The application of overseas art schools is different from the domestic art examination. There is no unified score line and knowledge points, and there is no absolute standard scoring system or investigation focus. Although such application requirements have given students full freedom to play, for some students, these seem to be "optional" The art application for studying abroad is just the most difficult to deal with. In the past, we have been sharing "successful experience" with everyone, but in fact, failure sharing is also a kind of learning and gain. Today, our old friend Trevor Amery, a former admission consultant of MICA, started talking with us from his years of admission experience, What kind of student union receives the rejection letter without suspense?

Trevor Amery

MICA Former Admissions Advisor, Maryland College of Arts

Independent artist

UC San Diego Master of Pure Arts

Bachelor of Arts in Painting, Maryland Academy of Arts

Fulbright Scholar

Trevor Amery is an outstanding artist, painter and sculptor living in San Diego, California. He has held exhibitions in many countries and cities around the world, including Hungary, Finland, Nepal, Mexico, the United States and so on. He received a Bachelor of Arts degree from the Maryland College of the Arts and a Master of Arts degree from the University of California, San Diego. He served as a mentor at the University of California, San Diego, and was also a MICA Maryland College of the Arts He is a former enrollment consultant and has many years of experience in reviewing student art works.

Trevor in natural light - summer class

Trevor said:

　　The main problem with a portfolio that would be rejected would be one that does‘t seems mature enough， or advanced enough，to succeed in the environment of the college.

　　Maybe not enough hand skill, not enough time spent……drawing simply done on college-lined paper，for example，sketches or projects that aren't refined enough……these would be rejected.

　　 Mature&Advanced

Many students will ask us this question in the process of consultation: I will integrate all my works during my undergraduate period, and select the best to sort out a set of works, which can be used to apply for studying abroad in art?

As for this problem, we have also encountered many real cases in reality, such as when consultants and professional teachers were evaluating the preliminary collection of works, or when reviewing the enrollment season every year, many students brought the collection of works that integrated the best sets of works in various professional courses during the undergraduate period.

Although these works are really excellent, for example, many students' professional skills have even amazed the teachers, we must first make it clear that the collection of works of art applying for studying abroad is, in short, a set of works with a very direct purpose - for applying for art schools.

In the process of application, what we want to show to art schools should be comprehensive and highly professional comprehensive strength with almost no "shortcomings". However, in contrast to these after-school training works, first of all, most of them have a very clear curriculum orientation. For example, the final work of the font design course is a set of font design. When you apply for the graphic design major abroad in art, the admissions officer will only see your ability in font design through this group of works, not all of the graphic design.

Secondly, the second point mentioned by Trevor is that these works often do not have a high degree of extensibility and divergence. This is directly related to the concept of art education at home and abroad. Overseas art education emphasizes multi-disciplinary integration and independent creation through cross media, while domestic art education emphasizes that students need to have solid basic skills and professional skills.

The works collection of students majoring in natural light product design was awarded ACCD offer

For example, at Parsons last year's recruitment season, a DIY student brought her product design collection. Each page was very beautiful, and the model drawings and physical drawings were very detailed and beautiful. But when the admissions officer asked her about her creative concept and way of thinking divergence, he found that her entire creative process was completely reversed.

One of her works is an emergency device designed for children in kindergarten. She first thought of making the product look cute, round and suitable for children, and then used the product to find the research direction and audience, what kind of children are suitable for this product, and which functions are suitable for which emergencies.

Such a project seems to have no major problems on the surface, especially visually, it is really very attractive. At that time, her collection of works even caused many people to read it. But when the admissions officer in turn combed her out from the theme, we found that this design idea was totally untenable, not only limiting the use of the audience, but also using the product to "kidnap" the users.

Therefore, in the process of applying for the overseas work collection of creative arts, it must first be clear that the work collection should not only show your best field, but should express yourself in many ways. Therefore, during the preparation of the portfolio, once you find yourself lacking in some aspects, you should make up as soon as possible. At this time, the best way is to participate in short-term classes of some institutions and learn in the form of projects in a short time, in addition to your own exploration.

For example, in natural light, we have been setting up short-term studio circularly, and every student in the studio cooperates with each other to create, Portfolio Coaching Under the premise of controlling the direction of the whole project, the teacher helps each student to supplement their own professional ability. At the same time, in a multi-disciplinary and interdisciplinary atmosphere, students' creative thinking and expression ability of art overseas works collection will be improved.

Natural light overseas alliance summer studio

　　 Sketches

Sketch is the most easily ignored part of many students' work collection. Even if many arts do not explicitly propose to see the sketchbook, some students will think that it is not necessary to submit the sketchbook. But in fact, sketch is not a simple "sketch manual". Even if colleges and universities do not emphasize submission, your work collection should also include the presentation of sketch, because this is one of the inspection points that most art colleges and universities attach great importance to.

Although in translation, sketch is often translated as "sketch", "legend", etc., in fact, sketch is just a way to help you sort out your ideas, make rational comparison and judgment, and visually, it is also a reflection of the development process of your creative ideas.

Secondly, the use of the sketch part can more effectively highlight your creative intention and personal style, better grasp the attention of the admissions officer, and quickly understand the development process of your ideas and ideas, so as to judge your thinking potential.

Student works collection of natural light fashion design

Therefore, the skill that many students are particularly easy to ignore, once used well, will not occupy the space of the work collection, but will become your bonus item.

However, at this time, we still need to remind you that you should not treat sketch carelessly because it is translated into "sketch". Scrawling does not mean that you have personality and style. On the contrary, when you prepare your sketch with the requirements of "high-definition", "no code", "meticulous" and "high sense of logic", it will help you save a lot of unnecessary trouble.

For example, when preparing a collection of clothing design works, although a suit of clothing design seems to be "several pieces of clothing", in fact, a series of ready to wear clothes will go through a very tedious process from scratch. The first is to determine the theme. It is necessary to finalize the theme and carry out effective research and brainstorming according to the theme.

Secondly, there are a series of links such as plate making, fabric selection, fabric transformation, etc. In this process, it is easy to have "wrong versions of the previous ideas and final clothing". Therefore, if your skills are very accurate and thoughtful during this period, you can effectively avoid this series of problems.

Student works collection of natural light fashion design

In addition to Sketches and the aforementioned depth of extensibility and divergence, Trevor also mentioned the integrity of the collection. Many students have this "illusion", especially in the undergraduate stage. My works can only reflect a high degree of creativity and inspiration. It is not very important that the collection of works is incomplete. After all, some art schools do not have mandatory requirements for the integrity of the collection of works.

Although art schools say so, it is also important to remember that what they say is "incomplete" is at least 85% - 90% of the collection of works completed, and the unfinished part is not "can be ignored", or it is because of various reasons that they suddenly did not finish! Even if it is "unfinished", your work collection should contain complete creative ideas and ideas!

Finally, the collection of art applications for studying abroad examines the students' comprehensive ability. For the experienced admissions officers, most of them are very experienced reviewers. They can see whether you are really working hard in your creation through your collection of works. They can see your attitude, so don't "fool" ！

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