Tufts University Pre-College Programs SMFA Studio Art

Expect full studio days, Monday to Friday. Classes meet at the SMFA campus on the Fenway in Boston, where commuters are due at 9:30am and leave at 4:30pm. Faculty and teaching artists lead demonstrations of techniques and materials, and you put them to work during studio time with individual guidance from instructors. The days also mix in group critiques, faculty lectures on historical and contemporary artists, visits to the SMFA Art Library and trips to Boston-area museums.

Both sessions open on Monday with an orientation at SMFA that covers the schedule, a tour of the studios and an introduction to your staff, and both close with an exhibition of student work. Two-week students also meet the SMFA admissions team to talk about portfolios and college applications and have a one-on-one portfolio review. Tufts publishes a sample timetable for each session but says it may change.

Residential students live on the Medford/Somerville campus and ride a bus between there and SMFA. Commuters can take that bus too if they reach the Medford/Somerville campus by 8:45am and are picked up there at 5:15pm. Evenings and weekends belong to the residential life team, which plans things like ice cream socials and trips to Davis Square, and past weekend trips have included Crane Beach and the Museum of Fine Arts.

Tufts names Grace Giordano as program lead. She's a Boston-based artist working toward an MFA in painting at Boston University, with a BFA from the University of Michigan and experience teaching and advising college art students. Tufts also lists two program instructors: Sammy Polinsky, a multidisciplinary artist who earned her MFA at SMFA in 2023, and Zoila Andrea Coc-Chang, a mixed-media artist with an MFA in painting and printmaking from Yale who lectures in visual arts at Brown University.

Tufts doesn't say who leads each Studio Focus, and it publishes no class size for this program. In the two-week session you'll also work with the SMFA admissions team, who run the portfolio review.

You leave with the artwork you made and the experience of showing it, because both sessions end in an exhibition that family and friends can attend. What that work looks like depends on your Studio Focus. Poster Lab ends in a series of original printed posters, Book Arts and Visual Storytelling has you hand-bind a finished book, and Painting Beyond the Canvas closes with a collaborative exhibition. Two-week students also get a one-on-one portfolio review with an SMFA admissions counselor and guidance on building a portfolio and applying to college.

Tufts says taking part doesn't lead to admission to any Tufts degree program. Getting your work home is your job, too, since SMFA won't store, pack or ship it. Instructors help you prepare it for the trip, but packing and any shipping labels have to be ready by the end of the day before the program ends, and work you can't take may be photographed instead.

Students entering grades 10 to 12 can apply, along with students who finished high school the school year before. To live in the dorms, you must be at least 15 when the program starts and no older than 19 when it ends. Beyond the usual forms, the application centers on a small portfolio and a short statement.

Tufts doesn't start reviewing until your transcript, recommendation and parent form have all arrived, and it usually emails a decision within 10 business days of that. It reviews applications as a whole, doesn't publish an acceptance rate and gives no feedback if it turns you down. Your first-choice Studio Focus isn't guaranteed, because placement depends on space.

If English isn't your first language, you'll need a TOEFL iBT of 100, IELTS 6.5, PTE 68, Duolingo 120 or at least a year at an all-English school. International students are welcome, but Tufts can't sponsor a visa for this program, and they can only join the commuter-only week if a parent and a close relative living within 50 miles of Tufts sign a waiver confirming the relative will provide housing and transportation. Homeschooled students can apply too.

• Artwork

  At least three images of your work, with at least one made in a non-digital medium.

• Statement of interest

  Up to 250 words.

• Transcript

  Uploaded by an official at your high school, who gets an email once you name them.

• Recommendation

  One letter from a teacher, counselor or mentor.

• Parent permission and Studio Focus choices

  A parent fills in an online form, and you rank the Studio Focus options you'd like.

Tufts lists three prices: $5,950 for the two-week session living on campus, $4,425 for the two-week session as a commuter and $2,995 for the one-week session, which is commuter only. The residential fee covers a double room in a Tufts dorm, three meals a day (brunch and dinner on Sundays), bedding and towels, art materials, excursions, 24-hour residential care and a staff-accompanied airport transfer within set arrival windows. Commuters get materials, activities, excursions and a weekday lunch, but no breakfast or dinner.

Travel to Boston, spending money and laundry ($1.50 a cycle) are extra. Every student needs US-based health insurance and documented vaccinations, and students without them are billed for a Tufts insurance plan or for shots given on campus. In summer 2025 those charges were $82.74 and $55.

Once you're admitted, you have 10 days to pay a $550 nonrefundable deposit, and the full balance is due by 15 May 2027. That's also the last day for any tuition refund, and Tufts' payment plan isn't available for summer programs.

Limited need-based aid is open to US students, including those who are undocumented or have DACA status, and Tufts says awards typically cover 75% to 100% of the program fee. International students aren't eligible. Decisions go out twice a month from February, and Tufts suggests waiting for yours before paying the deposit, although the session could fill in the meantime.

Residential students have one resident advisor for every ten students, plus a director and senior staff, and counselors live in each hall and check in with students several times a day. From Sunday to Thursday you're back in the hall by 10pm and in your room by 11pm, with a later midnight curfew on Friday and Saturday. Free time runs on a buddy system, and you can't leave campus without a staff member or official parental permission. Rooms are doubles in halls split by gender and age, and you need a Tufts ID to get into the building.

Staff take attendance each morning and after lunch, and parents are called right away if a student can't be found. Tufts makes reasonable efforts to run background checks and Title IX training for staff who work with students, its own police department is on duty around the clock, and staff hold students' medications unless the medical forms say otherwise. The full rules are on Tufts' policies page.

Commuters are on their own outside program hours. At the SMFA campus, anyone there before 9:15am or after 4:45pm isn't in staff care, and the trip to and from campus isn't supervised.