If you are considering Royal Blue Art & Design for US art school preparation, you likely have one important question: what actually happens during a Royal Blue consultation? This guide walks you through every step so you can arrive informed and ready.
Tuition figures are the published 2026–27 undergraduate rates. Acceptance rates are as each school reports them and move from cycle to cycle — read them as scale, not precision. Tuition is not cost of attendance. Housing, food, materials, and health insurance are billed on top, and at several of these schools they add $20,000–30,000 a year.
Frequently Asked Questions
A Royal Blue consultation is not a sales pitch. It is a structured assessment designed to help both the student and our team understand the right path forward. Over 19 years, we have refined this process to give every family an honest, data-informed picture of where the student stands and what it will take to reach their target school.
Whether your child is aiming for RISD, Parsons, CalArts, or a similarly competitive program, the consultation is where we establish a realistic foundation — before any commitments are made.
What to Expect: Step by Step
Step 1: Pre-Consultation Intake
Before you arrive, we ask families to complete a brief intake form covering the student’s current grade level, academic background, art experience, target schools, and application timeline. This allows our director to prepare a personalized agenda rather than starting from scratch on the day.
Step 2: Portfolio Review
If the student has existing artwork — sketchbooks, digital files, photography, design projects — we review it together during the Royal Blue consultation. We are not looking for technical perfection. We are looking for evidence of creative thinking, personal voice, and the capacity to develop a coherent body of work.
Students with no prior work are equally welcome. Many of our most successful applicants began with us from zero.
Step 3: School and Major Matching
Based on the student’s interests, academic profile, and portfolio potential, we discuss which schools and departments are realistic targets and which represent reach, match, and safety options. We use 19 years of acceptance data — including 67 RISD placements — to ground these recommendations in reality.
Step 4: Timeline and Curriculum Planning
A Royal Blue consultation includes a draft preparation timeline tailored to the student’s application deadline. We map out how many months of studio work are needed, which technical skills require development, and how the PID System (Process, Individual, Data) will be applied to shape a distinctive portfolio.
Step 5: Q&A and Next Steps
The final portion of the consultation is open for questions from both students and parents. We discuss program structure, scheduling, fees, and what to expect during the preparation period. There is no pressure to enroll on the day.
What the Consultation Actually Decides
Most families arrive with one question: can my child get in? That question cannot be answered in ninety minutes, and any consultant who answers it is guessing. What a first meeting can settle is a different question, and a more useful one — how many separate bodies of preparation does this school list require?
Schools do not want the same portfolio. CalArts tells applicants to leave out observational drawing, still life and class assignments unless there is a personal approach behind them; USC accepts figure drawing and painting without that caveat. VCUarts wants 12–16 pieces uploaded individually, each captioned with title, size and materials. Parsons asks for 8–12 pieces plus two essays of 300–400 words, and the second essay has to name the specific college and major applied to, so it cannot be reused anywhere else.
A list that touches four different requirement families is four sets of preparation, not one portfolio sent five times. That is a scheduling problem before it is a talent problem, and it is the single factor most likely to decide whether a student arrives at November with finished work or with material and no decisions. Working that number out is the practical output of the consultation.
What a First Consultation Cannot Do
It is worth being explicit about the limits, because they are the places where families are most often told what they want to hear.
We cannot predict admission. Nineteen years of results tell us how our students have fared in aggregate; they do not tell us what one committee will do with one application in one cycle. Anyone quoting you a probability from a single meeting is describing confidence, not evidence.
We cannot grade a portfolio from one viewing. What a review shows is direction — whether there is a line of thinking that can be developed, and whether the work is recent enough to use. Whether the execution is competitive is a judgment that takes months of working together, and claiming otherwise in an hour would be flattery.
We cannot forecast a scholarship figure. Award decisions come after admission, and the models differ sharply between schools — some run on merit awards, others on demonstrated financial need only, and a few package loans and work-study into what they call aid. What we can do is tell you which structure each school on your list uses, so the offers in April are not a surprise.
If another academy offers any of these three, the useful follow-up is simple: what did you measure, on how many students, over how many years? The answer is usually that the number was never measured at all.
When the Consultation Should Happen
October is the month a school list gets finalized, not the month it gets started. Families who book a first consultation in October are asking us to compress into four weeks a set of decisions — major, requirement families, which deadline binds, what the financial structure of the list is — that work better with a summer behind them.
This is sharpest for students already in US schools. They tend to make good work over the summer, then lose September through December to their own academic calendar. The failure mode is not weak art; it is a lost autumn — arriving at deadlines with material and without decisions.
