Hi
My son got into these universities and it’s getting difficult to choose . He got into ca in ringling and for illustration in rest. He is interested in both programs.
Please give reviews which one to choose. He got scholarships too in each.
Waiting for cal arts and school or visual arts acceptances
If that is your real name, I strongly encourage you to change it to something more anonymous. How Do I Change My Username?
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Hard to know what to say without more information about his interests and preferred campus setting. Parsons, for example, is very much the grit of Manhattan. You could walk by the building and not know there’s a college there if there weren’t a sign posted.
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And the flip side- Parsons students are VERY well integrated into the artistic communities in NYC. Free tickets to lots of things, abundant internship opportunities, professors sponsoring gallery shows with student participation, etc. So yes- right in the middle of the city but there are payoffs.
I don’t know much about the other programs but someone else surely does!
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Exactly.
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Ringling has one of the top CA programs in the country. It is 3D focused but will teach all aspects of the pipeline. It’s a tough program. If CA turns out to not be the “thing”, Ringling also has Motion design, game art and illustration majors. All excellent.
Found this on reddit if it appeals:
Illustration is one of the few majors at Ringling that have “tracks”, and is the only MEDIA major (ca, ga, illu) that has one. In the major you have the General Illustration track and the Visual Development track, which you get split off in after your 2nd year portfolio review. General illustration focuses a lot more on- well - general illustrations. If you like having complete work and getting a drawing done, as well as being interested in comics, children’s books, and very detailed visual work, that would be the track to stick by. Visual Development on the other hand, is concept art work. It’s not just character concept art, but also props, vehicles and environments. Doing concept art work like VisDev can still most likely get you into the pipeline of animation, too! There are also plenty of elective classes that you can take that will teach you digital 3D for illustration.
Campus is modern and CA is state of the art. Check out the student work on their website. Sarasota is a very pretty town and large but not “big city”. Siesta Key is a world class beach. Many big companies come to Ringling to recruit.
SCAD has two campuses one in Atlanta and the other in Savannah. It’s spread out.
MICA is a well known art institute. The main concern (maybe–not sure recently) is the safety of the area it is in. The campus is safe but the surrounding area can be iffy. At least it was.
All I know about Otis is that it has a small campus. You may be able to search older posts (probably under Visual Arts forum) and get more insight.
Best advice is to look at student work at each of the schools and see what appeals the most.
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Thank you so much
This helped a lot. Any idea how is calarts ?
No personal experiencwe but here’s a youtube by someone who went there.
Main thing to keep in mind is that these fields are very competitive. No matter what school you attend it does not guarantee a job after graduation. I would not suggest going into debt for expensive art schools. The traditional salaries in illustration (and most art fields) is pretty low and doesn’t make it easy to repay debt.
The above video shows glimpses of Cal Arts. She enjoyed her experience and learned a lot, made good connections because of the school but the industry is changing.
These schools are all good, although I’m not a fan of SCAD (the family run thing rubs me the wrong way). However, I would caution against borrowing more than the undergraduate federal student loan limit for any of these. I have seen too many students who left these schools with tens of thousands in private student loans, and frankly, it’s not worth it. There are less expensive public schools with similar programs. Unless you can afford to pay for the schools on your list, I’d caution against them.
If you do choose one of these schools, I’d choose based on programs and fit. MICA seems to be the most “college -like” in terms of things to do, while Parsons seems to appeal to students who are focused on fine art or studio art. Ringling seems more career focused rather than fine art or studio focused. Otis is a fine school but really expensive.
Be aware that some of the schools on your list have huge international populations. With the changes that may occur politically, this may be a concern in terms of a possible rise in tuition to offset a sudden drop off in international students (who are typically full pay at these schools).
Be extremely cautious with SCAD.
There is a paywall, but well worth reading if you are considering this school.
Congratulations on all of his acceptances.
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If possible, would you pleas share a gift link to this article? Thank you! @DivineMarshmallow
I found this (pasted content of the article):
Wow. This is a disheartening read, but thanks for sharing.
The Reddit sub about SCAD is also very insightful. I would really hesitate to send my kid there.
I just skimmed the article – one would think that, at this point, SCAD’s board would be wise to fire Wallace and find someone without the baggage, and price tag. Especially given the questions about money/house transfers. But I guess she is just so entrenched that the board will not act.
