For Art Foundation students, fate delivered by letter

Michael Todd 

Staff Writer

Tuesday afternoon, several VCU freshmen had their futures delivered to them in the form of singular, unsealed white envelopes: acceptance letters into their chosen major.

The Art Foundation (AFO) program population is comprised of approximately 474 students including freshmen, transfer students, continuing students and other VCU students who have transferred into the school of the arts. Each spring semester, shortly following spring break, AFO students are required to submit a 16- to 25-piece portfolio demonstrating their most mature works created over the course of school year. These pieces, along with several short-essay responses, are reviewed by committees from each department to determine the student’s acceptance into his or her future major.

If accepted to their first choice, students were required to enter into that major; the same was applicable for anyone who was not admitted into their second choice. The delay time between portfolio submissions and the distribution of acceptance letters has been about a week to a week-and-a-half in recent years.

As is with the number of students admitted into the AFO program each fall, the amount of students each department can admit varies from year to year depending on the number of faculty in each department, as well as classroom space, demand, etc. With the popularity of each major changing from year to year, it is difficult to determine how many students are accepted into each department annually and, therefore, how many students received their first choices both in the past and this semester. Official statistics for this year’s acceptances are as of yet unknown even to AFO faculty. A projection that generally holds true predicts that nine out of 10 students gained admittance into their top major choice. However, it is not uncommon for majors to deny students whose GPAs fall below 2.0.

There have been several steps in its evolution before the application process went entirely online three years ago. Before computers and other technologies aided the process, students would travel to each individual department for portfolio reviews of their physical work. Later the operation became more centralized and departments were invited to view physical work delivered by students in cardboard portfolios to the AFO Program, with various restrictions including portfolio thickness. The current system – which is the same as when students applied to the AFO program and should therefore, in theory, be familiar – is not only more convenient but also allows for departments to pay appropriate attention to video and sound pieces, three-dimensional work and detail shots.

“When we had physical portfolios to hand in, we had people that would camp out in the hallway,” said Elissa Armstrong, associate director of the AFO program. “We didn’t know they were going to do that; we would just show up in the morning, and they would be there with sleeping bags and tents. I think it was mostly that people were into the drama of it because, you know, it’s a big moment.”

Panic was not an uncommon sensation among AFO students for the past few weeks, and few would consider the emotion an exaggeration.

“I don’t curse a lot,” said Taylor Garris, who was admitted to her first choice of fashion design. “This experience was (expletive) hell.”

With acceptance letters officially distributed, students now will begin attending orientations specific to their majors in order to begin preparation for next semester. In the next week, students will officially be switched from AFO into their majors within the university system in order to enable them to register for classes.

More and more, students are expressing the desire to double major and minor in studio majors, or even in academic majors outside the school of the arts. Additionally, more students are coming in with college credits from high school that exempt them from certain classes and allow them to pursue their interests outside of art, which can at the same time inform their studio practices.

“My ranking changed pretty dramatically, and it shocked me and everyone else, but I’m happy with it,” said Danya Smith, who originally intended to apply to the painting and printmaking department but is now majoring in sculpture and extended media. “I still intend on painting, but in a more sculptural way.”

For many students, second and third choices were arbitrarily chosen, and many admit they would have been heartbroken if they had not been admitted to their top choices.

“If I hadn’t have gotten into my first choice, I just wouldn’t have done art next semester,” said Bobbie Peters, who was accepted into communication arts, her first choice. “I would have bulked up my portfolio and reapplied.”

Some people don’t know exactly what they want to do with their majors; others didn’t know what they wanted to major in at all, and struggled choosing their top three choices.

“Sixty percent of students change their mind about what they want to major in from the time they come to the time they go through the application process,” said Armstrong. “This is a statistic that hasn’t changed in the past five years and will probably find the same again this year.”

Ten students, one per department, received special sticky notes with their acceptance letters informing them that they’ve been nominated to receive one of two Dean’s Awards. These scholarships, along with other awards, will be announced next week at the AFO Show reception.

The final obstacle to overcome – and perhaps one that will be more difficult to hurdle than the application process itself – will be to finish out the semester now that acceptance letters are out.

To summarize the entire process, in the words of Danya Smith, “More money, more problems, hashtag YOLO.”