In every other subject, your activities support your application. In the arts, they are the application. Kaira from India, now studying product design at University of the Arts London, puts it plainly: academic requirements at design schools are relatively low, and the portfolio is usually what decides whether you get in.
That changes which opportunities are worth your time. The ones below all leave you holding something: a finished film, a poster, a poem in print, a body of work made under someone who knows more than you.
Sahana from Bangalore, now doing a film, animation and video degree at Rhode Island School of Design, wants one misconception cleared up: you do not need to be an all-rounder or technically perfect at 18. Marzhan from Kazakhstan had no design experience at all and built her OCAD portfolio out of work she made in Illustrator and After Effects.
Below are fourteen ways to build that body of work.
Competitions
Sony World Photography Awards, Youth
Free, open to anyone aged 19 or under anywhere, and the only entry on this list with a confirmed 2027 deadline you can work towards today. You submit up to three single images taken during the competition year. Ten photographers are shortlisted and one wins, receiving Sony digital imaging equipment, flights and accommodation to the ceremony in London, and a place in the exhibition and annual book. The deadline is January 5, 2027 at 16:00 GMT. It is run by the World Photography Organisation, with Sony as title partner rather than operator.
Taiwan International Student Design Competition
The largest student design prize in the world by money, run by Taiwan's Ministry of Education. Five categories cover product design, visual design, digital animation, architecture and landscape, and fashion design, and it is open to students from senior high school upwards. The 2026 round drew 22,427 entries from 1,385 schools in 92 countries, with about three quarters coming from outside Taiwan. The prize pool is roughly NT$4 million, with a Grand Prix of NT$400,000 and category golds of NT$250,000. The 2026 deadline was in mid-July, so the work to enter next year starts now.
ConnectHER Film Festival
A short film of three to six minutes on issues affecting women and girls, in documentary, narrative or animation, from filmmakers aged 13 to 25 worldwide, alone or in teams of up to four. The total prize pool is $32,500, with $5,000 for Judges' Choice and nine further awards of $2,500 across categories from Best Animation to Women and the Environment. The current round closes on October 1, 2026, which makes it the nearest deadline here. Accommodation may be covered for international winners at the ceremony, though flights are not.
Foyle Young Poets of the Year Award
The largest youth poetry prize of its kind, free, run by the UK's Poetry Society, and open to anyone aged 11 to 17 anywhere in the world with no school or teacher involved. Poems can be on any subject, up to 40 lines, and you may enter as many as you like. Over 10,000 young people entered last year and 100 win: fifteen top winners and eighty-five commended, who receive Poetry Society membership, books, mentoring and publication in the anthology. The 2026 round closed at the end of July, and the next opens in the new year.
Blue Planet Awareness Contest
The most useful single entry point if you work across forms. Bow Seat's contest, renamed this year, takes visual art by hand or digitally, film, poetry and spoken word, creative writing, music and dance, and interactive media, all against one theme. It is free, for ages 11 to 18 worldwide in junior and senior divisions, and awards run to $1,000. The 2027 theme is "Nature of Truth: Environmentalism in an Age of Disinformation" and the deadline is June 7, 2027. You need an adult sponsor, but a parent or mentor counts.
ARTEFFECT
Free, and unusual in asking for a piece of writing alongside the work. You make an original artwork, in any medium including digital, inspired by an Unsung Hero from history, and submit it with an impact statement of 500 to 1,000 words. No AI at any stage. The main competition awards over $35,000 a year, with a $6,000 grand prize, and a separate summer round awards over $20,000. Entries run from October to an April deadline for the main round. It is a programme of the Lowell Milken Center for Unsung Heroes, and students can enter independently with a parent or teacher confirming the work is theirs.
Bennington Young Writers Awards
Free, explicitly open to international students in grades 9 to 12, and currently accepting entries. You submit a short story, a personal or creative nonfiction essay, or one to three poems, up to 1,500 words in one category only. Prizes reach $2,000, with scholarships on top for winners who go on to enrol at Bennington. A teacher at your school has to review and approve the entry, so line that up early. The cycle opened on September 1 and closes on November 1.
