MID I Application Instructions

[  ] Follow the application instructions for all UTSOA graduate programs.
[  ] See below for MID I application requirements.

[  ] Follow the Graduate School instructions to submit the application, application fee, transcripts, and test scores.

The GRE is **WAIVED** for Fall 2025 applications. It may take 72 hours to be removed from your MyStatus after you submit your application. There is no reason to reach out in the interim.

[  ] Upload your statement through MyStatus.

+ An essay of 750 - 1,000 words that addresses your interest in the MID I program with respect to your academic and professional objectives, the factors that led you to apply to the UTSOA, a situation or job that helped you define your interest, your most substantial professional contribution and why you view it as such, and/or any other factors related to your academic or professional experience that you wish to convey to the admissions committee.
+ You may submit your online application before finishing your statement of purpose. You can later upload your statement through MyStatus.

[  ] Manage and track your letters through MyStatus.
[  ] Provide recommenders' emails as part of the online application.

+ Recommenders may include former instructors and professional employers.
+ Letters should include comments on the applicant’s intellectual, communicative, and leadership abilities as well as their capacity for creativity and relevant personal characteristics.
+ After you submit your application and pay your application fee, notification emails will be sent to your recommenders. Any delay in submitting your application or application fee will delay the notifications to your recommenders.

[  ] Upload through MyStatus. 

[  ] Upload portfolio as a single pdf through the portfolio credential on MyStatus.

The portfolio helps the reviewers determine your potential to perform successfully in a studio-based design curriculum. The portfolio may include any creative work that the applicant has undertaken. Students with or without design or art backgrounds are encouraged to apply to the MID First Professional Program. The portfolio should creatively address the content using work, class-work, projects, or hobbies which illustrates the applicants thinking about design and creativity.

FORMAT

Portfolios should be designed and formatted for on-screen viewing. Maximum file size is 25 MB.

ATTRIBUTION

For each project, list the applicant’s name, the project’s date, and an indication as to whether the project was academic, office-related, or personal. In the case of collaborative or professional work, the contribution by the applicant must be precisely described.

ORGANIZATION

The organization of the portfolio is a design exercise. It should be clear, succinct, and thoughtfully composed to best reflect your interests and skills. The quality of the work is of greater importance than quantity.

CONTENT

The portfolio is not expected to show interior design skills. Rather, it should contain work that demonstrates facility with a variety of media and illustrates three-dimensional understanding. You may demonstrate your creative, artistic, and perceptual skills through painting, sculpture, or other three-dimensional explorations, such as objects you have designed and/or constructed. Photography as an example of creative work must demonstrate intention in composition, color/light, or other critical point of view.

A minimum of thirty (30) semester credit hours of diverse college-level general education courses are required for admission to the graduate program. These credit hours must be attained from an institution that has been recognized by the appropriate institutional accrediting body; they may have been taken prior to or concurrently with any discipline-specific course work. Each applicant's official transcripts will be reviewed to ensure that they meet this criteria. 

General education courses are defined as those college or university studies intended to provide general knowledge and to develop general intellectual capacities (such as reason and judgment). Professional studies courses (e.g., business) cannot be designated to fulfill the general education requirement because they are focused on skill development for specific purposes. Courses that might generally be considered interior design course work also do not fulfill the general education requirement. Courses in the humanities, arts, technologies, mathematics, natural sciences, social sciences, and/or other disciplines could be considered as general education courses. Courses designated to fulfill the general education requirement for eligibility should be of this nature.