An Art Preparatory Course in Israel: Two Things, One Name

Someone reads that the route into an art degree after thirty runs through a preparatory course, a מכינה, and goes looking for one. Within an hour there are two completely different results carrying the same name, and neither of them publishes a price. That is not a failed search. That is what is there.

This piece describes both programmes, what each one actually does, and what cannot be known about them in advance. Part of the answer is that the single most important fact for anyone about to pay is not published anywhere that can be read.

The first programme: a course that stands in for a certificate

The preparatory course recognised by Israel's Council for Higher Education is not a course in art. Its job is to stand in the place of the matriculation certificate the candidate does not have.

Beit Berl College's own admission page for the B.Ed.F.A in art states it directly: candidates over the age of 30 without a matriculation certificate may be admitted on the basis of a dedicated preparatory course of six weekly hours, at a final grade of 85 or above [1]. Six weekly hours and one final grade. That is what takes the certificate's place there.

What does not get replaced is the selection process itself, and that is worth sitting with. The same page states that every candidate goes before a selection committee with a portfolio and a take-home piece, and that the interview runs about half an hour in front of three faculty members [1]. Arriving through the preparatory course gets a candidate to the same committee as everyone else.

Talpiot College states separate admission conditions for its art track: admission on the basis of a certificate from a preparatory course recognised by the Council [2]. The same page lists which certificates count. An annual course taught according to the Council's programme, for candidates with no matriculation eligibility at all. A single-semester course of at least 390 teaching hours, for candidates who do hold eligibility. And a dedicated course certificate for graduates of the Szold examinations [2].

Separately on that page, outside the art track, sits a general route for candidates over thirty: those aged thirty and above without a matriculation certificate are admitted on a psychometric score of 540 or higher, plus six weekly hours of completion study [2].

Notice what just happened. At Beit Berl the preparatory course replaces the certificate. On Talpiot's general route it is added on top of a psychometric score it does not exempt anyone from [1][2]. One word, two different jobs, two colleges. Buying a preparatory course without checking which kind it is means buying something that may not fit the institution it was bought for.

The second programme: a private portfolio course

The other thing that keeps coming back in a search is a private course for building a portfolio and rehearsing the admission interview. It carries no Council recognition, it does not touch the matriculation certificate, and it is sold on the promise that nobody gets in without it.

That promise could not be verified here, and it is worth knowing before paying. What can be checked is the other side of it: what the institution itself asks for. Bezalel's own admission page for the Fine Arts department states that its process is updated annually and usually consists of personal interviews, take-home exercises and a portfolio [3]. A preparatory course is not mentioned on that page at all, neither as a requirement nor as a recommendation [3]. The Beit Berl and Talpiot admission pages read here name no private portfolio course either [1][2].

Five mornings of searching did not turn up an official page belonging to any of the places that recur in results as private art and design preparatory schools. No site of their own, no programme page, no readable syllabus. What exists is descriptions on commercial course directories, which exist to collect contact details on behalf of paying institutions, and they are not quoted here as fact. A school whose own page cannot be found is a risk worth knowing about before the payment rather than after it.

The course was invented as a door, and not for art

Anyone who takes the preparatory course for a recent piece of bureaucracy is sixty years out. The Pre-Academic Studies Center at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev states on its own page that the first preparatory course in Israel was established there in 1965, to open the gates of the academy to young people from the development towns and the southern periphery, and that it was the opening shot for the whole country's pre-academic preparatory system [4].

On that same page, sixty-one years later, is the centre's own list of tracks: a dedicated course for engineering and the exact sciences, one for the natural and life sciences, one for the Haredi community, one in 5-unit physics, and a pre-preparatory track [4]. Art is not among them.

This is not one university's oversight. It is the shape of the system. The door was built to move people into engineering and the sciences, and someone arriving at it from art arrives at something that was not designed for them, and will have to ask about it themselves, institution by institution.

The price, and why it is not here

The question that led here was what this costs. The honest answer is that it could not be found, and the reason is worth setting out, because it saves days for the next person who goes looking.

The country's oldest pre-academic centre carries a tuition and payments item in its own page menu, and the page itself names no sum at all [4]. Every institutional or regulatory document located this week that carries a preparatory-course tariff is published as a PDF or a DOCX, in a format this work's tools cannot open, and that held across five separate bodies. The figures that do come back from a search turned out, on checking, to be the regulated master's-degree tuition rate for that year rather than any preparatory course's own published charge.

The one private figure read here directly comes from Time Out's course guide, and it prices a different track at one of these studios: Studio 6B's fashion design and management programme at 27,900 shekels for the full programme of one year and two months, with a separate 12-session sewing course at 2,500 shekels [5]. That is the order of magnitude of a year at a private studio in Tel Aviv. It is not the price of an art preparatory course, and it is not offered here as one.

What can be done with this

Before paying for anything called a preparatory course, one question organises the whole picture: does the certificate at the end of it carry Council recognition. If it does, it can stand in the place of a matriculation certificate at the institutions whose admission pages were read here, on the terms those institutions published themselves [1][2]. If it does not, what is being bought is a portfolio and interview practice, and not one of the three admission pages read here asks for it [1][2][3].

Two questions worth asking by phone, institution by institution and year by year, because the answers are not published: what the price is for the coming year, and how many hours the course runs. Six weekly hours at Beit Berl and at least 390 teaching hours for the single-semester course Talpiot recognises are not the same size of year [1][2].

A nearby question, which routes into formal art training exist at all for an adult who is not eighteen, was answered here in an earlier article. That piece sent its reader toward a preparatory course without describing one. This piece describes what it sent them to.

What stays open

The route is documented down to the weekly hour. The price is documented nowhere that can be read. For someone planning a full year and a payment they need to estimate in advance, that is not a small gap.

There is no clean moral here, and that is part of an honest answer. What there is, is two questions that can be put in wording that is hard to slide past: is this certificate recognised by the Council, and what does it cost next year. Anyone who gets a vague answer to either one now knows something important about what they are about to buy.

[1] Beit Berl College, admission conditions for the B.Ed.F.A in art, the college's own page. The route for candidates over thirty without a matriculation certificate, the scope of the dedicated preparatory course and the final grade required, and the selection committee, portfolio, take-home piece and interview.

[2] Talpiot College of Education, admission conditions for a bachelor's degree, the college's own page. The special conditions for the art track, the three forms of preparatory course the Council recognises, and the general route for candidates over thirty.

[3] Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design Jerusalem, Fine Arts, applying to the department, the academy's own page. The description of the department's admission process, and the absence of any mention of a preparatory course on it.

[4] Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, the Pre-Academic Studies Center, the university's own page. The founding of the first preparatory course in Israel in 1965 and its stated purpose, the list of tracks as it appears there, and the absence of any sum on the page.

[5] Time Out Tel Aviv, the complete course guide: fashion, archived 12 March 2026. The live page refused the read attempt and the archived copy was read in full. The pricing of Studio 6B's fashion design and management programme and of the sewing course beside it. This is a course guide, not reporting that set out to verify a claim.