<p>I am 22 years old male. I left high school early to work on an independent film. I am interested in returning to school but I am not sure what would be a good option. I have a 3.0 in high school and slightly lower in community college. I am looking for liberal arts colleges in warm places. My career interests are in film, marketing, communications and business. I am considering schools like Chapman, Pepperdine, Loyola and USF.</p>
<p>I am from Southern California but am open to other parts of the country. I know that my stats aren’t great but am willing to work on improving them. I haven’t took the sats yet but am willing to work hard on them. I have considered community college but plan to end up at a 4 year school and want to start planning now.</p>
<p>I don’t want to sound rude, but the glaring grammar error in an otherwise well-written post (“I haven’t took” when it should be “I haven’t taken”) makes me wonder if your writing skills are uneven. You imply that you’ve taken some CC courses but are not currently in community college. Is that correct? If so, you might want to consider using community college attendance to work hard on basic skills like writing (which you will need in communications, marketing, and business) and to bring your grades up for transfer to a 4-year program. </p>
<p>You will not need to take the SATs for a community college and you won’t need to take them if you transfer from a CC to a four-year college. </p>
<p>What is your financial situation? I assume, at 22, that you are financially independent from your parents. The community college system in California is well-organized for transfer to the state four year colleges and also the most affordable option for many people.</p>
<p>See if there’s something there for you at Columbia College in Chicago (not the one in NYC). Or maybe it’s spelled Colombia. To me it sounds very nurturing to creativity. My concern is whether or not they teach you anything there or just let you do your creative thing for 4 years, meanwhile telling you you’re great. Hopefully someone from there can give it a better review than that, since we dismissed it after reading about it on the 'net. See what you can discover but be careful of places that just take your money and hand you a degree without teaching you real “stuff” in between! Good luck.</p>
<p>Once you work on your stats a bit, you’ll know which kinds of places might consider you for admission. Remember it’s a range and that your other experiences might interest a private college. See also if there are special considerations in the finaid or merit aid department for “older students.” Do you believe you are almost that? I hestitate to say it’s “in the bag” because sometimes the rule for “mature student” means age 25 when starting the college, but check carefully just in case. Since you will reach that during your college years, you might ask if you could ever be eligible for “mature student” status in the middle of your college career.</p>
<p>If stats come up somewhat (needn’t be in the heights, but certainly north of 550, I’d guess…then take a look at: Ithaca College (upstate NY) and Emerson College (Boston) for their schools of communication and film. </p>
<p>Be honest on the apps about what you did on the independent film. If you put in a lot of time there and learned about the business or creative processes, that’s worth a great essay in an application. If you more just “hung out” and have the film to point to as a justification for years away from school, that’s still okay but you want to express that within a package of other things you did. My advice. Describe your achievement in the film in an upbeat but honest way. If it was not such a big time commitment then, don’t make too much of it now. But you can certainly extract everything you learned from doing it and describe that in an essay, I’d suggest. But if it was a big deal (and I know some of these indies can take two years of fulltime attention) then really say so. A “big deal” for college purposes isn’t how much money it made, wheterh it was picked up for distribution or won awards. A big deal is if you played an important part in the crew or cast, spent lots of time with it, and above all: what were the lessons you learned from working on it. They want to know what you learn from your experiences and care less what exactly the experiences were. Think about all the activities, tasks, personalities, surprises, disappointments etc. you went through with that film, and that’s the learning to describe.</p>
<p>P.S. I spoke wrongly when I said they “care less” what the experiences are. I meant: If the film did make it to distribution, won awards, etc. then of course go ahead and say so! But it doesn’t have to win awards to make you a good candidate. Remember, they’d be admitting you, not the film, so above all be sure to reflect on what you learned from doing it and describe that thoughtfully and positively.</p>
<p>Oops, sorry, you said “warm places.” Forget Columbia, Emerson and Ithaca,then.
I also thought of Florida as an earlier poster said.
See “North Carolina School for the Arts” if they have anything for you.</p>
<p>I need my coffee… sorry about that weather error.</p>