My situation is incredibly specific (so specific that I couldn’t find any similar threads), so I’ll provide a brief outline for my question:
I am a current high school student attending a prestigious boarding school in New England, about to start my junior year. My family is well off, my sister went to Yale, and my father is a businessman. He has high hopes that I will also pursue business/finance, is confident I would do well in these fields, and it’s practically expected that I will attend some ivy league school. Problem is, I love computer animation, a field that’s taught at art schools, not Harvard. After a couple of camps and pre-collegiate programs for aspiring computer animators, I’m confident in my ability to build a portfolio and get accepted into an art school. I am also confident in my ability to get into an ivy league.
Now onto my question:
Should I apply to ivy leagues AND art school, then take gap years off before freshman year to attend art school for 1-2 years before university? This way I could get a taste for the computer animation field while appeasing my parents, BUT I would not be able to get an art degree and would have to drop out in order to get an undergraduate degree at university.
OR
Should I choose between art school or an ivy league (and crush either my dream or my parents’ dreams in the process)?
Follow up questions:
Is there a way I could get both degrees (i.e. take four gap years before university to get an art degree or vice versa)?
Could I continue an art degree education at the same art school after taking four years off to get an undergraduate degree at a university?
If get accepted at both universities and art schools, which one would more likely accept me again if I chose to go to another but then changed my mind?
Sorry for the super long question, but I just can’t find anyone online with my specific problem and I don’t feel comfortable going to my college counseling office for advise, since they’re strongly biased against art schools.
Hi!
I understand the situation you’re in. I suggest you take a look at the Brown/RISD dual degree program. If you do some research, you can probably find similar programs at other Ivy League schools. http://risd.brown.edu
Post-high-school college attendance is likely to cause you to be seen as a transfer, not frosh, applicant to many colleges. I.e. if you attend an art college after high school, you would be a transfer applicant to most other colleges. For highly selective private colleges, it is often much more difficult to be admitted as a transfer applicant than as a frosh applicant.
Unless your parents have donated a building or some such to the college, it is rather difficult to be confident in being admitted to such a college.
I think the term gap year and your story are somewhat colliding and making it harder for you to make a decision. A gap year is usually a time to build maturity, or experience, or take a breath between high school and college. Sometime the student is admitted right out of highschool and then defers that admission for a specific amount of time (1 year). Situations differ, but in all cases a “gap” year (or years) is to pursue something that is closed-ended in time between two defined pursuits (university and college). What I think that I hear behind your story is a desire to pursue animation as more than just a pursuit, but possibly as a career. You are mature enough to acknowledge that you may not love it as much as you thought once you are really into it, but you just might, and are confident enough that you would be good enough to consider it a career, not just a hobby. But then you go onto to talk about it only in terms of a 1-2 year “gap” program that you wouldn’t finish.
I think that you are letting what you consider to be the expectations and norms of your family to discount a career that could be meaningfully to you and capability of providing a paycheck that meets all your needs. If this is the case, don’t be afraid to pursue art school, but do it with the intention of finishing. Don’t short-change the effort or your dreams. You may find out that after 1 or 2 years that it is not for you and you want the more traditional university path. You can then apply to schools, and you will be outside the “normal” high-school to college path, but will still have your test scores, grades, and unique life experiences that will make you a good candidate. But that would be your safety net, not the intended consequence of pursuing your giftedness.
Talk to your parents about it honestly, and understand that if their desire to pay for an ivy league education doesn’t carry over to art school, that is their right and don’t fault them for it. You can then go the traditional path first, and then maybe come back to animation, or figure out how to make it on your own. But if you are mature in discussing it with them, let them see your skills and that computer animation is a legitimate career, they just might surprise you.
Thank you for the quick reply and also (unexpected) but apt analysis of my hesitation. I think the fears I have when considering between the two options are either:
I’ll go to art school but change my mind about pursuing a career in animation and have no other readily available backup plans or resources
Or
I’ll go to a regular undergraduate university, feel miserable and unsure of what I do the whole time, and graduate with a degree I don’t want and an incredible amount of regrets
These fears are backed up by two experiences people close to me have had that influenced my determination to choose between either path
My sister, though she did well at Yale and was able to find a job because of my father's connections, constantly complained while she was there, saying that she wished she had chosen a smaller liberal arts college that would have been more suitable for her. She always resented my parents for "brainwashing" her into thinking that because of its prestige, Yale was automatically the best option. Recently she got in a huge fight with them over her choice of major, insisting that she should have pursued something completely different and accusing them of being why she is still insecure about her career choice. I'm afraid that I'll have the same thoughts if I decide to follow my parents wishes and ditch animation.
One of my favorite instructors at an animation seminar said that after he gets his bachelor degree in visual effects, he's immediately ditching art school to study marketing. He said that over time, he found sitting for hours and hours at a computer working on an animation felt too antisocial and isolated for him, and he would rather be out and about interacting with people. Granted, he didn't completely condemn his art school education, because he said it gave him a great insight of the industry that would be helpful to him in his hopes of being a marketer for a film or animation company. But aside from also being an extroverted person who might grow unhappy in a field where you spend most of your time sitting and staring at a screen, what struck me was that he was transferring from a nationally ranked art school to a public state school in order to study business. Though I have nothing against his ernest pursuit of his dreams or public state schools, I can't help but feel that if I go to art school and have the same change of heart, I'll regret not going to one of the nation's best universities to get an undergraduate degree rather than waiting till after art school, when the chances of me getting accepted will be much slimmer, as the first answer to my question said, since I won't be "frosh."
