Portfolio Reviews & Submission Requirements

Sign-up for a One-On-One Portfolio Review with Admissions

Before you apply, we encourage you to sign up for an online portfolio review.

Portfolio reviews are not an admissions requirement, but they are a great way to receive guidance on portfolio preparation, and to ask questions about our studio art programs or the application process.

Schedule a portfolio review for Undergraduate and Graduate Programs:

Undergraduate Programs Portfolio Review Graduate Programs Portfolio Review

Undergraduate Portfolio Submission Requirements

All applicants to the BFA and Combined Degree (BFA+BA/BS) programs are required to submit a studio art portfolio consisting of 12-20 pieces of finished work completed in the past 2 years. A visual art portfolio can only be submitted via the Applicant Status Page, available within 24 hours of receipt of an application for admission. 

The ideal portfolio will demonstrate your conceptual development while highlighting your technical abilities. We encourage you to submit work that you believe to be the strongest representation of your skills and experiences, regardless of medium.

Your portfolio may contain examples of work in any combination of mediums or in a single medium. If your practice includes time-based work such as film, video, or animation, you may include up to 10 minutes of video files. Individual clips should not exceed 2 minutes. If you are submitting exclusively time-based work, please include a minimum of 5 examples.

Artworks must be uploaded as individual files. For each file you upload, complete the ‘Edit Details’ section to provide Title, Year, Size, Medium, and Description. Use the Description field to tell us in 1-3 sentences about your goal for the piece and steps you took to make it.

Please do not include architectural plans, scripts, performing arts, industrial design, images of artwork that include embedded descriptive text, or multipage PDF files.

For any collaborative artworks, provide clear information on your role in the Description field.

Artwork created with generative AI (artificial intelligence) may not be submitted in your SMFA at Tufts portfolio.

How to Submit

• After submitting your application, you will receive an email with login information and a link to your applicant portal. Please allow for up to 24 hours after submitting your application to receive this email. 
• Submit your portfolio by logging into your applicant portal and navigating to the “Digital Portfolio” section, where detailed upload instructions can be found.
• Do not submit your portfolio as a single multipage file. Please upload each individual piece as a separate document with descriptions included in the ‘Details’ section

First Year Application Process and Deadlines Transfer Application Process and Deadlines

Graduate Portfolio Submission Requirements

All applicants to the graduate programs are required to submit a visual art portfolio consisting of 10-20 images of recent work. Applicants who work in video, animation, or other time-based mediums may include up to 10 minutes of time-based work. We encourage you to submit work that you believe to be the strongest representation of your skills and experiences to date, regardless of medium.

How to Submit

• Upload your portfolio by navigating to the ‘Digital Portfolio’ tab of your application, where detailed upload instructions can be found.
• Do not submit images in presentation formats such as multiple-page PDFs or PowerPoint files.

Graduate Application Process and Deadlines

File Sizes and Types

We support media files up to 5GB in most digital formats.
 
File Formats:
Video: .3g2, .3gp, .avi, .m2v, .m4v, .mkv, .mov, .mpeg, .mpg, .mp4, .mxf, .webm, .wmv
Audio: .aac, .m4a, .mka, .mp3, .oga, .ogg, .wav
Slide: .bmp, .gif, .jpg, .jpeg, .png, .tif, .tiff
Document: .doc, .docx, .odg, .odp, .odt, .pdf, .ppt, .pptx, .rtf, .wpd