The Frisco ISD College Fair on Wednesday was designed to appeal to any prospective college students in the district, but Thursday morning, art students on campus got a more personal college visit as the School of the Art Institute of Chicago spent time with those interested in pursuing art.

“So as part of college week, I just wanted to have them come out,” art teacher Fred Rodriguez said. “A couple kids want to apply to that school so I reached out, actually they reached out to me, and I wanted to, he said he wanted to come and just look at everyone’s portfolios and kind of give students ideas on how to make better portfolios so he will be coming to kind of just give kids advice and let people know what it takes and what they need to do to prepare for their portfolios for specifically the Chicago Institute, but it will apply to any school as well.”

SAIC is one of the most historically significant accredited independent schools of art and design in the nation and is trying to develop a more pronounced presence in Frisco ISD.

“I do a lot of research about different schools across the country, in particularly in my terrority, and I’ve done a lot more research into the Frisco Independent School District a lot so I’ve been trying to see more and more schools in the school district,” SAIC admissions counselor Travis Tiblier said. “It’s a big school district so I’m trying to slowly get to all the different ones and see what different programs look like so we’ve had students that have come from this school and other schools in the school district so I’m just, like right now this is probably my first time visiting Liberty, so I’m seeing what it’s like.”

Among SAIC alumni are the famous names: Georgia O’Keeffe, Ivan Albright, Edward Gorey, Claes Oldenburg, David Sedaris, and Cynthia Rowley. But SAIC alums were also responsible for creating Snap, Crackle, & Pop ™, redesigning the View-Master, and working on the holograms which appear on credit cards.

“The main draw to our school is the interdisciplinary approach and having this flexibility and freedom to really work in as many different pathways as they would like to,” Tiblier said. “But also at the same time, I think one of the reasons why you choose a school is because of the community and the environment that you’re going to be in and I think our community and our environment is world class. Chicago’s a great city with a rich history of not just art making, but architecture and design and you have access to one of the world class museums in the world with a huge, huge collection. You just have a ton of different resource at your fingertip. A great community, a great environment to grow and learn as an artist.”

For senior Ylandia Warren, Thursday’s visit with SAIC provided information that could help decided where to go to school.

“We learned a lot about the differences between a regular art college and a college that is university or academic more,” senior Ylandia Warren said. “You definitely learn the differences and with the culture, the mentality on campus would be. I definitely showed them two pieces, more traditional pieces, and a few life drawings that is very essential in your portfolio for submission. I definitely want to pursue an art career and it definitely showed me more of what I expect for my future. It definitely showed me more of what life past Liberty would be and it was just a great experience to see.”