And as a side note, as much as I would like to believe that my parents would welcome my passion with open arms, I grew up in the kind of household where nearly everything I did was for the sake of a better looking college resumé, so even if they don’t full-on reject my ideas, they’ll at least be very angry on the basis that they’ve spent so much time and money on me only to have me choose something else. That’s most of the reason why i posted on this forum, because if I do decide to present my argument for art school, I want to be 100% sure that it’s what I want.
Thank you for the quick responses and suggestions.
To Emsmom1 and justdreaming, though I do think I could get into an art school, I think RISD might be a bit out of my reach. Not to dismiss your ideas, but I want to be realistic in my abilities.
To ucbalumnus, I realize that it’s presumptuous to say I’m confident in my ability to get into an ivy league. It was mostly exaggeration, but my family has donated a lot of money and my parents were careful in raising me to look good on an application. And if that sounds like a sad childhood, that’s because it is.
To NashvilletoTexas, thank you for the advice and the (unexpected) but apt analysis of my hesitation. I think I’m using gap years as a frame of reference because I’m afraid of committing to either option, so a gap year, to me, would be a way for me to try and make both choices work. But it’s true, my definition isn’t concrete. When I’m saying “gap year” for the university, I mean the school would have to accept me and sanction a break before my freshman year for me to finish 1-2 years of art school. Whereas “gap years” for art school would be more like dropping out halfway through my bachelor’s education and having to reapply to the art school after completing an undergrad program at a normal university.
But my fears can basically be distilled into two recent experiences that people close to me have had that influenced my views on choosing either side.
My sister, who graduated this year, got into a huge fight with my parents, blaming them for brainwashing her into going to Yale. She claimed that she had no idea what she wanted to do after college, would have been better off at a smaller liberal arts college, and was miserable with the degree she earned at Yale. Though I am dubious of this because she has been fickle about her passions in the past and, up until this point, she seemed happy at Yale, I have to acknowledge that I might end up feeling the same way if I go to a university and ditch animation.
An instructor at an animation seminar I went to shared that he was going to transfer into another school in order to study business after getting his degree in visual effects. He said that he hated sitting and staring at a screen for hours and would use the insight he got into the animation industry from art school to pursue a career in marketing. Though I respect him for his motivation and know that his case might be a very small minority in comparison to most art students, this shook my determination to study animation. Especially because he was going to be moving from a renowned art school to a public state school to get a degree in business. I’m afraid that if I go to art school, I might also have second thoughts and want to get a degree at a better school, but will have to deal with my parents’ many “I told you so’s” as I try and transfer to a regular university.
Also, as much as they love me, as I mentioned before, my parents spent a lot of time, energy, and money to get me to the point where I can be debating over ivy league education. Before I go to them to defend animation, I want to be 100% sure of my decision, because there will definitely be some sort of argument regarding how much effort will have gone to waste if I choose art school.
Consider applying to BYU. Its animation school is a pipeline to Disney, Pixar, etc. and can provide a viable career. It also sends many students to Ivy League grad schools.
I think you just want to kick the can down the road and avoid fighting with your parents over this. It isn’t a “gap year” if you are attending a school where you earn any college credits after HS graduation. And you greatly reduce your chances at a top school by being a transfer student.
That said, what about animation programs at places like USC? You certainly don’t have to attend an Ivy (your sister isn’t far off in her brainwashing comment, there are many other good colleges, and an Ivy isn’t the best fit for every student who could get admitted).
Since your sister went to Yale, would it be correct to assume that they donated enough to Yale to give you a substantial advantage in admission there, and that is the school they are pushing you to attend?
Perhaps he is looking at the reality that art is a high-Gini line of work where a few successful artists have high earnings, but most struggle as “starving artists” or have to find other types of work to pay the bills. However, many people do go into general business type of jobs without having business degrees. If you do study art, you may want to take out-of-major courses in the various social studies and statistics, as these subjects may be applicable if you need to seek non-art jobs.
Yeah, I don’t think this is an all or nothing thing. You don’t have to go to an art school to study computer animation; there are many comprehensive universities (including some competitive, prestigious ones) that offer animation studies within their art departments. There are USC and Carnegie Mellon, as already mentioned; there’s CalArts, if you are really good; there’s
Stanford (art practice & CS combined major)
Georgia Tech (computational media)
Emerson College
Northeastern University (within their art + design major)
Virginia Tech
Rochester Institute of Technology
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI; there are three majors that may appeal to you)
Southern Methodist University (creative computing)
MIT (they have a minor in art, culture and technology…and of course there’s the media lab)
NYU
WPI
Once you have a bachelor’s degree, you’re actually ineligible to get another degree from most elite/top schools. The only one I can think of that would allow you to do this is the School of General Studies at Columbia.
That’s why the answer to this question
is definitely the art schools.
This is probably more doable - many art schools, especially for-profit ones, will accept you for a second degree. Better yet, you could probably get a master’s in animation after finishing your BA in something at a university. The question is whether you’d still want to pursue this in four years, but that’s fine - you’ve got time to decide.
Yes. I would argue that since it is your life, your dream is far more important than your parents’ dreams. However, I would also propose the suggestion that your dream isn’t so much to go to art school as it is to study animation on some serious level, which is different.