My son has become quite interested in an animation career, and he is currently trying to teach himself basics online. He will get to attend an 3D animation class (2-3 days a week, other days are core classes) through his high school in his junior and senior year through a STEM program, which we imagine will help him with generation of a portfolio. GPA ~3.5 weighted, with academic, honors and AP classes, and, based on PSAT, we’re guesstimating about 1350 on the SAT. He has standard EC. He’s started looking into colleges, and we have a short list, but any advice on which colleges should he consider? He has no real search criteria as yet, urban or suburban likely preferred over rural. Any size is fine. Have saved for his school, so a good value would be best but budget is not the biggest consideration.
Most importantly, what else should he be looking into now to try to determine if this is the right area for him? He will attend a week long animation program this summer. Suggestions on what level of math he should try to attain in HS to be competitive to apply for animation programs in college? We’ve looked at several schools websites but it doesn’t seem consistent, with some recommending calculus and others having no math requirements listed. We felt like we were behind with older D and would’ve benefited from more advance planning, so appreciate any advice. Thanks!
My D went to Ringling for computer animation (acceptance rate is 10-12%) There are some older threads on the Visual Arts forum that have many discussions about different colleges, programs etc.
Does your son want a dedicated art school (such as Ringling) or a more generalized education?
Is he interested in art, movies or just the computer aspects? There are different paths. Including computer science and engineering.
The top schools for animation are dedicated ART schools. Their portfolio requirements are heavily life drawing based. You don’t usually submit animations for portfolio review. You don’t need to know the computer programs before entering. Most programs (for movies) are proprietary. But it doesn’t hurt to have a good background in computers of course. But not necessary.
I’d really look into a great longer length pre-college program. My D went to pre-college at Ringling. It’s a four week residential program and totally immersive (you picked two tracks). She loved every minute (and earned college credit for it) and ultimately decided that’s what she wanted to pursue. And she was able to build her portfolio there.
But not everyone loved it–some decide that CA isn’t what they thought it was. Making it a good investment for them too.
When looking at colleges look at student art–find the college that teaches and their students produce the quality you would like to produce.
I don’t want to discourage your son from pursuing what he’d like to do but I need to say that the animation field has become saturated in the past few years. It’s not a huge field from the start and now there are simply more students and graduates from many school programs than available jobs.
Seconding the suggestion to do a pre-college program, for both the experience and the portfolio building. My D24 also attended Ringing pre-college (the summer after her sophomore year in high school) and loved her experience.
In the end, D24 is choosing to attend a dual degree program instead of an art school. We were happy with her decision, as she’ll have more time to really figure out what she wants to do for her career, and she will have the option to attend an art school grad program once she gets her undergrad degrees, if she wants.
I have listed the colleges D24 looked at below. While not all of the traditional colleges listed have an animation program, they all have good art departments and at least a few animation classes.
Art Schools:
SCAD
Ringling
CalArts
RISD
Schools with good art programs:
Dartmouth
Hamilton
Wesleyan
Brown
Clark
Washington University in St Louis
Georgetown
Schools with Dual Degree Programs:
U Michigan
Brown/RISD
Tufts
Cornell
This is not my area of expertise. But one tool that you may find useful is this source that shows how many majors (first and second) in various majors in 2022. For the snip below, I selected the animation, interactive technology, and video effects major, but I would imagine many of these schools might have a greater emphasis on or more of the areas (or less on another area). But you can narrow down by the area of the country, the size of the school, etc. Additionally, you can look at related majors (for instance, some schools might have a specialty within their art major and not have it called an animation major).
I have a relative who did an animation major at Ringling. He was able to get some contract work in the field on and off, but never got traction to make a full career of it, and ended up in an unrelated career. Being debt-free is super-important, because the pressure of student loan payments can severely limit the ability to hang in there while trying to break into the field.
If this were my kid, I would be wondering whether maybe a broader major would be good - not giving up animation, but acquiring some credentials in adjacent areas as well, like graphic design. Something like this would be attainable with his stats (flagship U in a nice smaller city) https://art.arizona.edu/academic-programs/illustration-design/
But I also understand the arguments for going all-in and becoming very-very good at a specific thing. I’d be asking schools for career outcome information!
MassArt might be a good one to look at - it’s public, so not quite as expensive as the private art schools (although almost, for OOS students), plus it’s in two local consortia for cross-registration with some other terrific schools. The Fenway neighborhood is really fun place for students, and I’ve heard great things from MassArt students in particular. Animation | MassArt
(MassArt employment outcomes - not sure this is specific enough to be useful, but fwiw)
Thank you all so much!! Very much appreciate the advice and insights from those with first-hand experiences with their children or relatives.
I will look at the older threads, as I may have missed some previously, and I will talk to him further about the areas that interest him most and what alternatives might also be a good fit. He’s doing a precollege week at SCAD this summer, but I realize that having only a week will severely limit the experience. We will definitely look into the longer length precollege programs for next summer between junior and senior year, especially if he ends up enjoying the class that he is taking through his high school and the experience at SCAD. We’ll look through the list of colleges above, and I love the idea of a dual degree program to give options (although realistically his GPA/test scores will not be high enough to be competitive). His first college tour was at a flagship U in a smaller city with a decent reputation for arts, and he loved it. Really happy to have any and all suggestions, thanks again. So much to consider and think over!
