Rhode Island School of Design Pre-College Program
For those of you who read my blog regularly, you probably know all the steps that led up to my daughter’s (Grasshopper and Sensei) RISD Pre-College Program. First, we looked at Art and Design Schools’ summer programs. She got four concussions her sophomore year of high school which lead to anxiety and panic attacks.
Her dorm room was spacious. 4 students shared one bathroom with shower. Each room was set up for two.
She was enrolled in the RISD Pre-College 6 week summer program as a resident student, but after three traumatic days, we switched her to a commuter student … 5 days a week from Boston to Providence, Rhode Island!
It was not the easiest commute — about 1.5 hours each way from door to door, sometimes more — but she made it to every class and, by a miracle of god, was never tardy.
My husband and I ended up driving to Providence six times round trip during that program so we got to know the campus pretty well.
It’s located right beneath Brown University on College Hill in Providence which is a fancy part of town. RISD is on the steep slope part, and when the hill first starts to plateau, that’s when it turns into Brown University.
The Rhode Island School of Design Campus is embedded into the city of Providence though pretty compactly.
There are both beautiful old buildings and modern structures.
My daughter had classes in all of these buildings. RISD gave her some lockers in this building to store her art supplies; she needed quite a few for class and some of it was very heavy, like the large drawing board with a really heavy pad of paper.
You can feel the creativity in this part of town. It’s everywhere from the campus police to the banners which is a nice atmosphere to be in.
The campus security is called Defenders of the Arts! My other two kids delighted in the free t-shirt that they received from orientation day.
My other daughter, PickyKidPix, wears hers proudly!
The program is 6 weeks and is quite intense. Classes were four days a week from 9:00am to 4:00pm or 4:30 pm. There is an art social studies class on the fifth day which is just two hours from 2:oo pm to 4:00 pm. There are homework assignments, midterms and finals. Sleep deprivation is normal. On campus students have the added distraction of fun things to do both on and off campus.
I went to the Pre-College Art Show which showcased the work of the 500+ summer students. Their work was quite impressive:
My Daughter’s Pieces from RISD Pre-College Program
My daughter’s Drawing Fundamentals Final.
My daughter’s Graphic Design Final.
My daugher’s Graphic Design Midterm.
My daughter said that the program which is open to rising high school juniors and seniors was an intense, stressful experience. It was not the happy place sleepaway camp that she usually does at Chimney Corners. In fact, it was a difficult decision to make. She was pretty confident that she would have landed a highly competitive spot as an LIT counselor but ultimately chose Art School to improve her technical drawing skills.
While I thought she would find her tribe, it was actually harder than I would have imagined. Many of the students are from overseas so their English proficiency varied greatly. They also tended to hang out in cliques based on their dominant language. Still, by the end of the six weeks, my daughter made a number of friends and found that they — all of them in her drawing fundamentals class — shared her obsession with drawing pens.
She wants to go back next summer as a resident student and take the illustration program. There are actually an amazing number of choices from game design to fabric design to manga. The instructors are top notch and she was challenged every day and this concentrated period of effort paid off in a leap of improved skills. My daughter said that she learned to render in 3D better but also learned to think about her piece more critically before she started. Better conceptualization before starting resulted in a better end product.
Other Art and Design Precollege Programs
Her friends have attended MICA Pre-college (Maryland Institute College of Art) and Mass College of Art Pre-college. If my daughter doesn’t return to RISD, I would want her to consider School of Visual Art’s Precollege program to try out a new school and a new city. More programs that would fit her interest in art and design include Cooper Union Precollege, Pratt Precollege, Parsons The New School Precollege, Art Center in Pasadena Precollege, SCAD Precollege, California College of the Arts Precollege, and Emily Carr Precollege.
The RISD Precollege program at 6 weeks is the longest and there are other art schools that don’t offer design that have Precollege programs that I didn’t list.
