Portfolio Prep Program (P³)

For Honors Students
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P3 Live Studio

About

We can help your high-achieving teen prepare powerfully for his or her college applications.

At our studios, your teen can fully build, or finalize, content to be used for both digital and hard-copy portfolios to enhance all college apps. P3 includes not only a portfolio course, but also many important services to help with the college application process.

Call us now if your teen is interested in architecture, design, visual communication, graphic arts, fine arts, fashion, animation and gaming, liberal arts, science, and/or engineering.* 

Program Outline

Our Portfolio Prep Program (P³) offers the student expert tooling, guidance and training across the high school years. The P³ centers on our specialized, multi-year Portfolio Course. It also offers additional means of support and guidance, for both the student and parents. P³ includes the following services:

  1. College/Employment consultations
  2. Portfolio Information Packet
  3. Portfolio Prep Course
  4. Essay critiques and tutoring
  5. Photography and editing of the student’s portfolio projects
  6. Career centered field trips
  7. In-house training on program admissions and workplace skills
  8.  Strong recommendation letters

Our P³ has a 10+ year history of successes, and has helped students gain admissions and scholarships to the Berkley School of Architecture, the Pratt School of Architecture, the Fashion Institute of Design, Parson School of Design, Moore College of Art & Design, the Art Institute of Philadelphia, New York’s SVA, Maryland’s MICA, Georgia’s SCAD, Rhode Island’s RISDI, and others. P3 has also helped place students in top science and engineering programs in the USA and abroad. In addition to gaining coveted admissions, our practitioners also often win top scholarships.

Our students have also used our P³ to apply to top pre-college programs at FIT, RISDI and Pratt; all gained full admission.

Welcoming new Candidates

The prospective teen student must sustain a 3.5 – 4.0 grade point average, and enter the P³ at age 14, or no later than the first year of high school. He or she then enrolls in our two-hr/wk program, all offered at highly competitive rates, as posted online.

Visit our website’s P³ pages for other eligibility requirements, and then call for a free, 1-hr conversation with our staff. If your youngster is new to the AAHP as a first year high school student, he/she is also welcome to take a free, one-hr studio class with us, by separate appointment.

The P³ is operated by a team of professionals; A.E. Soto-Canino, Princeton University Class of ’85, award-winning writer, award-winning artist, and Director, Chief instructor and Chief Safety Officer of the AAHP; Vicky Kulikowski, P3 Coordinator; Aaron Balavram, Assistant Director/Studio Manager/Senior Instructor.

REQUEST TO JOIN P3

* Please determine, in advance, whether the science or engineering programs of interest to your teen indeed accept supporting materials, such as portfolios. Many do. A few do not. Most recently, we helped our students gain admissions to engineering programs at Rutgers University, Columbia University, and Carnegie Mellon University.

2019 – 2020 P3 Special Events

*Please note events are subject to change. Check the website regularly.

Inhouse Events

9/27/19 – Open House for newcomers and currently enrolled students. Newcomers please come at 7 pm to learn more about the program. Currently enrolled P3ers please arrive at 8 pm to learn about administrative changes to the program, as well as, to review your currently enrolled student’s progress.

12/14/19 –  7 – 9 pm – Presenting Your Portfolio with Power

2/22/20 – 7 – 9 pm – Interview Skills: Practice techniques for talking  with more confidence in admissions interviews

3/27/20 – Open House for newcomers and currently enrolled students. Newcomers please come at 7:30 pm to learn more about the program. Currently enrolled P3ers please arrive at 8:30 pm to learn about administrative changes to the program, as well as, to review your currently enrolled student’s progress.

7/17/20 – College Night for P3ers

P3 Field Trips

CANCELLED

Design Career Fair @ Cooper Hewitt
Tuesday, 10/15/19
Train from New Brunswick (exact time TBA – around 4 pm )

 

Suggested

National Portfolio Day
Saturday, 10/26/19 – NYC
Sunday, 10/27/19 – Philadelphia

 

Four Things Parents and P3ers need to share with the AAHP at all times

  1. The P3er’s target field of study in college?
  2. Which of your targets requires OR accepts supplementary materials, including portfolios?
  3. If the target program demands OR accepts portfolios, what specifically do they want to see, and how?
  4. If applying to any program such as a pre-college summer program, internships, and jobs, for example, informing us of it in advance and including us in the process has, in every single case, resulted in the P3er’s acceptance into the program in question.

