SVA vs Prat vs Parsons vs SCAD vs Ringling

MazeArtCrew
Mon, 16 Feb 2015 10:57:21 +0000

scrapgal, my daughter has applied and is accepted to SCAD and Ringling (and a few others). We have not received financial aid offers yet, (though some of the other schools have offered some merit at this point.) I do know that SVA is a “for profit” school, and gives little aid to freshmen. Ringling does give some help, but not much. We have not been impressed with SCAD. They gave a merit award, then two months later sent a very pretty letter on very expensive paper with silver embossing which said something like …

We love you! We want to give you this small merit…won’t you please send in your $700 deposit?..we also would love to pay for a hotel and meals if you come and visit…you will love us!..we love you!..by the way, this very small, small merit replaces any other merit you may have received previously…which was thousands more…but don’t worry about that…this is on expensive paper…aren’t we great?

In essence, it felt like a bait and switch. I have heard about odd financial aid dealings with SCAD, but this really took me aback. If they did this now, what would they do next year if my D matriculated there? We wondered if it is because they saw our FAFSA - our need is great this year because we have a son in college.

You can run the school calculators, and I also found this helpful;

http://nces.ed.gov/collegenavigator/

You can plug in the name of a college to see past statistics - be forewarned, statistics can be very misleading. ( As I’ve learned on this board.)

We are trying to arrange visiting her schools, which are all far away - it is hard if you don’t have the financial aid awards yet. Our local state art school is good, but doesn’t have the specialized major, or many courses, in what she really wants, Motion Design/Graphics.

We are glad that she is being great about staying open to the different schools because of aid. Best wishes to you and your son.