My dream is to go to RISD and the only way I could afford it without going 200,000 dollars into debt is by getting full tuition. I know that they rarely dish out any money but I haven’t found any info on people who have received a scholarship of this amount, let alone what they did to achieve it. I’m wondering if it’s simply academic merit and leadership, or if it could be based on the portfolio. Also, information doesn’t have to just be based on RISD. Thanks for reading and all answers are really appreciated 
It’s an arts school. The bulk of their merit aid will be based on the strength of YOUR portfolio in comparison to the other applicants when you apply. Typically the largest awards go to those with the top application strength…and at RISD, that would include your portfolio.
Tuition alone is about $47,000…which would be a HUGE award from that school.
Apply and see…but also have other options in case the money is not forthcoming.
ETA…if you KNOW they rarely give this amount of money…what makes you think you will be able to get it?
Thanks for answering, and the reason why I’m asking this is because why not, you know? Who knows what will happen? I could get a full tuition scholarship (although I’m certainly not counting on it haha) but I just had to ask because I’ve gotten no other information on it. And of course I have other plans if this (seemingly unattainable) dream does not get achieved. The main thing I was worried about was if I was going to have to have a 4.0 gpa and outstandingly high SAT/ACT scores and a ton of extracurriculars and community service hours. Because the only thing I’ve really got going for me is my art, and even then I still need improvement of course. Do you know how many people on average receive full tuition at RISD or any other art school for that matter?
Start here:
https://www.risd.edu/student-financial-services/undergraduate-aid/
RISD does not offer full tuition scholarships. Scholarships are based on financial need and academic merit
All of their scholarships have a need based aid component and you must apply for financial aid each year.
NONE.
We used a college financial specialist during our search and they had a database of all their clients and what their aid packages were. They didn’t have a ton of data on RISD, but in general the school did not offer much $ so we were prepared for the ‘worst’.
From our understanding of past aid packages and seeing on this board, our DD got lucky and received a yearly scholarship of $28,200 plus the usual federal $5.5k aid and $2k work study (for a total of $35,700 per year). Our family’s EFC at the time was about $17k. DD still had to take out a loan (since let’s face it that EFC isn’t money we actually have just lying around!), but not so large as to make this an illogical choice.
I have some of the #s from the other schools she applied to for comparison if you’d like. Also this is not a ‘mom brag’ but to add background info - she had Ivy League level ACT scores, a load of APs, killer average, quirky mix of art and community activities etc in addition to what I assume was a solid portfolio.
Hope this info helps!
Also you might want to move post here http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/visual-arts-film-majors/ since there’s more folks who’ve applied or go to RISD there who may be able to give you more info
The cost of attendance at RISD is over $66,000 a year. Even with a $37,000 financial aid award, the cost to the student left would be almost $30,000. And that $37,000 aid this student posted includes a $5500 student loan. So…really $35,000 a year in loans.
Is that doable?
Well I didn’t go into ALL the $ details in the first post 
plus I’m god awful tired and math is NOT my subject…
The difference is actually about $26,000 (note those calculators online include travel, books etc…see more below). DD has a $5k a year loan (in addition to the $5,500 fed) and we stretched our EFC on our end ($21k, $4k plus our EFC of $17k) Between her work study, summer earnings and personal savings from working summers for years, she pays for all her non-tuition/non-meal plan/housing expenses (ie all books, art supplies, entertainment, sundries etc) so we don’t see any of those “add in” expenses on our end. And she’s a frugal kid by nature, we’re 2 years into this and no problems. Also there’s no real “other” (the $3.5k in their calculator) or travel expenses.
So she really has $10k+ yearly in loans. And she’s both helped cover her tuition in a pinch and plans to pay her debt down (but right now she’s using it as a ‘nest egg’ for all school supplies).
I’m not sugar-coating it, art school IS expensive…but when we ran all the #s for all the other schools (except for our SUNY) none were substantially less expensive (some looked like they were but they were offering more loans). And our kid was willing to really hustle to make RISD work for all of us.
Wow thankyou so much for the replies, I really appreciate it!! I’m just a sophomore now but I think I can use all of this knowledge to help build the quality of my application. Hopefully I can even get into RISD let alone get a good scholarship haha! I know I’m dreaming really big but how else are you gonna get there without being hopeful, right?