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 - at the open day a couple of months ago they said it's 1700 applications for 175 domestic places at Kingston!

@mondaytosunday I have friends who went to Farnham years ago for foundation and also loved it. I did my foundation course at a very small art school and also really loved it - probably more than I enjoyed my degree!

My daughter is glad she visited as you just don't know until you visit somewhere whether it feels right or not for them.

DD submitted a very rushed 6 images for Leeds on Thursday evening and now has just finished putting together her portfolio for UAL, Manchester, Nottingham and Falmouth (Falmouth is an in person interview and so doesn't need to be done right away but she'll use the same portfolio for all of them).

She took two days off college last week (luckily one of those days was the teacher strike day so that worked out as very good timing) to get it done and worked a solid 13 hours non-stop on it today. It's taken pretty much 3 days almost non-stop to put together. But it's nice to have it done and out the way. She attended an online webinar on portfolio advice from UAL LCC on Friday which was hugely helpful. They were very approachable and friendly with very structured helpful advice. I listened in on my phone from work so I could help her as there will be no time for her teachers to see it at all before it goes off.

They spoke a lot about the portfolio being a story about the student and how it should have a strong narrative throughout taking the viewer on a journey through the work showing development and ideas and hopefully so they can see their personality and interests and passions shine out of the portfolio. They also said they like writing and explanations throughout.

Will get sleep now and then she can final check it tomorrow and submit it before the deadline on Monday

@PerkyBlinder Congratulations to your DD on getting that done, and fingers crossed.

Falmouth do in person interviews?! Yikes that's one heck of a trek for most people! Good luck to your daughter!

I attend the online subject talk for Falmouth Uni and they said you can attend an interview online so no need to travel to Falmouth unless of course you want to attend in person

You can choose to do online if you prefer and the also hold interviews in regional locations - their info from their website is here:

The interviews are taking place both on their campuses in Cornwall and at regional locations in London (14 and 15 February 2023), Bristol (17 February 2023) and Birmingham (21 February 2023).

Thank you @mondaytosunday, @PhotoDad, @Acinonyx2 and @stardustliz for the good luck wishes!

Amazingly she did it!!! 🥳🥳🥳🥳 so all portfolios now submitted with just Nottingham left to go as their admission portal is down for maintenance. There were a few technical hiccups along the way so glad the main work was done yesterday.

She’s now skipping round the house and we’re about to settle down for festive film with hot chocolates. 😃

Hope everything goes well for everyone else’s dd and ds who are submitting applications this year.

Congratulations! In much lower-stakes news, DD has submitted her portfolio for Term 1 of First Year, a whole week early... it will be graded, to show whether it's up to standard, but the grade doesn't even count towards the "pass/fail" first year (to give people a chance to pull their socks up, I imagine!)

@PerkyBlinder We went to the Leeds Arts open day this weekend, but didn't visit the accommodation, did you go? What did you think?

It was the location of the accommodation and distance that concerns me considering they're likely to be working in studios until late in the evenings.

What a relief @PerkyBlinder! If I hear one more 'we want to see you on the page' (that'll be UAL's mantra) I'll scream. I also think the portfolio formatting for each application is going to take some time.
At the moment daughter is concentrating on her History A level work which she admits slipped while getting her EPQ and magazine out. Second draft for her Art essay was due today but she hasn't really changed it from the first and there's a final one to do so has a bit of time. She also had a psychology exam which she barely studied for (she's predicted A star so felt she probably could wing it for once). But once this week is over and Christmas 'break' starts she says at least they can't assign any more work and she can crack on with the portfolio. Can't wait for it all to be submitted.
Thanks also for info about Falmouth interviews @mumma24 and @PerkyBlinder. We will be going down there at some point for an open day but the thought of going back for an interview is too much!

Hi, can I ask how long it has taken your students to put together their portfolio? Did their school help? My DD is applying to Leeds for foundation diploma and so far I don't think she she has made a start on it. She only has this week and next before school breaks for Christmas (all her work is at school) and the deadline for applications is mid January. She won't even discuss it with me- she acts like it's got nothing to do with me and is non of my business every time I broach the subject with her. Do I need to worry?

@FancyFanny i wouldn’t worry, I expect she’s going to show her Art work from school. My daughter is using her A level work and adding a few illustrations she will do over the Christmas holidays. They are so more chilled about it than we are

@FancyFanny no the school hasn't done much about it. They keep saying they will, but they break up this Friday and it's leaving things awfully tight to do it when they get back with the deadlines being end if the month to mid February and with mocks bearing down on them too.
Most universities say what they want to see - X amount of final pieces, Y amount of observational etc, or at least how many images in total with demonstrated progression. And I have found looking at YouTube videos of accepted portfolios very helpful, and the artprof.org portfolio crits very good (they are in the US system which has different portfolio requirements, but universal rules apply).
My main take is: don't forget backgrounds
Try not to centre all the work
Use a variety of media and subjects
Show progression/development process
Short description of each piece (media, size, what the concept is)
Be sure she photographs the work properly and consistently, not too many on each slide.
For foundation (what my dd is applying for) it seems a good variety of styles and media, a bit of experimentation, 3D always welcome, certainly some work relating to their main area of interest if possible. If it was for a degree then it would be far more focussed on the particular field.
My daughter will be using much of her A level pieces, pages from her sketchbook and work she has done at a couple courses outside of school and for her magazine. One or two from her GCSE work. What she needs to do is more observational drawings and life drawings. She'll do the majority over the break and then I hope the school will help her select the best pieces so all she will then have to do is format it for each application.

