When Sammy Goldstein was little, he used to trade his Halloween candy for crayons. Now, he is planning to take the next step in his artistic journey by studying architecture at the Rhode Island School of Design.
Goldstein realized he had a passion for the subject after taking an architecture class in high school, where he also started an architecture and engineering club. He learned he’d been accepted to RISD while at a friend’s house.
RISD doesn’t release the date of admission decisions in advance, he said. So “at, like, 5:00 p.m. on a random Wednesday” while at a friend’s house, Goldstein got his decision.
“I literally jumped out of my seat and was yelling. I was super, super excited,” he said.
On April 10, Goldstein attended RISD’s first Admitted Students Day of the season and is one of many admitted students either eager to meet their new classmates or still deciding if RISD is right for them.
The Herald spoke with seven admitted students about applying to RISD, the college decision process and how they feel about beginning a new chapter in Providence.
Courtesy of Sammy Goldstein
Moses Lieberman-Bachman, an incoming RISD student from Huntington, Massachusetts, said that he chose RISD for their architecture program. He hopes to become an architect and design schools, he said.
“I go to a performing arts high school, and our building is an old paper mill. So it’s really small,” Lieberman-Bachman said. “I feel like I see so many people in my school who would flourish in a much brighter and more open space, so I want to give kids a place where they can create and do everything they want to do.”
Lieberman-Bachman said that he is most excited to meet new people at RISD, but that “the most nerve-wracking thing is being up to par with these people and with (the) expectations of what the school wants from me.”
Lieberman-Bachman was admitted to RISD’s First Year in Florence program for the spring semester of his first year, which takes students abroad to the Italian city’s historic district. He said getting into the program was a “pretty big excitement.”
Courtesy of Moses Lieberman-Bachman
He’s also excited to be in Providence — hailing from a “tiny town in the middle of the woods,” he was ready to “switch up” and head to a city for college, he told The Herald.
RISD admit and New York City native Abigail Almond said they were familiar with Providence from visiting their sister at Brown. For Almond, RISD’s location struck a balance they were looking for.
“I didn’t want to be in a city, a place like Columbia or NYU, that doesn’t have a campus, and I didn’t want to be in the middle of absolute nowhere,” they said.
Almond plans to study illustration and has heard that RISD students often have to balance a heavy workload. But Almond noted that their love for art may change their response to the work.
“I’m interested to see how I react to … such an intense workload when I am invested and enjoy it to the degree that I do,” Almond said.
Courtesy of Abigail Almond
Kennedy Barrett, an incoming student from Cornelius, North Carolina, applied to RISD for its proximity to big cities, alumni connections and ceramics and glass studios. Though RISD was not initially one of her top choices, learning more about the school’s programs and opportunities led her to choose to commit, she said.
Barrett has already been making connections with incoming students, noting that she’s in several group chats with other admits that she talks to “on the regular” and has also been able to find a roommate. “She lives all the way in Japan, and she is an incredible person,” she said.
Courtesy of Kennedy Barrett
Coming from Leesburg, Virginia, incoming student Sydney Kelly is “super excited to meet all the new people and see the community,” she said. Like Barrett, she is also a part of group chats with committed students and made plans to meet up with some of them for matcha after Admitted Students Day.
Kelly received the email that her admission status was updated while at a rehearsal for a chorus concert. When she went out into the hallway to open the email, “the whole choir followed” her, she said. “I opened it in front of, genuinely, 60 people, and I was like, ‘Oh, this is going to be so embarrassing if I don’t get in.’”
Because she’s the only person from her area going to RISD, she said she is “a little bit nervous,” but she thinks “the community is really nice.”
Courtesy of Sydney Kelly
For incoming student Claire Francine Sunarto from Jakarta, Indonesia, RISD was the only art school to which she applied. Her parents said if she was going to study art, it was “RISD or none,” because “it’s the best there is,” she said.
She was inspired to study industrial design after learning about the “practical side of art” from a kebab wrapper that was designed to make it easier to eat without making a mess. The portfolio she submitted for RISD’s application was the culmination of three years of work.
Coming to Providence to study at RISD will be Sunarto’s first time in the United States. “I’ve always had the dream to go there, and now I’m finally getting that chance,” she said. “It’s really exciting, though I am nervous because America is such a far place for me.”
Courtesy of Claire Francine Sunarto
Apal Jain, who is from Jaipur, India, is also headed far from home. She applied early-decision to Brown but “never expected to get in” to the dual-degree program so the moment she was accepted felt “incredibly astonishing.”
“RISD in and of itself is quite rigorous, and it’s known for that through the Experimental and Foundational Studies program in the first year,” she said. “That’s something that really spoke to me, because I wanted to be challenged and wanted to be able to develop my faculties as an artist in a quite dedicated manner.”
Jain plans to study applied-math economics at Brown and painting at RISD, and while she thinks it will be a “big challenge” to be attending two colleges at once, she also feels like it will be a “unique experience where you can bridge the things you learn and the people you meet in one institution with the other.”
Emily Feil is a university news and metro editor covering staff & student labor and RISD. She is from Long Beach, NY and plans to concentrate in English and international & public affairs. In her free time, she can be found watching bad TV and reading good books.
Izabella Piatkowski is a senior staff writer covering the Rhode Island School of Design.
