The School of the Art institute of Chicago's primary mission is to assemble a diverse body of dedicated students interested in individual excellence through immersive and self-designed undergraduate studies that integrate studio practice with a rigorous, liberal arts base and supplemented by a concentration in art history, criticism and theory.

Our unparalleled, multi-disciplinary pedagogical approach to art, design and critical studies in contemporary visual culture has been educating artists, designers, writers, art historians, critics, curators and hybrid media practitioners since 1866. SAIC was named the most influential art school by art critics at general interest news publications from across the United States in a survey conducted by the National Arts Journalism Program at Columbia University.

As one of the two bodies that make up the Art Institute of Chicago (the other being the museum [the second most compressive of its kind in the nation and third in the world]), SAIC offers twenty-seven areas of study within a range of undergraduate and graduate programs. Our world-class status is attested to in the over forty countries represented in its 2,900 degree-seeking students.