Urgent!!! Please help!! Newcastle or UAL fine art BA

You have plenty of time to decide.

What are your other 4 ucas choices?

My other choices that I got accepted into are goldsmiths and Edinburgh

Both have a better reputation for fine art than Newcastle (or a FAD at UAL where you’ll be crammed in with too many students).

Do you particularly like london or Newcastle as cities?

I think I prefer to be in London

Hii, I recently got an offer from UAL for foundation at camberwell and also Newcastle for first year fine art, but am finding it difficult to choose between the two. Any suggestions? I heard Newcastle is known for its great research being one of the Russel group unis but UAL is also fantastic for fine arts (although I have seen many negative review on it and am not sure what to believe). If I decide to go to foundation at UAL will I be able to reapply to other unis such as UCL after the one year or am I expected to go straight to another UAL uni such as Chelsea? I am also worried that if I take a diagnostic mode, my portfolio will end up too broad and not narrow enough if I perhaps decide to go for BA fine arts..

I'm currently at the Camberwell foundation and it's been pretty good. Not really 'crammed' as someone else on this thread said it is and the tutoring has been helpful. You are not expected to go to another UAL uni after (although it is encouraged), you can go wherever you want and the fact that you have a UAL foundation will help you get into a good school. I used my foundation to get into Goldsmiths fine art and will be going there next year. If you have any other questions let me know!

Ahhhh!!! Thank you so much, this makes me more confident about my choice. Would you suggest I go to goldsmiths then? I have been offered a place but would still like to take foundation at UAL to try and go to slade school of art, so perhaps a foundation would be the better option?

Goldsmiths seems great to me, has a great reputation, great studio space, successful alumni, good facilities etc. Obviously I haven't actually studied there yet so I can't give any first hand experience but those are the reasons that I am picking it over Chelsea, Camberwell and LCC. I am surprised you were able to get in without doing a foundation first as I thought that was a requirement, so your application must have been very good! I don't really know much about Slade as I was never that interested in it but I'd imagine doing a foundation would increase your chances of getting in there by a decent amount.

Thank you so much!!! Your advice has really helped I hope you have a great time in Goldsmiths the following year!!

Goldsmiths seems great to me, has a great reputation, great studio space, successful alumni, good facilities etc. Obviously I haven't actually studied there yet so I can't give any first hand experience but those are the reasons that I am picking it over Chelsea, Camberwell and LCC. I am surprised you were able to get in without doing a foundation first as I thought that was a requirement, so your application must have been very good! I don't really know much about Slade as I was never that interested in it but I'd imagine doing a foundation would increase your chances of getting in there by a decent amount.

Btw for goldsmiths, I have to also go through year zero first since I’m an international student, so I guess it’s just a matter of talking foundation either in UAL or in goldsmiths. I’m not sure if one is known to be better than the other though .

Ahh that makes a lot more sense! Yeah year zero is essentially a built in foundation. In that case, I'd recommend going for the UAL foundation. The year zero course at Goldsmiths means that once you complete that first year, you have to do the rest of your degree at Goldsmiths, whereas the UAL foundation is a standalone course that will allow you to go anywhere you want once you've completed it. I'm sure you knew that anyway. Regardless, a foundation is a great time to develop your practice and meet new people and most prestigious art courses expect you to have done one so I would definitely recommend going for it! It's a much better option than Newcastle in my opinion, as although it's a great university it's not really known for it's arts and London is the best place to be for creatives anyway. Best of luck with next year and your future Slade application!

Omgosh i don’t know how to thank you enough 😭😭 Thank you so so much!!! Best of luck at your university as well!! Do you recommend any halls in UAL ? Do you think opting for the older but larger halls would be better as it allows for more space to perhaps bring our artwork there and work on it?

Would you also recommend me to take a specialist mode if I’m set on doing painting in my future university as it will narrow my focus on my portfolio?

If you are 1000% set on painting then yeah go for the specialist mode as you will find the diagnostic mode completely useless and boring if you're not really interested in anything else. The diagnostic mode kind of sucks (in my opinion) as it was super rushed and we didn't really delve into any of the subjects that much - it's been my least favourite part of the foundation so far but it's only a few weeks long so if you want to experiment with other stuff then take it. But if not then go for specialist!

I don't really have any idea about Halls as I live in London already so I didn't have to move out. You will be mostly working on your paintings inside your studio though, especially if you live in halls that are right next to the university so I wouldn't worry about that too much.

Ohhhh okay, by a few weeks do you mean that it switches to specialist after a few weeks into the diagnostic mode? Or will it be for the entirety of the year?

So basically the Diagnostic mode only lasts for a few weeks and you do it at the start of the course. You get to try out every specialism in every area for 1-2 days each. After you've tried them all, you pick your specialism which you stay in for the rest of the course. I ended up picking Photography and Time Based Media which is what I was interested in already so it wasn't really that helpful for me, but I could see how it would be useful for some people.