afforable to live on the maintenance loan ( topped up to the full amount by us) without needing a termtime job.
She doesnt fancy London, but Brighton and Bournemouth could be almost as expensive.

@Pourmeanotherwine
London is in a class of its own regarding expense. It’s not the same as anywhere else. Some halls are 50 weeks. That adds up! The price of renting is high so even the old student areas in North London are expensive. Therefore students are living further and further out and the rich ones live centrally. There is of course great transport.

I think London is so far removed from Falmouth and I’m not sure if anyone who likes Falmouth would really like CSM. They couldn’t be more different.

@mondaytosunday
My DD was accepted at Parsons but the scholarship was diddly squat unfortunately. She didn’t go. £1/4 m seemed too much!!

The UK system has a different loan bands for London, but not for other SE cities which can be almost as expensive! (DD managed to get, quite literally, the cheapest room in her uni, which comes in as the same as the minimum loan. That was her decision, not ours! Private rent in Cambridge might be a shock next year, but we'll cross that bridge in due course.)

@PhotoDad They do sound very similar. I'm a bit anxious that dd is over-specialising but she is adamant and clearly I know nothing.... We have even more in common - will pm.

@OneFrenchEgg Yes - that's the Farnham option - will be our last open day. Dd very much likes the general small rural location. My idea of hell at 18 - you wonder how the apple can fall quite so far from the tree....

@Acinonyx2 Please feel free!

Haha @Acinonyx2 me too - I went to a big campus uni near towns. Although I'm so impressed by the support now - I had an utterly miserable time at uni for many years and was completely unsupported by tutors and pastoral care (non existent).

@OneFrenchEgg I was in central London and loved it! Can hardly even get dd to go for the day. It's some kind of role reversal - sensible child vs partying parent....