SUNY NEW PALTZ BFA IN GRAPHIC DESIGN TRANSFER APPLICATION INSTRUCTIONS
Hello! The Graphic Design program welcomes applications from students wishing to transfer in.
Here’s information we hope will be useful. Please follow these application instructions carefully. We’re not able to review incomplete applications or incorrectly formatted files.
We review transfer prospects every Spring for Fall admission. March 1 is the priority deadline for portfolio submission. Our review begins on that date.
Applicants who've completed 45 or more credits must be reviewed and accepted into their desired major before they are accepted to SUNY New Paltz. If you have completed fewer than 45 credits you can apply to SUNY New Paltz as an undeclared student or to your desired major. Undeclared students may request permission to take graphic design courses.
Apply as early as possible. The College reserves the right to close admission at any time without prior notification to applicants.
Please note: our program is a broad-based graphic design program. It does not prepare students for careers in illustration, animation, or game design. If you are strongly interested in these areas, it’s best to consider programs at other schools that focus on these specializations.
Our process includes a review of:
- grades for Graphic Design courses
- grades for other courses
- your GPA (3.0 is the minimum threshold)
- the quality of the work in your portfolio
- your essay
If you’re accepted to the Graphic Design BFA we’ll apply up to 27 credits of studio art and design courses in which you’ve earned a B- or better. Sometimes we’re able to apply your past work to specific courses here. In other situations, we’ll apply the credits as electives. Art History credits are also transferable. The College will apply your GEs; how they’re applied depends on the type of Associates degree you’ve earned.
APPLICATION REQUIREMENTS
Applications to the Graphic Design BFA program require both a portfolio and an essay.
Your portfolio should include 15 diverse examples of your best work. We want to see
- that you're interested in communicating something to somebody
- your point of view
- your visual language
Of these 15 examples, at least 10 pieces should be focused on design (logos, interfaces, brochures, layouts, typography, posters, packaging). Up to 5 pieces can be in other media. This work can come from your classes, from design you do for yourself, or for clients. Only include your own work: no copied illustrations or designs in which the final piece came straight from an AI tool.
- Images should be saved in JPEG or PDF format, and no more than 4 megabytes per file.
- Time-based work, such as video, may be up to 5 minutes in length. Show this within our portfolio portal with a still image and provide a link in the caption space provided.
- Please caption each example of work. Tell us the tools and applications (analog, digital, AI) you used and how you used them. Captions are an essential part of your portfolio; we cannot review portfolios that don’t include them.
For the essay, tell us—in your own words—What about who you are do you bring to your design work? And what would you like to bring to our community? This essay should be about 400 words long. We consider it a key part of your portfolio.
Questions? Concerns? Go ahead and email us as graphicdesign@newpaltz.edu