Patricia Grodd Poetry Prize
The best free-to-funded route on this list. It is free to enter, open to high school sophomores and juniors worldwide, and the winner receives a full scholarship to a Kenyon Review Young Writers workshop plus publication in The Kenyon Review, with runners-up also published. In other words, one poem can pay for the summer programme you could not otherwise afford.
PLURAL+ Youth Video Festival
Run by the United Nations Alliance of Civilizations with the International Organization for Migration, which makes it the most institutionally serious film competition open to school students. You submit a video of one to five minutes on migration, diversity and social inclusion, in one of three age bands covering everyone under 25. Award recipients are flown to the ceremony with expenses covered. The 2026 round closed at the end of June, and the next call usually opens in spring.
Programs
Interlochen Arts Camp
The one to lead with if you can get aid. Residential in Michigan across music, theatre, visual arts, dance, creative writing and film, with sessions of one to six weeks, and around 230 international campers from 47 countries each summer. Tuition for 2027 runs $2,125 for a one-week intensive to $10,500 for six weeks, and the aid picture is the point: 86 percent of students who applied for assistance received it last summer, out of $5.7 million awarded, and international students apply for aid on the same terms. Programmes of two weeks or more need an audition or portfolio, and those applicants are considered automatically for merit awards. The priority deadline is January 15, 2027.
Adroit Journal Summer Mentorship Program
Online one-to-one mentorship with a working writer in poetry, fiction or creative nonfiction, for students in grades 9 to 12 and gap-year students, with international students explicitly welcome and mentors who work across time zones. It costs $575, with fee remission and financial aid assessed separately from your application, and a signed parent letter accepted where documents are not available. It is also the most selective thing here: roughly 8 percent of applicants were admitted over the past two years. The 2026 deadline was March 1.
Iowa Young Writers' Studio
Run by the University of Iowa, home of the Iowa Writers' Workshop, which is why this one carries weight. Two weeks residential in Iowa City on one core course in poetry, fiction, playwriting or TV writing, or six weeks online. International applicants are welcome, and students apply directly with a recommendation from an English teacher or writing mentor. Residential tuition is $2,500 including room and board, online courses are $475, and the $10 reading fee is waived on request with no penalty. Need-based aid includes several full tuition grants each spring. Applications open in mid-January.
UCLA Summer Music Intensives
Week-long intensives at the UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music in voice, songwriting, global jazz and music industry, taught by faculty and industry professionals and ending in a showcase. International students are eligible to apply, and need-based subsidies exist. Each intensive costs about $1,533, with the music industry track available online for $661. One practical warning: participants arrange their own housing, which is a serious obstacle for a 16-year-old travelling alone, so the online option may be the sensible one from abroad.
Vogue Summer School
Two weeks in New York on fashion media and design, for students in grades 10 to 12, with an application of a short essay, a transcript and a portfolio that does not need to be accredited. It is expensive at $6,195 for the commuter programme, and the reason it is here is Azhar from Kazakhstan, who attended on a scholarship covering 80 percent of her costs. She counted eleven scholarship recipients among the 106 students accepted in her group, and rates it as the rare fashion programme that funds international students at all. Apply for the aid, not the sticker price.
Start your own journey
The nearest deadline is the ConnectHER Film Festival on October 1, then Bennington on November 1, the Sony youth award on January 5 and Interlochen on January 15.
If money is the constraint, the order is simple. Enter the free ones, and use the Patricia Grodd prize to try to fund a summer programme rather than paying for one.
Kai, the Borderless AI college counselor, works out which of these your age and country qualify you for, keeps the deadlines in one place, and helps you shape the work into a portfolio and an application. It is free to use.
Start with Kai, and read the stories from students who did it.
