Portfolio, portfolio.. wherefore art thou, portfolio?
Oh, wait— wrong book.
The Oxford English Dictionary defines "portfolio" as a case for holding papers, prints, drawings, maps, etc. With all due respect to the Oxford English Dictionary, we'd like to share an alternative definition of portfolio as it relates to your college application in this here 21st century.
Simply put, your portfolio is a curated selection of artwork that you will submit as one component of your college application, alongside your transcripts, letters of recommendation, and the application form itself.
It's likely that each school you're interested in will have different portfolio guidelines. We'll get into that in a moment, but what doesn't vary school to school is that your portfolio should represent you, just like your personal essay. It will help each admissions committee assess your skill, learn about what motivates you, and understand how our program can support your artistic journey.
Now some specifics about the SMFA at Tufts portfolio:
What to Submit
All first-year and transfer applicants to the BFA and Combined Degree programs are required to submit a visual art portfolio consisting of 15-20 images of recent work. Applicants who work in video, animation, or other time-based mediums may include up to 10 minutes of time-based work.
Content
There are no specific requirements or restrictions for the content of your portfolio. You can submit work in any medium and any subject matter, in any combination. We encourage you to submit pieces that you believe to be your strongest to date, regardless of medium. We don’t require work that shows your process or the evolution of your skills – we want to see where your work is at with the resources and interests you have now. We’ve found that students hit their artistic stride in 11th and 12th grade and typically recommend that your portfolio represents recent work from these years, but it's not a rule.
Submission
About 24 hours after submitting your application to the BFA or Combined Degree program at Tufts, we'll email you with login information and a link to your applicant portal. You'll submit your portfolio files digitally by logging into your applicant portal and navigating to the “Digital Portfolio” section, where detailed upload instructions can be found. Be sure to log in and upload your portfolio by the deadline for your application round!
Learn More
One number one tip is to register for a portfolio review so we can customize our advice to you and your creative practice. In the meantime, we've got tons of other blogs about the portfolio, including this one about captioning your work and this one about showcasing conceptual and technical skills.
There isn’t a one-size-fits-all recipe for a perfect SMFA portfolio. That can make curation a little more challenging, but it's also an exciting opportunity to go all-out on a portfolio you truly feel proud to present. Your portfolio will be a reflection of you — it shows us how you react to and synthesize the things you're interested in. Remember, your portfolio is a curated snapshot of the work that you’ve completed to date, but your artistic journey began years before you even thought about preparing a portfolio and will continue long after you hit submit. Perfection is not what we're looking for, because it's not possible. Embrace the ambiguity and flex your creativity. As artist Agnes de Mille once said “The artist never entirely knows — We guess. We may be wrong, but we take leap after leap in the dark”.