How about you? Are there any other Art and Design Precollege Programs that you think my daughter should consider? Thanks for your help!
p.s. I wanted to mention that RISD gave me a 40% refund on the food/housing portion that I paid when my daughter switched from resident to commuter. I did not expect this as most summer camps do not give refunds once the camp starts but it was much appreciated!
p.s. More about Art Colleges from our college tours:
Visiting School of Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC)
Visiting Emily Carr Art + Design University in Canada
Visiting California Institute of the Arts (CalArts)
Visiting California College of the Arts
Applying to Art School: School of Visual Arts
Visiting West Coast Art Schools & Foodie Stops Nearby
Applying to RISD: Advice from Antonio Peters in Admissions
Tips for National Portfolio Day
Xtreme Week at Mass College of Art
and some fun stuff …
If you are visiting New York City, here are our cheap foodie finds.
45 Art Gifts for Seriously Arty Kids (by my arty daughter)
Art Competitions for Kids and Teens
Our Art Gift Kits for Arty Kids
10 Inspirational Art Books for Arty Kids
Please check out my art board in which I save art ideas for my arty daughter. It has 64,000 followers!
Follow PragmaticMom’s board Art with Kids on Pinterest.
My books:
Amazon / Signed or Inscribed by Me
Amazon / Signed or Inscribed by Me
Food for the Future: Sustainable Farms Around the World
- Junior Library Guild Gold selection
- Massachusetts Book Award Long List
- Selected as one of 100 Outstanding Picture Books of 2023 by dPICTUS and featured at the Bologna Children’s Book Fair
- Starred review from School Library Journal
- Chicago Library’s Best of the Best
- 2023 INDIES Book of the Year Awards Finalist
- Green Earth Book Award Long List
- Imagination Soup’s 35 Best Nonfiction Books of 2023 for Kids
Amazon / Barefoot Books / Signed or Inscribed by Me
Amazon / Scholastic / Signed or Inscribed by Me
Thanks so much for sharing this info, Mia! Your daughter’s art is lovely and amazing!! I’m glad that she ultimately found some people to connect with. It sounds like a very intense and rigorous program. I am so sorry to hear about her anxiety! I’ve had those panic episodes and they’re very scary and overwhelming. I hope that she’s found some good coping strategies! Hugs to her!!
Thanks so much Maria! She made it though six weeks, commuting from Boston and she was never tardy or missed a class though she slept through commuter train stops several times! She says it was a good experience but it was stressful and she worked harder than when she was in school. And how she’s back in school full days. The interesting thing is that her concussion doctor said that her symptoms improved significantly after she finished the program. I guess she was motivated to push herself through it and the stress from that on her brain helped her recovery.
So glad that it helped in her healing process. Such a scary thing. I hope that her anxiety will less too!
Thanks so much Maria!
I didn’t realize your daughter was such a talented artist! I love her work. (Guess we know who you won’t be voting for 😉 Wish I could recommend some. I know Beth Stilborn (a blogger) is very much in touch with art and music school programs. If you want her e-mail, contact me.
Hi Patricia,
Thanks so much! My kids want to move to Canada if Trump wins! 🙂
That refund is impressive! What a commute. You are a very supportive parent to drive her there and back like this, but it sounds like it made a huge difference for her. Her art is great!
Hi MaryAnne,
Thanks so much! My husband and I are giving ourselves half of her good grades because he got her there to the commuter rail stop in crazy traffic every morning (and getting her up is the worst part. She’s hard to wake and extremely unpleasant in the morning). I got her home which was easier because she’s in a better mood though she missed her stop a few times and that made the my commute 2.5 hours to get her in Boston. I think it was a good experience for her so I’m glad it worked out.
An awesome post and must read it..
Thanks JobsXpress!
That sounds like a very neat experience! I’m glad it worked out! 😀
Thanks Erik! Me too!
I work at California Institute of the Arts and am researching other art schools’ pre-college programs and stumbled upon your blog… what a wonderful experience! Thank you so much for sharing.
Thanks so much Elle! We also visited California Institute of the Arts and I made a video but the admissions representative expressly asked that her presentation not be filmed because she is camera shy. That’s too bad because not everyone can afford to make a college visit and watching clips of admissions is a good way to learn about the school. Cal Arts Valencia is especially confusing with all the different majors and different levels of competitiveness depending on which major you apply to. The student tour guide was amazing though: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XRQtWe5JRSk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WQiN27D2NGI