Professional schools of art (including those as part of a university program) will require three things: 1) high GPA; 2) High SAT/ACT; 3) a quality portfolio consisting of 12 - 20 pieces of visual artwork using a variety of media. Art school at the college level is no joke. The foundation year itself is usually 25 + hours of class/studio time per week with many assignments worked on long into the evening hours. The critiques can be brutal so even if the school gives all A’s (which they typically do NOT) it doesn’t matter because your progress depends on the feedback you get in your critique. Art schools do tend to have admission rates of over 50% (RISD, Cooper Union and CalArts being the exceptions) but that has more to do with their specialty nature (not a lot of kids apply to a dedicated art program at the post-secondary level). Also, for some of the highest admission rates a number of kids wash out and transfer after their first year. In art school, what really matters is whether they’ve given you a scholarship - that typically means you are considered a much better prospect, will survive foundation year, graduate on-time, and make a living as an artist/designer. To get a scholarship you really have to meet the three-fold criteria above.
Yes, RISD is a highly selective program (25% - 30% acceptance rate depending on the year) and the RISD/Brown dual degree program is uber-hard to get into: you have to be accepted both to RISD and to Brown separately, then to the Dual Degree Program itself. (That’s three admission applications and three separate admissions decisions, folks).
Regarding high school art, most college prep programs will allow for an elective and students take a variety of those: art, music, drama/theater, engineering, psychology, creative writing, yearbook, etc. I’m not sure how a selective college would view any of those absent an effort by the student to use the elective to make him/herself a better educated more interesting person. Do you blow off your time in choir or are you one of the kids who enters the competitions and music festivals? How are you using the design principles from engineering to originate ideas to help industry/society? My D had kids in her AP Euro. class this year who took it as a joke (although I highly doubt they are getting A’s). They also blew off the AP exam but today while the rest of the class is watching a movie and having a party, they have to take a final. I doubt it will be an easy test either.
High School Art (and musical performance or drama) class should be an easy A for most kids because it’s based on effort rather than raw talent. At that level it’s really more about trying to master concepts and improve skill. It should be a fun exercise in creativity and imagination (resting that “academic” side of the brain) for those who are not planning to pursue the arts beyond their HS years. But if your instructor isn’t docking you for dashing off a thoughtless assignment (believe me, they CAN tell) or not handing it in they are doing you a major disservice.
HS art teachers will tell you that these creative subjects are extremely important for ALL students. I think aspiring engineers especially would love to take something that isn’t calculus or physics for a change. Down the road, you will probably be involved in design of some kind and that’s where the big-picture thinking from your creative classes combined with your analytical skill and knowledge of math and science will help you enormously. Many industrial designers were once kids who straddled the fence between art and engineering.
One word about AP art: professional schools of art will not accept any AP studio credits (although they do tend to accept AP lit, AP math and/or science, and maybe AP history of some sort to satisfy a portion of your liberal arts requirements). They MAY accept AP Art History. But the level of skill in studio is so different between the high school and the colleges of art that while they EXPECT you to take all the AP art classes your school offers - and they expect you to get an “A” in those - they don’t tend to accept the credits. That speaks volumes as to the difference in quality and expectations between the high school level and the professional/college level of art. The latter is for students who really wish to pursue the subject in an intense and dedicated manner.
Finally, it makes sense that most regular college and university admission committees will relegate these creative electives to the subjective or “wholistic” side of your admission decision and take a good hard look at just a few subjects when assessing your “academic side”. Those subjects - Math, Science, History, English, sometimes foreign language - are far more likely to be standard across schools and students in grading, in curricula, etc. Plus, the variety of electives is wildly diverse and totally depends on the size of the school, whether it’s public or private, etc. However, the math and science offerings for the college prep track are going to be pretty standard and comparable to what other schools are offering. So just remember when you send off your transcripts that the admissions committee is going to dissect that GPA. A transcript with low academic marks is going to be viewed less favorably than a transcript with high ones, regardless of what else is being taken. While elective grades matter, they may be viewed more in the context of whether the student was really trying to get something out of the class (i.e. effort). But a C in Chem will be viewed in the context of academic aptitude as well as effort.