National Portfolio Day Coming to VCUarts Qatar

The event is arranged so students looking for undergraduate and graduate school opportunities can move from table-to-table in discussions with art and design experts from the schools they are interested in

For the first time in the Gulf region, aspiring students of art and design will have the opportunity to have their portfolio of creative work reviewed by internationally accredited schools of art and design at a special on campus event to be held in Qatar in December. 

VCUarts Qatar, in Education City, will be the host campus for National Portfolio Day on Friday December 8^th at the VCUarts Qatar campus Atrium, from 4pm to 8pm. Prospective students at both the undergraduate level and the graduate level from Qatar and throughout the region are invited to attend.

The event is arranged so students looking for undergraduate and graduate school opportunities can move from table-to-table in discussions with art and design experts from the schools they are interested in. Students will have their work reviewed, and will receive advice and input that they can use to improve the way they present their creative work.

“To make the most of the opportunity, attendees are encouraged to bring approximately 10 pieces of their work with them. The idea is to show and discuss their work with visiting university representatives,” says Caitlin Murphy, Director of Admissions for VCUarts Qatar. “The constructive feedback and general guidance that university faculty and staff provide should be quite helpful to prospective students as they prepare their art portfolios as part of their uni admission applications.”

National Portfolio Day is free, and open to the public.  Pre-registration is highly encouraged:  https://nationalportfolioday.org/schedule/dec-8-doha

Schools expected to attend include: 

The California College of the Arts, San Francisco, California

The California Institute of the Arts, Valencia, California

The Cleveland Institute of Art, Cleveland, Ohio

Cranbrook Academy of Art, Bloomfield Hills, Michigan

Kansas City Art Institute, Kansas City, Missouri

Maryland Institute College of Art, Baltimore, Maryland

Paris College of Art, Paris, France

School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Illinois

School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts, Boston, Massachusetts

School of Visual Arts, New York, NY

University of the Arts London, London, England

Virginia Commonwealth University School of the Arts Qatar

Virginia Commonwealth University School of the Arts, Richmond, Virginia

The National Portfolio Day Association (NPDA) was established in 1978 for the organization and planning of National Portfolio Day events. Today, the Association continues this work and has broadened its mission to provide support to professionals advising students on portfolio development for college/university admission. Consisting of more than 100 post-secondary institutions that hold regional accreditation and accreditation from the National Association of Schools of Art and Design (NASAD) or its equivalent, NPDA is the only organization of its kind and its membership represents the highest standard of visual arts education in the world. 

Photograph by Markus Elblaus.