The college admission process is always filled with mystery, but the first round of applications to the Brown-Rhode Island School of Design dual-degree program is a "sea of unknowns," said RISD Director of Admissions Edward Newhall.
Brown received 75 early-decision applications for the program by its Nov. 1 deadline, and RISD has received about 45 for its early-action program, though its deadline is not until Dec. 15.
The recently announced dual-degree program is currently accepting its first applications for the 2008-09 academic year. Before applicants are considered for the program, they must be accepted to both Brown and RISD and complete a supplemental essay explaining "why they think this curriculum is well suited to their interests and their goals," Newhall said.
"We're working out some of the knottier details of how many people will be in the group," he said. Dean of Admission Jim Miller '73 said the program hopes to enroll as many as 20 students.
RISD uses a non-binding early-action application system unlike Brown, which has a binding early-decision program. Because the RISD deadline isn't until December 15 and decisions aren't made until mid-January, the two schools won't discuss early dual-degree candidates until late January, Newhall said.
Candidates being reviewed for the dual-degree program "will already have coming to them or already have in hand ... an acceptance to Brown and an acceptance to RISD," Newhall said.
Because Brown's early decision system is binding, applicants accepted to Brown but not the dual-degree program will still be required to come to Brown, Miller said.
Neither school is sure how the dual-degree applicant pool will turn out.
"We don't have any clear sense yet of what the pool will be like," Newhall said. "All the results will be first-time and new to us."
"We don't know yet what the pools are going to produce," Miller said, though he added that the "pool tends to mirror the applicant pool generally." There has always been a "significant number of Brown applicants who have an interest in the arts," he said.
Newhall said the Brown-RISD program is looking for students with "some of the same attributes we would look for" in students applying separately to either of the schools, but specifically with "strong interests in both the academic realm and the visual realm."
"Anecdotally, some of the students we've spoken to have had clear interests in both" areas, but not a "notion of how to combine them," Newhall said. The program is looking for students who "really understand how to make the best of both and weave them together in a new fashion (and) really see a wonderful opportunity to combine (academics and visual art)," he said.
Though there are no concrete plans to change the dual-degree application, "we might decide there's more we want to learn (about applicants)," Newhall said, suggesting that next year's application may ask for an additional letter of reference asking how the candidates' "educational interests would be well-served by this program." On the other hand, Newhall said, "We might very well find we're in good shape."
