Transcript:
Applicants offered admission will be required to submit official transcripts (as well as official certified translations and evaluations of the transcripts/mark sheets and degree certifications if the degree was earned outside of the United States) to The New School. Admitted applicants must submit all official transcripts pertaining to their entire academic career.
Your offer of admission will be contingent upon the receipt and verification of these official documents. New students will not be permitted to register for their second semester of study until all official transcripts (including degree-awarding transcripts) have been received by the Office of Graduate Admission. Transcripts uploaded with the online application do not satisfy this requirement. Mailing Address for Supplemental Materials:
Parsons School of Design
Office of Admission (PS 300)
79 Fifth Avenue, 5th floor
New York, NY 10003
Curriculum Vitae:
Submit a brief résumé/curriculum vitae summarizing your academic qualifications, relevant work experience, volunteer/community work, travel, exhibitions, public speaking, or any other relevant experiences as they may relate to your field of study, including dates and positions held. Please also note any special language or computer skills that you have.
Personal Statement:
Please outline your reasons for applying to this program. In what ways will you contribute to the subject matter of the program? How have your specific work experiences in design, business, consulting, or nonprofit organizations shaped your motivation for this program and the resulting professional goals? Do you see this program as a career enhancing or career changing opportunity? Specifically, where do you see your career going upon completion of the program. You should include a thoughtful description of your background, tentative plan of study or area of inquiry in the field as you now envision it, your professional goals, and an explanation of how this graduate program will help you realize those goals. If you have not been enrolled as a student in the past five years, please address anticipated opportunities and challenges in pursuing the degree, and future career expectations upon completion of the program. (500–750-word limit)
Recommendation Letter:
You are required to submit two letters of recommendation from faculty or people with whom you have worked professionally. Recommenders can submit recommendations online; instructions are included with the online application. If preferred, the recommendation form can instead be sent by mail in a signed, sealed envelope. To send by mail, download the PDF recommendation form found in the online application, complete personal information, save the form, and forward to recommender for completion and submission. Applicants can also send signed and sealed recommendations to the Office of Admission using an Application Materials Cover Sheet.
Program Essay:
A program essay of approximately 500 words must accompany the application. Be creative, allow your personality to shine through. The essay must identify your motivation for study in the program by briefly addressing each of the four following topics:
Describe a situation in which you combined analysis and creativity to solve a challenging problem. The problem could be personal, social, political, environmental, or something quite different. The Admission Committee is interested more in your process or method in considering the problem than in whether you reached a definitive solution.
Tell us something about yourself that we could not find in the application materials you have submitted.
If you could create a new course for the Strategic Design and Management program, what would it be called? Provide a short course description to accompany your new proposed course title.
What makes you happy?
Portfolio (Optional):
The portfolio must be completed in SlideRoom only. The Strategic Design and Management program welcomes applications from designers, researchers, professionals, and academics. Submit no more than 20 items that you believe best represent your background, interests in design thinking, design strategy, innovation, work process, and writings. These may include research outcomes, design strategies, articles, publications, photography, interviews, presentations, video clips, websites, blog URLs, essays, or other media. Where appropriate, include descriptions of the projects, explanations of your role (if the project involved a team), and/or a thoughtful description of the context of the project. If you have dynamic media or other time-based work, you can upload it using SlideRoom.