The four-year Certificate program, the most historic of the academic programs at the Pennsylvania Academy, emphasizes excellence in studio art-making skills and abilities. Drawing is a requirement at all levels of the curriculum. All students attend critiques and lectures given by visiting artists and critics, and are in daily contact with the Academy's outstanding collection of American art. At the conclusion of their studies, students mount a thesis exhibition within the galleries of the Samuel M. V. Hamilton Building.

In the first two years, students receive a traditional atelier-style training in painting, drawing, sculpture and printmaking. Under the mentorship of master artists, students take classes in cast drawing, life drawing and painting, anatomy, color, still-life, figure modeling, perspective, etching, woodcut and art history.

In their second year, students choose to focus study in painting, sculpture or printmaking.

Third- and fourth-year students receive private studios while continuing an intensive mentoring relationship with critics chosen from a large faculty of professional working artists, representing a wide range of aesthetic viewpoints.