I would like to know the top 10 graduate programs in Graphic and/or
Web Design in Massachusetts and Rhode Island.

Hi tatichapira-ga, 

Well, as you must already know, of course the #1 school would be Rhode
Island School of Design. This is a world class fine arts and design
school.

“including more than 2,000 students from throughout the world,
approximately 350 faculty and curators, and 400 staff members, RISD
(RIZ-dee) is based in Providence, Rhode Island. Each year more than
200 prominent artists, critics, authors and philosophers visit our
historic College Hill campus founded in 1877.”

RISD Homepage
http://www.risd.edu/index.cfm

RISD Graduate School
http://www.risd.edu/graduate.cfm


Now, here’s the story on the rest – I’ve gone through every single
listing on artschools.com for the states of Massachusetts and Rhode
Island and out of over 50 listings, only 7 meet your criteria.  I’ve
also thoroughly searched the web for other sources. It looks like most
schools do not offer the graduate degrees you are looking for.

You can check out artschools.com yourself if you like. Understand that
I did NOT base my selection on that website’s letter codes regarding
what degrees are offered by each school. I went to every single site
(except community colleges) and searched it to make sure. In that way
I found several that weren’t actually listed as offering Masters
Degrees.

Artschools
http://www.artschools.com/ 


So here are the remaining 7 other schools in Rhode Island and
Massachusetts with graduate programs in graphic and /or Web design, in
no particular order:


University of Mass – Dartmouth College of Visual and Performing Arts
http://www.umassd.edu/cvpa/grad_degrees.html

Boston University – College of Fine Arts
http://www.bu.edu/cfa/visual/programs/graduate/index.html

Massachusetts College of Art 
http://www.massart.edu/about/


The Art Institute of Boston at Leslie University
http://www.lesley.edu/aib/about/about.html


The MIT Media Arts and Sciences Program
http://www.media.mit.edu/mas/degrees.html
http://www.media.mit.edu/mas/programs.html


The Boston Museum of Fine Arts – Museum School 
http://www.smfa.edu/admissions/default.asp


Emerson College Visual and Media Arts Program
http://www.emerson.edu/media_arts.cfm?doc_id=38


I hope that satisfies your criteria for an acceptable answer.
Unfortunately it’s impossible to generate a “Top 10” list for
something that there aren’t ten of. If anything I’ve said isn’t clear,
please feel free to ask for a clarification.

-K~

Search terms:

MFA “graphic design” Rhode Island
MFA “graphic design” Massachusetts
“graduate program”  “graphic design” Rhode Island
“graduate program”  “graphic design” Massachusetts

---

Request for Answer Clarification by tatichapira-ga on 22 Sep 2002 18:59 PDT

that was a good and bad answer. bad because i came to a similar list
myself (including Bentley College and Suffolk University on the list)
and i'm having difficulty deciding where apply because i'm not from
the region and i don't really know all the schools. good because i'm
now sure that that was all and there isn't anything else out there.

i know how good mit is. do you have an idea of the reputation of the
remaining schools where those programs are offered?

thanks!

---

Clarification of Answer by knowledge_seeker-ga on 23 Sep 2002 10:10 PDT

Hi again tatichapira-ga,

As far as reputations of the individual schools go, no I’m sorry, with
the exception of RISD, I really don’t have any personal knowledge of
their reputations.  RISD is truly the top school of all those that I
suggested.  I would also hazard a guess that anything to do with the
Boston Museum of Fine Arts would be highly reputable.

To wrap up this question, let’s take a look at a general idea
regarding choices of art schools ---

“Colleges that focus completely on Art and Design stand in the highest
regard within the arts industry.  A college or university which offers
a BFA / MFA degree indicates a commitment on the part of the school to
provide resources and training to serious art students with the
intention of becoming professional artists.”

http://www.marmalade.com/web/article/art_degree.html

US News and World Report apparently rated the art schools, but you
can’t access their ratings for free online. The list of schools an how
to order the full ratings is here:

http://www.usnews.com/usnews/edu/college/rankings/brief/unranked/art/art_brief.php

You mentioned Bentley College. That’s a business school. They don’t
offer an arts program at all – at least not on their website. Maybe
you have other info? Their technology degrees are in Information
Technologies and their marketing program is a certificate in IT
marketing.

BENTLEY COLLEGE - GRADUATE PROGRAMS
http://www.bentley.edu/graduate/academics/ms_programs/index.cfm?CFID=2035621&CFTOKEN=48686294

You also mentioned Suffolk College. They operate the New England
School of Art and Design. The only Masters Degree they give is in
Interior Design.

NEW ENGLAND SCHOOL OF ART AND DESIGN – DEGREES OFFERED
http://www.suffolk.edu/nesad/html/programs.html

Finally, all other things being equal, you might consider basing your
decision on location. Why don’t you think about posting 2 more
questions asking researchers to discuss their opinions on living (or
going to school) in Providence, Rhode Island and Boston,
Massachusetts? I’m sure we have people who can give you first-hand
info on each of those places. Just a thought.

Anyway, thank you for the kind rating. I’m glad to see the good
outweighed the “bad.” That’s always my goal. :-)

-K~