Film School Admissions

Nester
Sun, 05 Oct 2008 02:21:03 +0000

I’m concerned that your GC didn’t suggest Chapman as a school for an aspiring filmmaker to at least consider. Do you have a list of the top 10 or 12undergraduate film programs in the country? Particularly if you are interested in a production or screenwriting major, these are very competitive programs (for example, USC accepted less than 5% of its production applicants this year) and while you may be a very appealing candidate for NYU or USC, it seems important to look at other excellent programs as well if only to hedge your bet.

Also, film school applications can be very demanding with an emphasis on essays and creative writing in some cases and your portfolio or reel in others. The application deadlines for film schools may be earlier than the colleges’ general application deadlines (at USC, for example) so you really need to get going in gathering a broader list, looking over the film programs’ applications, and digging into those very involved applications asap!

If you haven’t already considered UT Austin, Northwestern, maybe Cal Arts and Loyola Marymount, take a look, along with NCSA and Florida State. And definitely Chapman. They have a bazillion dollar new facility and a bunch of eager filmmakers. I’m not sure how your numbers will fly with UT and Northwestern, but see where you fall in their curve, and maybe talk to the departments to see if there is any flexibility, numbers-wise, for arts students with strong portfolios/auditions etc.