The information you will need in order to answer these questions is always shifting, changing, imperfect, and incomplete.

Yet we need this info, as is, constantly delivered to our file, so that we can best guide the P3er’s construction of the portfolio. Email to P3 Coordinator Vicky Kulikowski at any and all times. Vicky will be sending you reminders as well. Email: aahpp3@gmail.com

P3ers Worst Case Scenario

You end up not needing to use your portfolio for any college application.

It is still highly worth it; it still remains a highly useful tool:

–The Portfolio can be used, once in college, for seeking jobs, club membership, internships, and further study opportunities.

–The Portfolio satisfies an inherent, core aspect of your early practice as artist, even if you are also training and developing as any other form of professional or expert in any other career field.

 **CRITICAL ALERT! The AAHP will NOT be able to submit LoRs or other materials or provide services on your behalf all 365 days a year!

 The AAHP will not be able to submit LoRs on your behalf, or other documents or materials or services (such as submitting to interviews requested by your prospective employers or admissions officers), during certain extraordinary situations, as listed below. It therefore behooves you, as P3 participant, to always plan ahead, and in light of the AAHP schedule, not only your school and personal schedules. The AAHP will not be able to abide by any third-party deadlines, or by deadlines established unilaterally by the P3 participant, during the following situations:

  • while Ana is injured, or sick, or still convalescing after sickness or injury.
  • two days before Ana’s planned travel, or while Ana endures jet-lag up to one week after international travel (AAHP staff travel plans will be announced in writing).
  • While Aaron, AAHP Assistant Director, is injured, or sick, or still convalescing after sickness or injury, or during the two days before planned travel, or while enduring jet-lag up to one week after international travel (AAHP staff travel plans will be announced in writing). This is because our P3 work is teamwork without Aaron present, Ana, as P3 Director, cannot conduct this type of work alone.
  • during AAHP studio and/or office closures that have been pre-announced, posted and broadcast through any normal business channels, including website postings, email, text messaging, pre-recorded outgoing phone messages, window signage, and/or in-studio written or verbal announcements.
  • during unforeseen studio and/or office closures due to inclement weather phenomena, or closures forced by local, county, state or federal authorities, or other interruptions to AAHP operations or imposed closures due to situations the AHHP cannot control.
  • whenever a deadline looms less than one week from the moment the P3 participant first notifies the AAHP in any way (avoid verbal notifications…always submit your requests in writing).

Whenever facing any such situation as listed above, the P3 participant will need to directly contact the third party to request and secure an extended deadline on the AAHP’s behalf. The P3 participant will then inform the AAHP of the newly secured extension to the original deadline, while also providing the AAHP with any special instructions we may need to follow in order to submit LoRs, other materials, or services on your behalf under your newly negotiated extensions to the original deadline.

College admission news from current P3 members

(As of February 13, 2018)

 

  1. Lauren Zatsko: Cornell for math early decision only (admitted and accepted)
  2. Arthi Vaidyanathan: Duke for biology global health early decision only (admitted and accepted)
  3. Dhwani Sikri: Pratt (animation), SCAD, and Ringling School of Art and Design
  4. Karine Lozewski: Pratt; SVA; Lesley University; SCAD, Ringling School of Art and Design; University of the Arts, Philly (admitted to all; accepted Pratt)
  5. Sachi Segan: SUNY Syracuse School of Environmental Studies and Forestry(admitted and accepted)
  6. Alina Gorbunova: Rutgers University School of Engineering (admitted with honors and accepted)
  7. Rosemary Lupovich: Rutgers University
  8. Maya Krishna: Accepted at 9 out of 12 schools. Chose Temple for graphic design and marketing.
Contact

Vicky Kulikowski, P3 Coordinator, at aahpp3@gmail.com for questions about

  • student progress
  • change of student’s studies or portfolio requirements
  • scheduling meetings
  • general program questions

Aaron Balavram, AAHP Assistant Director/Studio Manager for questions about

Ana Soto-Canino, AAHP Director/Chief Instructor

Confidential Email Channel – email to this full confidential address which only the AAHP Director can access at aahpconfidential@gmail.com. If you or your Parent/Legal Guardian use this channel, you must immediately alert, via a second channel the Director or Assistant Director that you have used this email. We do not visit this channel regularly. If you are using it as a minor, you must carbon copy (cc) the email to your Parent/Legal Guardian.