Your Guide to the SMFA at Tufts Art Portfolio
Before we dive in to all the details of the SMFA at Tufts art portfolio, here's the scoop.
When you apply to the School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts University (that’s Tufts’ BFA or Combined Degree programs), you’ll submit a portfolio of studio art samples alongside your application. The Admissions Committee reviews this portfolio as part of our holistic application review process, seeking to understand what ideas motivate you to create, what technical skills you’ve already unlocked, and how you have demonstrated preparation to establish a committed studio practice alongside the SMFA at Tufts community.
Alright, now let’s get into the nitty gritty.
A visual art portfolio can only be submitted via the Applicant Status Page, available within 24 hours of receipt of an application for admission. We recommend signing up for a portfolio review prior to the application deadline to receive personalized feedback and advice for curating your portfolio to apply to SMFA at Tufts.
The ideal portfolio will demonstrate your conceptual development while highlighting your technical abilities. We encourage you to submit work that you believe to be the strongest representation of your skills and experiences, regardless of medium. Your portfolio may contain examples of work in any combination of mediums or in a single medium. Read more about what Tufts Admissions recommends for a portfolio.
All applicants to the BFA and Combined Degree (BFA+BA/BS) programs are required to submit a studio art portfolio consisting of 12-20 pieces of finished work completed in the past two years. If your practice includes time-based work such as film, video, or animation, you may include up to ten minutes of video files. Individual clips should not exceed two minutes. If you are submitting exclusively time-based work, please include a minimum of five examples. Artists making time-based work might be interested in reading more about studying Film and Media Studies versus Film and Video at Tufts.
Artworks must be uploaded as individual files, not multipage PDFs. For each file you upload, complete the ‘Edit Details’ section to provide Title, Year, Size, Medium, and Description. Use the Description field to tell us in 1-3 sentences about your goal for the piece and steps you took to make it. For any collaborative artworks, provide clear information on your role in the Description field. Read more about our portfolio description recommendations.
Please do not include architectural plans, scripts, performing arts, industrial design, or images of artwork that include embedded descriptive text.
Finally, artwork created with generative AI (artificial intelligence) may not be submitted in your SMFA at Tufts portfolio.
We hope this has been a helpful introduction to the SMFA at Tufts portfolio! Join us for a virtual portfolio review soon – we can’t wait to see you and your work there!