Niles West Art Students Receive the Most Money In Scholarships In Illinois

Recently, the Art department here at Niles West has achieved amazing things. The teachers have made a platform for their students so they are able to accomplish their dreams. For some, those dreams are becoming a reality. Some students are receiving scholarships for their work, giving them the confidence and boost they need to keep going.

Niles West’s art program recently participated in the Illinois High School Art Exhibition [IHSAE], where they won first place in scholarship money in the state of Illinois. Students received over 5.7 million dollars worth of scholarships.

Art has a lot of different categories to it – drawing, painting, photography and more. The scholarship money applies to all forms of art offered at Niles West.

“It really just means that Niles West is on the map as being one of the best art high schools, even though we technically are not a fine arts high school, it just shows how talented the students are and how much the school and the community put into the art program here,” Fine and Applied Arts teacher, Deanna Sortino said.

This accomplishment is so huge for those art students that get them, but it’s also huge for the whole Niles West community. Our school should be recognized not just by the athletes, but by the other departments too.

Fine and Applied Arts teacher John Zilewicz, talks about how the IHSAE program came to life.

“The idea of the Illinois High School Art Exhibition was to create some type of interscholastic competition for high school students because nothing like that had existed. My co-founder and I came up with the idea of a sports background like the NFL. The NFL has a draft combine that puts all these amazing athletes out for all the football teams to see. So, we wanted to create something that was like that for high school. We wanted to bring in all of the high schools in the state, and have them showcase their top artists and allow colleges to get a chance to see all of the upcoming [talents],” Zilewicz said.

Students go through the process of creating and uploading a portfolio for art schools to view for the exhibition.

“Me and Zilewicz are both together connecting students to art scholarships and also letting parents and students know that art school can be a reality. Once we have created that platform for the students, they begin to upload their portfolio, like eight to 25 pieces, to something called Slideroom. The art schools that are a part of the program look at all of the kids’ portfolios and see which kids they want to give scholarships to,” Sortino said.

Currently, students are now starting to receive offers from many different colleges from around the country.  Going to an out-of-state college is not cheap and going to an art school can be even more expensive.

Senior Gabriel Daoud talks about why receiving these scholarships means so much.

“It is important for me to have the opportunity to receive art scholarships because it allows me to have access to a college education while accumulating less debt. Art school is not cheap, luckily they give out lots of money based on an applicant’s portfolio. Although it doesn’t apply to everyone when it comes to attending college, the financial aspects are often a determining factor on what school you choose to go to,“ Daoud said.

COVID had an effect on the students, as it’s hard to learn an artistic topic or subject when it uses visual and physical learning.

“Some of these kids are still our COVID kids, so it was just making sure that they didn’t lose any instruction during COVID and that their portfolios were still strong. These kids were learning online for a year, year and a half and they had to use computer programs that we wouldn’t necessarily use. So we would just make sure that they had the materials that they needed. That really did put all of these kids behind, so getting these scholarships is a total validation that they really worked hard through COVID and they still had outstanding portfolios,” Sortino said.

These artists have worked very hard to get to where they are today. Working on their projects before, during and after school, they have finally gotten the recognition that they deserve. With art students receiving scholarships, some families wouldn’t have thought art school was possible, since college is very expensive. Now, it’s a reality to these students. With their dedication and hard work paying off, students are able to pursue their dream careers.