School of the Art Institute of Chicago (StudentsReview)

How this student rated the school

Educational Quality	F	Faculty Accessibility	F
Useful Schoolwork	F	Excess Competition	F
Academic Success	F	Creativity/ Innovation	F
Individual Value	F	University Resource Use	B
Campus Aesthetics/ Beauty	A-	Friendliness	F
Campus Maintenance	A-	Social Life	A-
Surrounding City	A-	Extra Curriculars	A-
Safety	B

Describes the student body as: Friendly, Afraid, Broken Spirit Describes the faculty as: Arrogant, Condescending, Unhelpful, Self Absorbed

Female

Quite Bright

Lowest Rating Educational Quality	F

Highest Rating Campus Aesthetics/ Beauty	A-

She cares more about Creativity/ Innovation than the average student.

Date: Aug 21 2007
Major: Art & Design Department (This Major's Salary over time)
My daughter went to the Summer high School program. She received a nice scholarship which helped the $4000 tag as we were coming from the west coast and are of low to moderate means.

We received the materials list and purchased as much as could fit into the suitcase. (about $200 of supplies for a 3 week course)

The first day her teacher encouraged the kids to go to a lunch time lecture which most of them did. The lecture ended a bit after the afternoon class started and when they returned to class they were told that they were "Tardy" and that it could affect their grade. When they tried to talk to the teacher about why they were late she put them off and wouldn't listen to them.

Day 2: someone asked where they could purchase the required list of materials and the teacher (a SAIC grad) said,

Oh, you won't need any of those things. We have enough.

NOT. There weren't enough supplies for the class and students were constantly scrambling for charcoal, brushes, etc.

The course description included figure drawing (NUDE) and how-to stretch your own canvasses. When asked when they were going to start these techniques the teacher JODIE said,"That will take too much time away from our painting time" and "I haven't hired a model for the summer class so we won't be doing figure drawing…".

Several of these High Schoolers insisted on the figure drawing and they got it…kinda. When I viewed my daughter's work when she returned home there were two paintings with a model: the model WAS FULLY CLOTHED!

Critiques with this "teacher" were brutal unless you were her pet and her favorite phrase was "I love this moment in your work" which became a snide comment amongst the kids. After 4 days most of the kids just gave up and did "Safe" work. How sad!

On the last afternoon the students had a chance to visit the other classes and see their work. Upon entering one of the other studios a student from my daughter's class said, "We were so gyped." The quality, size and breadth of the works were amazing, open and free.

In my daugher's class the pieces were small and timid.

The last thing was the Evaluation. The teacher stayed in the room making tactless comments to the students while they were supposed to be critiquing her. I am a college graduate and this is NOT the way a valid evaluation is conducted. When asked how the student's rated her, they all said they gave her a 4 out of 5…Why I asked? Jodie holds the grade which we need on our transcript. No one gave her any positive remarks so that they didn't have to lie and no one gave her any negative feedback so that we could get the "A" (Which they all did.)

Overall a great time in the dorms, made MANY friends, had a great TA, loved the museum and the city.

Gad, for the price stay home and take art lessons.

Responses

I don't know why the school deserved such a low rating in some categories when only one particular class was bad.

As you said,

the quality, size and breadth of the works were amazing, open and free

(in other classes which I assume were also run under the school's summer program.)
One class or one teacher is not sufficient to rate the whole school by. And the summer programs may be similar to how the school runs during the rest of the school year, but I would think that it is run quite differently.

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