Another article, from a former student. Unfortunately, suicides are a known issue at SCAD.
Whole article is on there—just keep scrolling.
She “owns” the school (she’s the co-founder). She is not going anywhere.
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Congratulations to your son’s acceptances. Are the 4 art schools you listed his final options? Is he set on attending specifically art colleges?
Our D (graduated with a BA in 2023) was dead set on art colleges when she was applying back in 2018-2019 school year. She was accepted at RISD, Pratt, Ringling, LCAD, USC, Skidmore, Bard, and RIT. She was also accepted at our state’s flagship. When applying, she was dead set against going to the flagship but it was our family rule to apply to it for all our children.
Initially she was sure that RISD was her final choice, but at the end, she chose our flagship. Ringling, Pratt, LCAD, RIT gave large merit aids to entice her. After considering all the pros and cons of each school, she saw that she can’t make small school big, but she can make big school small as much or as little as she wanted. She wanted a diverse student population where she had exposure to all different type of majors and interests, not just art. She also noticed that some of the art colleges had a large international population (already mentioned by @kelsmom) and she felt they may not want to be friends with students outside of their comfort zone. She also wanted more gender balance. She did think RISD peers had immense art talent which was a big motivator and a pressure cooker to her.
The unknown benefits she experienced by going to a large flagship were opportunities to work on research and internship on campus with the engineering students, a part-time job helping disable athletics (design and printing 3D equipments for their specific disability), and leadership opportunities in major specific student club.
Finally, while she was working through pros and cons in HS, D researched potential jobs post graduation and saw that first job may not be high paying and most post grads find their post jobs in the region of the college. She realized that not paying for the most expensive art school education may be a good financial decision. RISD and USC were going to be close to full pay.
Obviously, her art skills and portfolio helped her immensely landing her first job immediately after graduation. However, the work and leadership experiences she had in college gave her boost.
I share her decision process and experience so that your S and other future families consider other reasons why or why not art colleges.
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A late reply to this post, but I just wanted to give an alternative view of SCAD based on personal experience. My older son is a junior there and has had a really good experience. Of course there are legit concerns with how it’s run and I can understand (and share) some of that discomfort but the notion that students are committing suicide left and right there, any more so than other universities, is disingenuous. As a mental health professional myself with a kid who struggles with depression, he wouldn’t be there if there was some unique epidemic of pressure as a result of something specific to SCAD culture.
The campus itself and its location in historic Savannah is stunning and the resources are close to unmatched (and we’ve toured a lot of art schools). What is truly unmatched are its connections to corporations and business connections - students have opportunities to work with Nike, Google, Deloitte, David Yurman, etc on real life projects that often lead to real life jobs. There is no navel gazing kind of art education there - it almost feels more like a trade school in a really useful way. You start learning real skills right away. He’s doing UX design now- SCAD was approached by Google to develop the first BFA in UX offered in the country a handful of years ago and it’s blown up everywhere.
It also has more of a feel of a regular college because it’s bigger and has other majors that are more business/marketing focused as well as some performing arts and a huge film school. So the choice in peer connections can feel larger than a tiny art school. Similar to Pratt, it has athletic programs that also offer a larger swath of types of students.
The professors at SCAD have gone above and beyond in a crazy way for my son. He has access to them anytime, they remember him always and connect him to opportunities frequently. Like they truly are an email away in a way I don’t think exists everywhere - even department chairs he’s never met take the time to meet with him to discuss career options, introduce to people, etc.
My younger son is also looking at art schools now as a graduating senior and is more of a gifted fine artist than my oldest. He also is very intrigued by NYC and we agree on the value of being there as the center of so much of the art world and the business world. He was accepted to Parsons and Pratt with merit (much more from Parsons interestingly enough) and waiting on Cooper Union, which is likely his first choice. He is also considering SCAD but likely won’t end up there bc he wants the big city experience. But nothing about that decision is about SCAD being “bad”.
The only complaint I’ve had is their housing system and the fact that their merit scholarships are tied in part to living on campus. That feels like a racket and has caused us a lot of stress because housing is in short supply there.
Sounds like you have a lot of great options. If you’re intrigued by SCAD, don’t be scared off by the other comments. Many have fantastic experiences there and are VERY marketable post graduation.
Don’t believe everything you read on the internet, it’s rarely a representative sample of experience.
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