<p>On collegeboard.com, MassArt seems to have changed from 59% to 64% a few weeks ago. I didn’t really find anything on it. Do any of you think that because of the new resident building, they’re accepting more students this year?</p>
<p>I think it could be combination of the new dorm and also the economy. MassArt is quite affordable for those from MA and from New England. I also think they have stopped providing dorm space to students from SMFA which also would have freed up dorm space. But I’m thinking that the economy might also have upped the quality of applicants at this school.</p>
<p>Artsmarts, I was told by a friend starting at SMFA that she would be living in the new dorms at MassArt. My dd was accepted and loved the idea of the new dorms. I am not sure why the economy being problematic would make MassArt take more kids. I expect it is that they will have more space. Or, acceptances does not mean that there are more kids that accept them. Maybe last year they had less acceptances from students than they had hoped for. JMHO</p>
<p>Interesting because on a tour last year as I remember it we were told that the dorms would only be for MassArt students, perhaps our guide was wrong. Considering that MassArt is the only or one of a handful of dedicated art schools that are state run and is extremely reasonable for in-state students as well as offering a very reasonable tuition deduction for New England residents my thought was that they may have seen an uptick in good applicants and decided to accommodate more students. With the current economy from what I’m reading there’s been an increase in community college enrollments and I think a lot of perhaps less well endowed and/or financially savy students are looking at less pricey options for undergraduate.
They certainly have the room and offer quite a few courses that are require extra facilities (ie glass blowing, foundry classes, ceramics, etc.)</p>
<p>And of course, the new dorm would allow them to house more new students. I can’t remember whether freshmen were required to live in the dorms or not, I don’t think so. If not that wouldn’t be the main reason, I would think, for them to be accepting more students so my thought is that they offer what looked to me like a good solid undergrad education at a very competitive tuition price for in-state and New England residents. There’s no dorm requirement as I remember at SMFA. Actually SMFA not having dorms has many kids living off-campus instead of at the MassArt dorm share facilities.</p>
<p>As far as the dorm goes, I think it is 23 stories and will have tons of space. Our tour guide told us that kids from the engineering college (forget its name) and possibly the pharm school would also be renting space there. Who knows?</p>
<p>I’m a current student at MassArt. As far as the housing situation, currently there are only two housing buildings on campus: Smith and the Artist’s Residence. The Artist’s Residence was partially paid for by the Museum school, therefore this building houses some of those students too. Because there is such limited housing, only Freshmen were guaranteed housing this year. Any of the few additional rooms remaining were given to upperclassmen through a lottery system. Transfer students live in the Midtown Hotel about a mile from campus.
However, next year the new residence hall opens up. This building was paid for by both MassArt and PCPHS (the pharmacy school), and will therefore be split about 50/50 between housing MassArt kids and PCPHS kids. The addition to housing I don’t believe has any impact on the number of students the school accepts; it instead means that MassArt will now be able to guarantee housing for both Freshman AND Sophomores.
As for the increase in the acceptance percentage, I don’t know why that is. But just because a percentage increases does not mean the number of students accepted increases. It could just be that less people applied to MassArt than in the past years. Since percentages are based on fractions, if the denominator (number of applicants) of that fraction were to decrease while the numerator (number of students accepted) stayed the same then the percentage would go up.</p>
<p>Yeah, but they changed it in like early January(a couple weeks before I made this post), which was a month before the official deadline, so they wouldn’t have had the official number of all people who applied, unless they have some way to estimate that kind of think at that point.</p>
<p>It could be the economy and the new dorm. Definitely NOT due to the fact that the new dorm provides more space. MassArt rents out floors of the new dorm (and Artists Residence) to Mass College of Pharmacy and Health and the museum school. Dorm space is NOT freed up by the new dorm and after sophomore year students are on their own for housing. This was a real problem for my daughter (now a junior) and I. We not only believed we heard the dorms were for Massart kids, we believed that in building the new dorm the kids would be guaranteed housing for four years. We have now learned the hard way this is not the case. One would think that with a 43% graduation rate MassArt would put more energy into making sure kids have housing and other things they need to ensure they graduate. It seems as if MassArt would instead hedge its bets by accepting more freshman, after 43% of 300 is obviously greater than 43% of 200. Oh, and the work study students are actually told by their supervisors to “sell” the amount of dorm space MassArt offers only to learn the hard way they were employed to misrepresent the school when they find themselves with out housing. Moral of the story, PLAN to get your child an apartment in Boston for their Junior and Senior years is you wish to see them graduate from MassArt. If you would prefer your child be guaranteed housing all four years, send your child to a different college. And-the midtown hotel is no longer an option.</p>