UIC School of Art and Design has MFA programs in Graphic Design, Industrial Design, Moving Image, New Media Arts (formerly Electronic Visualization), Photography, and Studio Arts. These are highly competitive international programs that accept new students in the Fall of each year. Graduate catalogues are available online: http://www.uic.edu/gcat .

The next term for which you may apply is Fall 2013.

UIC MFA Information Sessions will be held at 2:00pm on Wednesday October 3, October 24, November 14, November 28, and January 16. Sessions begin at 2:00 in the lobby of 106 Jefferson Hall, 929 W. Harrison Street, and include tours of our grad studios and facilities.

You are also invited to attend the MFA end of semester critiques. These take place in early December and early May, and are open to Chicago area artists and designers as well as prospective applicants.

How to apply

The graduate application must be completed online at http://www.uic.edu/depts/oar/grad/apply_grad.html

An application fee of $60.

All portfolios, statements, resumes and recommendation letters are submitted online via: http://uic.slideroom.com/
Specific program requirements are listed below.

Please make sure that, in addition to applying via Slideroom.com you also apply to the program at the UIC Graduate College Portal: http://www.uic.edu/depts/oar/grad/apply_grad.html.

Go to Section 2 at the bottom of the above link to apply. You will need to upload an electronic copy of your transcript via this portal. Please begin this process at least 5 days prior to the application deadline. An official transcript will be requested only after an applicant is accepted to the program.

Letters of recommendation, three are required, from former professors or professional colleagues. These will also be uploaded to slideroom. Please let your recommenders know this. By submitting this online you have waived the right to inspect this confidential recommendation. If you are chosen to be nominated for specific fellowships or other awards, we will request specific forms be completed by recommenders. It is not necessary to use any forms for letters of recommendation at the time of application.

Resume or CV with recent exhibition or professional experience included, are to be uploaded to slideroom.

We strongly encourage application by our December 15 priority deadline.
Our final application deadline is February 1. This includes both domestic and international applicants.

Financial Aid
Financial Aid is very competitive and is usually awarded on a semester only basis. The exceptions to this are the Fellowships, which are a 9 or 12-month appointment. The priority deadline for applicants who would like to be considered for Graduate College Fellowships is December 15, 2012. Application materials must be uploaded to slideroom.com and unofficial transcripts should be submitted to the Graduate College by this date to be considered for the first round of Fellowship awards.

If you are applying for a Fellowship, you must have final grades posted from your school. If you attended a school that utilized a Pass/Fail grading system you must submit grading sheets from your professors indicating letter grade equivalents.

Financial aid is the responsibility of each graduate student and it is encouraged that applicants fill out financial aid forms early to cover tuition, fees and other school expenses.

It is imperative that all your application materials arrive by the December 15 or the February 1 deadline in order to have your portfolio reviewed by the faculty committee for your area.

A complete file and a portfolio review is required for acceptance into any program. Please use the following guidelines when preparing your application packet and portfolio.

Portfolio Requirements
All portfolios are submitted online via: http://uic.slideroom.com/

Do not send portfolios with application materials as they will not be reviewed. There are no exceptions to this policy.

Applicants may upload images (jpg), video (mov, wmv, flv) or PDF Documents. If works are submitted by PDF, please upload a single document with multiple pages (not individual PDFs). For good image quality and fast upload, images should be sized no larger than 1280 x 1280 px @ 72 dpi. Video files must be kept under 20MB. Our SlideRoom portal offers additional instruction for submitting work online. For technical assistance, contact support@slideroom.com

Studio Arts and Photography
12 images with a descriptive list
and/or one video, no longer than 3 minutes.

Moving Image
1-3 works, excerpted if longer with description of work.

Graphic Design
Upload a portfolio containing no more than 20 images documenting your design work as one multi-page pdf saved using the smallest file size preset in adobe acrobat.Your resume and statement should be first in the pdf. If your pdf exceeds 10 megabytes, you may upload a second multi-page pdf.

Industrial Design
No more than 20 images with descriptions. Upload your portfolio as one multi-page pdf saved at 72 dpi resolution. Your resume and statement should be first in the pdf. If your pdf exceeds 10 megabytes, you may upload a second multi-page pdf. Please have your name on each page of the pdf.

New Media Art
No more than six selected projects.
Upload documentation of up to six (6) selected projects. You may submit twelve (12) documentation images and/or movie clips in all. To submit documentation of web-based projects, please use a representative screen grab of the site and include the url in the project description. For each project, please include project title, author(s), year, description, and context.


Provide 1-12 items. Images (up to 5 MB each), Video (up to 60 MB each), Audio (up to 30 MB each) and PDFs (up to 10 MB each). You may also link to media from YouTube, Vimeo and SoundCloud.


International Students
Original results of TOEFL scores are required.
Minimum English Competency Test Score
TOEFL 580 (paper-based); 237 (computer-based); 92, with subscores of Reading 19, Listening 17, Speaking 20, and Writing 21 (iBT Internet-based), OR,
IELTS 6.5, with subscores of 6.0 for all four subscores.

TOEFL scores and Certified Financial Documentation is required at the same time as all other application materials. Do not wait until the results of the portfolio review are released before sending these documents.

We have no special financial aid designated for international students. International students are required to certify that they can provide for their own tuition, fees and living expense for their entire stay here and without proof of your financial support an I-20 will not be issued.