DS Is a Junior in HS and we live in southern California. We did some exploring but need help identifying some other colleges with good Concept design majors but not completely ignoring academic.
He wants to be a Concept artist for movie or game companies after college. He does not want to do animation, just Concept Art. even though he said he had no interest in film making, he is very interested in movies. When we had family movie night, He would stop the movie multiple times to talk about camera angles and shoot sequence. So, we want him to be able to explore that part of himself. You don’t know what you don’t know, and college is a good time for discoveries.
For the above reason, we went to the USC cinematic school tour. The major is highly competitive with very limited spaces. The facilities was beautiful of course and I am sure the industry connections are tremendous. However, the animation/concept track showcase (student projects) was not impressive at all. So, we don’t know what to make of it. We are not sure if the program can help Him get into Concept design field post graduation. Love the big the college experience and great liberal art programs though.
We also toured Art center and he liked the hillside campus. So right now, artcenter and USC are his first choices. Since both are highly competitive, we set LCAD as backup option.
He is a good student with a 3.8 unweighted GPA (w 4.6). We also think his portfolio should be competitive by senior year base on feedback from our recent National Portfolio review day visit.
He showed his current work to Pratt, RIT, Ringing, SVA, and copper Union. RIT accepted his current portfolio. Copper Union is not interested in any of his digital drawings, and only interested in his figure drawing. It was not a good fit. All the other schools gave him very good reviews.
From my personal experience (2 years Cc+ 2 years FIT), I would really like him not to miss out on general education. Although FIT opened door for me right after college, it’s the education I had received from community college GE that really helped me in life and work I.e statistics, accounting, and etc.
So We want to see if there are any other universities with good Concept design majors or art schools that provide good liberal art education.
We are open to East coast college as well. So any suggestions are welcome.