Getting To Know: Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA)
My visit to the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) was one of the more interesting during my trip to Baltimore. Being in the Charm City, MICA advertises itself as being at the “heart of East Coast arts.” MICA staff posted a map that showed how central the school was to Boston, New York, Philadelphia and Washington DC.
Founded in 1826, MICA is the oldest continually operating art school in the country. This private, independent college of art and design has approximately 1,300 undergrads and nearly 700 graduate students. From a visual standpoint MICA has one of the most eclectic campuses that I have ever seen. This is thanks to a blend of adaptive reuse and new construction. I made a MICA Pinterest page and invite you to read on and see some more photos!
The MICA community appears to be based around the arts.
There are clubs and organizations at MICA, but the students are also quite engaged at producing art in Baltimore and Washington DC as well as working with the local arts organizations. MICA is a rare school that does not participate in intercollegiate sports.
The campus was the most interesting part of my visit.
I have not been to another college that makes more use of adaptive reuse than MICA, including the conversation of a railroad station to studios, classrooms and offices. There are modern buildings mixed in, including the residence hall complex. I dropped a few photos below.
MICA is a true arts school.
The college offers only 17 majors, all in arts-related disciplines. There are also 24 minors, some in the arts others blend social sciences with the arts. While new students may enter with a preference towards a specific major, the first year is a foundation year. There are seven required first-year courses, plus an additional studio. elective. This is the case at other art and design schools I have visited, including Parsons, Pratt and the Rhode Island School of Design. Aside from completing the foundational year, MICA makes it fairly easy to double major, rare among schools that grant a Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA) degree. Important to know: studio courses are an estimated two hours of work for every hour in a classroom.
One unique program is Art Education.
MICA offers a dual degree BFA/Master of Arts in Teaching. Completion of this program combined with a passing score on the PRAXIS exam, enables graduates to teach art in Maryland’s kindergartens, elementary, middle or secondary schools. Maryland is one of the more supportive states when it comes to visual arts while Baltimore is one of the more supportive cities.
Admissions are based on academics and talent.
You need the develop a portfolio as well as write essays. The admissions team recommended that prospective students begin to develop a portfolio starting in their sophomore year of high school. They can gain early reactions to their work through in-person and virtual National Portfolio Days. A portfolio requires 10 to 15 works that do not necessarily need to be in the intended major.
MICA is not exceptionally selective but incoming students must be prepared to work.
Seventy-seven percent of applicants for the Class of 2027 were accepted though only 11 percent decided to enroll. This data was obtained through College Navigator, a college cost site operated by the National Center for Education Statistics.
Freshman retention is the best measure of satisfaction with the first-year experience, College Navigator reported that 85 percent of the Class of 2026 returned for their sophomore year. That’s quite good considering the art and design specialization of the school, the demands of the foundational year and the costs. The four-year graduation rate for the Class of 2019 was 67 percent. The pandemic might have impacted the Class of 2021. Their four-year graduation rate was 52 percent.
The MICA experience is quite expensive.
MICA’s tuition and fees alone are close to $55,000. The estimated total cost of attendance ranges from just over $65,000 for a commuting student to over $84,000 for a student who lives off campus. MICA does not publish data on average aid packages or student loan debt. Nor does the school openly publish information about need-based and merit-based scholarships.
Since the school had no published data, I went to College Navigator. Here’s what I found:
- For the Class of 2026, the average grant or scholarship aid was approximately $28,500. This was over half of tuition and fees for the 2022-23 academic year.
- Thirty percent of the students in the Class of 2026 received a Federal Pell grant.
- About half of the class did not need to take out student loans.
My hunch is that MICA does a better job of helping to lower costs than the school is willing to admit on their website. However, prospective students should keep in mind that a private arts school education will be more expensive than most other undergraduate degree programs. This is partly because the equipment required to do the work for studio courses is more expensive than it will be for most other undergraduate majors. The time required for studio courses also makes it difficult to balance school work with a part-time job and a social like. However, it is quite common for art students to freelance as well as volunteer their talents to causes and events.
Report Card: Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA)
- Four-Year/Six-Year Graduation Rates: C+/B
- Freshman Retention: B+
- Costs: B
- Curriculum: A
- Community: A
- Comforts: B+
- Connections: A
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