gryphonlady

Hi all! My first time on the forum today.

My daughter, now entering her junior year of college, majoring in film and digital media and minoring in acting, would like to continue her training by going for an MFA in acting. She's looked at a LOT of schools online, and is trying to evaluate them by what she reads on the websites, and she'll be talking to her acting coach and some directors and actors she trusts as well.

Anyway, what I was going to ask: what, in your opinion(s), are some good graduate programs for the MFA?

Thanks!

CWalker

From a non-theatre persons perspective, the top theatre programs are at Yale, NYU, and UCSD. I would guess that NYU is the best for acting simply because it has a top overall program and connections within the city.

dennisbaker

I wrote about my experience auditioning and applying to MFA acting graduate schools. Also about my experience with Rutgers. It is a long story so click my profile name to see the link to my blog.

jabriela

all three schools are amazing in different ways and are known for different strengths. i go to ucsd, which was my first choice (i only applied to art, nyu, yale, and here) because of the small class size, relationship with the la jolla playhouse, but most importantly because when i visited, it just felt right.

in terms of general comparisons, there's a great website called mfaactor.com that has a discussion of "top 10" mfa programs in acting.

each year a few people are admitted to all three (nyu, yale, and ucsd) and they go different ways depending on what they're looking for. a guy in my class got offers from them all and came here, another guy admitted my year chose yale over the other 2.

samuck

Thank you for that link, jabriela. Does anyone have information on MFA programs in directing?

SoCalGal09

Have to second jabriela on UCSD's amazing theatre program. I don't know about directing specifically, but you see stars coming from UCSD in many different specialties.

BacktoTheatre

Does anyone have any feedback on the best grad schools for design, esp. costume design/production?