We touched on this back in this thread. All of our masters candidates need to show some sort of portfolio. If the candidate has a very sparse background in the fields of Making Things, then the other elements of the portfolio are obviously considered to be of more importance: undergraduate transcripts, letters of reccomendation, and statement of purpose. I tend to take a more academic approach to portfolio reviews anyways. While the portfolio is the best metric to understand a particular candidate for a job, I feel that the statement of purpose is the best metric to understand a candidate for a graduate degree. I analyze both what the candidate chooses to say and how they choose to say it, and I look for a great deal of passion for humanity and life.
One of our MFA Alumni, Ashley Menger, had absolutely no design experience prior to coming to SCAD. Her undergraduate degree was in some liberal art field (the specifics escape me). She’s now the Secretary of IDSA Texas, the Treasurer of IDSA Southern District, and happily employed at Milkshake Media in Austin. You can read her thesis here - it’s a good read and representative of the types of graduate students we try to create.