There is also a shelf life on the work itself, which surprises most families. VCUarts prefers work from the last two years; CalArts prefers the last three. Work made in ninth grade may sit outside the window by the time a senior submits. Parents who believe they have been building a portfolio for four years sometimes discover that half of it cannot be used — a conversation that is manageable in eleventh grade and painful in twelfth.
The useful window is spring to summer of eleventh grade. Early enough that the requirement families can shape what gets made, late enough that the work will still be current when it is submitted.
Who Should Attend the Consultation?
We encourage both the student and at least one parent to attend the Royal Blue consultation together. The student’s voice is central — this is their application, their vision, and their future. Parents provide important context about scheduling and family expectations. When both are present, the planning conversation is far more productive.
How Long Does a Consultation Take?
A standard Royal Blue Art & Design consultation runs approximately 60 to 90 minutes. For students with complex situations — multiple target schools, late timelines, or specific learning needs — we sometimes schedule a follow-up session at no additional cost.
Do I Need to Prepare Anything?
Bring whatever artwork the student currently has, even if it feels incomplete or rough. A photograph on a phone is fine. If your child has no art yet, simply come ready to talk about their interests and aspirations. The Royal Blue consultation is designed to meet students exactly where they are.
Is the Consultation Free?
Yes. Initial consultations at Royal Blue Art & Design are offered at no charge. We believe every family deserves an honest assessment before making any financial or scheduling commitment.
What Our Records Say About Major and Money
One thing the consultation can ground in data is how much the choice of major moves the financial picture. Across our archive of 1,099 acceptances since 2009, the share of admitted students who received any scholarship — and the average award when one came — varies more by discipline than most families expect.
| Major | Share receiving an award | Average award when given |
|---|---|---|
| Animation | 58% | $56,140 |
| Communication Design | 54% | $53,490 |
| Fashion | 54% | $42,778 |
| Industrial Design | 41% | $64,385 (13 awards) |
| Graphic Design | 36% | $48,591 |
| Illustration | 32% | $42,373 |
| Fine Art | 26% | $58,451 |
Royal Blue archive, 1,099 acceptances since 2009. These are our own records, not published school statistics, and they describe acceptances rather than enrollments. An award rate is not a measure of admission difficulty or program quality — it reflects how each school funds its students.
Read the two columns against each other rather than separately. Fine Art has the lowest award rate on the list and one of the highest average awards, which means the money is concentrated: most students get nothing and a few get a great deal. Illustration is the reverse shape at a smaller scale. Fashion sits at a high rate with the smallest average — awards arrive often, and they cover less than families assume. An award rate tells you the odds of getting an offer with money attached; it does not tell you what the bill will be.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I attend the consultation online?
We offer both in-person consultations at our Apgujeong studio and online sessions via video call for families based outside Seoul. Contact us to arrange the format that works best for your schedule.
What if my child is in middle school — is it too early?
Not at all. Early consultations help us build a longer, less pressured preparation timeline. Many students who achieve the strongest portfolios began their Royal Blue consultation in 8th or 9th grade.
What happens after the consultation?
We send a written summary of our recommendations within a few days. You are under no obligation to enroll, and we are happy to answer follow-up questions by email or phone at any time.
How do I schedule a Royal Blue consultation?
You can book directly through royalblue-art.com or call our Apgujeong studio at 02-3446-5929. We accommodate evenings and weekends for working families.
Will the same teacher who consults with us teach my child?
In most cases, yes. Royal Blue uses a small, senior faculty model. The instructor who meets you during the consultation is typically the same person who guides the student’s portfolio development.
Royal Blue Art & Design is a US art school admissions academy in Apgujeong, Seoul, with 19 years of experience helping Korean students gain acceptance to RISD, Parsons, CalArts, and other top programs. Contact us to schedule a consultation →
왜 지금 로얄블루인가 — 19년 합격 실적이 말해주는 것
2006년부터 19년간 쌓인 1,099건의 합격 기록은 합격률이 아니라 전공별로 돈이 어떻게 붙는지를 알려줍니다. 위 표가 그 요약이고, 상담에서는 학생의 전공과 리스트에 맞춰 이 숫자를 다시 계산합니다.
상담 예약 방법과 준비물은 상담 예약 안내에 정리해 두었습니다.
FURTHER READINGHow Long Should I Study at a Korean Art Academy? — How long to study at an academy depends on where you are starting.
How Many Students Should a Korean Art Academy Accept Per Year? — Class size affects how much attention each portfolio gets.
What Is a Realistic Acceptance Rate for a Korean Art Academy? — Realistic acceptance rates are worth understanding before comparing claims.