Just asked dd again when she is going to start on it- she says she'll do pictures before the end of term- but she has to wait for the art room to be free at the same time she has a free period- and she doesn't know when that is- and there's only 8 school days left before the holiday. She insists it's better to wait until just before the deadline to submit and is waiting for teacher to write a reference. Then she said something sarcastic and stormed off!

Good luck, @FancyFanny! My DD went straight to a degree rather than pursuing the foundation route, and she spent about two weekends assembling the portfolio from existing work (a mix of school and personal stuff across different media; @mondaytosunday has given an excellent breakdown!)

The one thing I'd repeat is what other posters here have found; the request for the portfolio is likely to arrive very soon after the application is received.

@mondaytosunday
DS is in same journey. He's a bit overwhelmed by it all and not really started. He doesn't have any observational drawing so will need to do some specifically for his portfolios and also struggles to show the process and the development. It's his weakness - never had been good about "sowing his workings"! I'm not even sure he recognises there is a process in his work.

I'm going to ask his art teacher to have a chat before end of term. I'm concerned he is going to run out of time.

We were booked to go on Saturday but my daughter had an unexpected early request for her portfolio with a deadline of Friday for one and today for another so we cancelled Leeds to get the portfolio finished as she hadn’t even started! 😬

Her other four choices are preferred above Leeds though. It’s the location and late working which is concerning with UAL’s London College of Communication, the course looks amazing but the student experience, cost of living and safety of location are negatives.

They do have massive workloads at the moment with a lot of juggling needed! Your daughter sounds like she’s coping well with it all and hope her psychology exam went well.

You’re so right on ‘we want to see you on the page’ 😂 - although dd did find the UAL portfolio advice webinar really helpful and it definitely influenced how she presented her portfolio (she made it more like a book with a clear start and end and some kind of narrative running through it). She went to a portfolio talk at Nottingham too at their open day which helped her feel less daunted about it all.

She ended up laying it out with InDesign as it’s so easy to swap page order round and to output to the various formats (pdf/jpeg etc) including being able to have control over image compression when outputting to pdf as Falmouth required files to be under a certain size to upload to their portal. For the online portfolio she just uploaded the pdf to Issuu.

My feeling is that if it’s their best work and represents them well then if they’re a good fit for the course and the course is a good fit for them then they’ll get an offer so now it’s just 🤞🏻🤞🏻

@PerkyBlinder Precisely. With all the advice from so many sources, maybe it's possible to overthink some things? The admissions tutors will spot talent (or so we have to believe).

DD is in her last week of her first term, and has submitted all of her coursework. It will be graded, but the grades don't actually count for anything until next term; this is to give them a feel for where they stand versus the uni's expectations, which is very humane.

Here's one of her digital pieces; brief was to design a mural for a favourite place. Hers is an RSPB reserve in Lancashire (I told you she wasn't mainstream...)

Evening all! I posted a while back about experiences of applying to / studying at Oxford (Ruskin). Well after some frantic portfolio preparation DD had an online interview today....45 minutes with a 4 person panel. She is currently doing a foundation and had to submit an initial portfolio when applying (Oxbridge applications are in early), and then a further portfolio after she was invited to interview (the first portfolio was mainly A level stuff whereas the second one allowed her to show some of her more recent work).
Anyway she had a jolly nice conversation with the panel about feminism, postmodernism, performance art and issues around the male gaze
What this means is anyone's guess but the good thing (I think) is that she both went in and came out fairly relaxed. Next step...:confirm her other UCAS choices....Christmas is going to be fun (but at least the portfolio is done)

Well done to your dd @olafolaf! Is Ruskin her top choice? So exciting!

@mondaytosunday I wish I could answer that question but I don't think she knows what she wants! She's also applying to 3 in London, she flip flops between the attraction of big city life versus whatever it is that makes Oxford "special" (?beautiful environment ?history ?prestige)!!

Just back from NTU open day and I was very impressed. The talk scheduled for 45 mins turned into a 2+ hour talk plus tour of all facilities and workshops. We met lecturers and students. Interestingly it was mostly current foundation students who asked all the questions. Probably cos they have a broader idea of what's available but who knows.
Definitely DDs first choice - now she just has to switch courses from textiles!

I think NTU is still top of DD's list for Illustration.