Experience in College Counseling:
• Director of admissions, Oregon College of Art and Craft
• Admissions Counselor, San Francisco Art Institute
• Freshman application reviewer, University of California Berkeley
• College counselor, Valley Intl. Academy, Campbell, CA
Experience in Visual Art:
• Art instructor at The Crucible, San Francisco Art Institute & Valley Intl. Academy
• MFA, San Francisco Art Institute
• BFA, Rhode Island School of Design
I know first-hand of the challenges of creating a strong portfolio as I have done so for my college and graduate school applications, numerous art exhibitions and artist residency applications.
I became interested in college counseling while in high school as neither my family nor college counselor knew how to guide me in my college search as a visual artist. Because of this, I did not initially consider attending a college of art for college.
My family was not artistic and did not understand the process of preparing to study visual art in college, let alone how to prepare a portfolio. I choose to begin college at Xavier University because of an art scholarship. However, studying sculpture there was not the best fit for my needs, so I vastly expanded my college search and transferred to a college of art, Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), where I completed my BFA degree in sculpture
As director of admissions of Oregon College of Art and Craft (OCAC), I regularly counseled students, parents, and college counselors about the merits of a college of art education and differences between bachelor of art (BA) and bachelor of fine art (BFA) degree programs. I keep in contact with former colleagues in college admissions offices to stay up to date on admissions requirements.
Helping students prepare successful portfolios is my speciality. While at OCAC, I reviewed portfolios around the country at over 100 National Portfolio Days, high schools and community colleges every year. I counseled numerous artists on ways to improve their portfolio and developed an evaluation system to use in our admissions decisions.
I can help students apply to highly selective college programs, such as Cooper Union, UCLA, NYU, RISD & Cal Arts.
I have visited 22 colleges of art in the US and Canada and continue to visit more colleges each year. (See my visit list)
I have worked in arts advocacy as a board member of the Oregon Art Education Association and received their "Higher Education Art Educator of the Year" award in 2005 for my work.
I have organized and juried numerous high school art exhibitions, most recently for the Oregon's Portland metro Scholastic Art Awards program in January 2009.
I belong to the following professional organizations and abide by their ethical standards in the college counseling process:
Western Association for College Admission Counseling
Higher Education Consultants Association
I continue to create & exhibit my artwork: www.barrybeach.com