NYC Portfolio Day at Pratt
November 18th, 2008 10:59am by Lucy King
On Saturday, I went to the massive portfolio review at Pratt in Brooklyn, NY. This is our biggest portfolio day of the year. We have a giant crew of admissions officers and alumni to help us get through the incredibly intense line.
The event is CRAZY with a capital C. Held in the cavernous Pratt gym, tables face each other, lines intertwine and tangle, and sometimes people don’t know which line they are standing in. To keep our lines a little shorter (in hopes that we wouldn’t get mixed up with Cooper at the other end), we decided to begin with 8 lines, and then merge them into four. Can you tell where the RISD lines are in this picture? I can’t. Thankfully, we also had 2 excellent student crowd controllers to keep things in check. For most of the day, we had four RISD lines for 17 reviewers.
That’s right, 17 reviewers! We have an amazing group of alumni in the NYC area who are very excited to give back to RISD in any way that they can. They are practicing artists and designers who bring to the reviews the benefits of both their RISD experience and their professional experience. Our alumni make it possible for us move through our lines and see many more people than we would be able to otherwise. This year’s crew was especially great, and included a faculty member from our foundation studies department.
Through the deafening crowd, and the fast paced reviews, we managed to review everyone who made it to our line by 3:30. This is an amazing feat, considering that in some years we’ve had to cut off the line at 2pm.
So my thanks to our brilliant alums and faculty, to the fine folks at Pratt who organized and aided the whole event, and most especially to the students who were committed enough to show up.
Lucy King, Assistant Director of Admissions
Contact me at lking@risd.edu
Tags: Alumni, Portfolio Day, RISD