Sofiia had applied to Aalto's Design and Media programme once before and not been accepted. The school still drew her in, but the reasons behind that first rejection stayed frustratingly out of reach.
"The question that worried me most was whether my application to Aalto would even be understood — whether my ideas were aligned with the admissions team's and the school's way of thinking. The course I wanted to apply to was a little different from what I'd focused on before, but the school captured me with its standards, curriculum, and study environment, so I wanted to try anyway."
Joining the preparation course was, for her, a way to turn that first rejection into information rather than just disappointment.
"After I failed my first application, I decided I needed some guidance, or an insight into why I'd been rejected. It was clear I had to deepen my understanding of design and ideation, and practise on similar tasks. Aalto's instructions also tend to be very vague and open, with a lot of room for interpretation and risk, so I wanted more feedback during my application this time."
The openness that makes Aalto's assignments exciting is also what makes them hard to read. For Sofiia, the real challenge was knowing where the edges were.
"Even after researching Aalto and applying once before, it was still unclear who, in their view, is a strong candidate. It was hard to know when an idea was too far-fetched, and when it was too far outside the point of the assignment."
That uncertainty became concrete in the preliminary assignment, where she had to choose one direction out of many and commit to it.
"A big part of the time goes into just understanding the instructions. It was challenging to choose an idea that fit the criteria best and still caught the examiner's attention. I spent a lot of time browsing and sketching through different intentions and stories before finally settling on one."
These are Sofiia's sketches to her Preliminary Assignment submission to Aalto University Design and Media program. The assignment asked applicants to choose a local festival, study it's current visual identity, and design an new poster to promote the festival. Also, a gateway model representing this new visual identity and marking the spot for people to enter the festival grounds was to be designed and modelled.
Sofiia chose a local lace festival, and chose the flying bobbin as the visual focus to the poster, not the lace product itself. The gate represents the lace pillow the bobbins rest on. The lace will be built and pinned onto the pillow as the bobbins make the knots and movements. Her idea was to focus to the making, instead of the end result. She was invited to the second phase of the application process.
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The second time, Sofiia was not invited to Aalto's final stage either. But the meaning of that rejection had shifted.
"It was definitely disappointing to hear about the rejection — but it felt different the second time. The first year I was unsure about my submissions, so I really wanted to try again and do things differently. This time I was more prepared, had more time, and worked with a different mindset — and still got a negative response."
That repetition, paradoxically, freed her from a heavier interpretation she had carried since the first attempt.
"I was sad, but also relieved. After the first try, I thought I was the reason for the rejection. With the second try, it showed that maybe I simply wasn't what they were looking for. It's quite possible the others weren't much better than me — the examiners just saw that those applicants would benefit more from the course. I don't regret trying again, and I was very happy for the people who got accepted."
In the final stages of a competitive process, most applicants are already capable. Outcomes often come down to fit — what a particular school, and a particular panel, is looking for that year.
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While the Aalto process ran its course, Sofiia was also applying to Dutch schools, including KABK. When the offer from KABK arrived, the contrast with the long Aalto wait was sharp.
"I was very relieved when I got accepted into KABK. It lifted some of the doubts I'd felt from other responses. These applications were a great lesson for me — the assignments are always so unique that there's something to learn from them, no matter how many times you apply."
Before KABK interview Sofiia was asked to work on a set of tasks as well. This was a quick task, she had only one day to work on it: ""I had to design a set of postcards with building/piece of architecture on each of them. I thought about doing something more abstract-y like an old game or like a foggy memory of the place. The idea is that in this digital world everybody already took all the pretty pictures of the landmarks, so the postcards are more like a vague reminder about the visit."
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Sofiia applied to the same school twice and was turned down twice — and yet she describes the experience without regret. The reframing she arrived at is one many applicants need to hear: at the final stage, a "no" is often less a verdict on your ability than a statement about fit.
In Part 2, she explains how she built the portfolio that got her into KABK, and how a craft from her own past became the backbone of its design.
