Preparing international students for art school can sometimes come with some additional or unexpected challenges that you would not expect when counseling local students. The first thing would be to address the elephant in the room. More international parents are making a choice to send their children abroad as they believe that they will get a better education and consequently a better life. Consequently, many of them are quite particular about what their childrens' area of study ought to be. Secondly, international students do not always have access the sort of curricula that would support their desire to study in the arts nor would they have the opportunity to get support for their portfolios. Lastly, finding employment can be a challenge in and of itself given that students also have to worry about the extra barrier being their ability to get a work visa.
Once you're on the same page as the parents and the student, a big part will be helping your student plan their portfolio. There are ideally two things you can do here. Firstly, you can check where there can be overlap between their art classes and their ability to use whatever projects they have for the portfolio. Since senior year is already such a busy year, there is no reason why they cannot use what they have already made. Secondly, you can communicate with their art teacher to create a three way relationship in order to help create the best portfolio you can. Below is an example from Ringling School of Art and Design about how one should plan the portfolio.
If the student's art teacher knew about these requirements above, they could assist the student in ways that you would not be able to. Finally, it would be helpful for you and for the student to build a relationship with the art professors who may be able to give constructive feedback about what may or may not be considered. During my visit at Ringling, they told me that they would be able to provide feedback given the establishment of a relationship. From there, the student need only follow the instructions for application as they would any other school.
If you would like more information, I would recommend
this video which shows an art professor's thought process when going through a portfolio. This would also be incredibly helpful for your student as they prepare their portfolio. Next,
this more lighthearted article about at student's experience at art school would be a good read for your student. Finally, when talking to parents, I'm always a fan of using hard data. Consequently, I'd recommend using
this page from O*NET to really hammer down that art school is not a one way road to homeless if they focus on making the right connections and developing the right skills.
If you have any other questions about the topic, please contact me at l34d.ball00n@gmail.com
