<p>Here is the recent ranking of the top 25 design schools in the world by Business Insider magazine. </p>
<p>Go to: The</a> World's 25 Best Design Schools - Business Insider</p>
<p>Although I think this is a good ranking, people need to take rankings with a grain of salt. Each school has different cultures and pros and cons. For example, my daughter attended the number 3 school University of Cincinnati's School of Design, Art, Architecture and Planning. They have strong humanities offerings, which is usually not the case with most stand alone art schools. They also have one of the best, if not the best, coop program for all design majors, which wasn't mentioned in the article. Thus, kids get PAID, real work experience totaling about 1.5 years. They go all year round to either school or their coops. However, I would say the school isn't for everyone. Although their industrial design, and interior design and architecture schools have a plethora of course offerings and is highly ranked, and produced great senior projects, my daughter's major, Digital Design, wasn't as well funded nor were the course offerings as numerous. Since it is a state school, they have had their cutbacks, as with other state schools. This has reduced course and major offerings across the board, which is definitely a con. In fact, my daughter's major was merged into the graphic design major. however, it can be much less expensive than most of the schools noted, which is a big plus. In addition, they tend to give some decent scholarship money. In addition, being in Ohio both the culture and the kids that you meet will be very different than being in NY or Chicago. Again, each school has a different culture that should be investigated as to its fit for the applicant.</p>
<p>Also, overall rankings are nice and do give some perspective of what employers are thinking;however, they may not be right regarding individual majors. For example, I would never recommend that anyone go to University of Cincinnati for fine art! Otis School of Design,which isn't on the list, has a highly ranked toy design and costume design program. While Carnegie Melon has great graphic design and industrial design programs in their design school both of which can be very interdisciplinary ( which is their strong point), it is very limited and focused. You won't learn transportation design, toy design , textile or fashion design. If you want fashion design, you can't beat Parsons or even FIT. In fact, FIT, which is a state supported school has some strong up-and-coming programs and also provides very inexpensive tuition.</p>
<p>The article also leaves out some very strong programs such as MICA, which has a very strong graphic and interaction design program. Again, rankings have to be taken with a grain of salt.</p>
<p>Also, each school mentioned has different admission requirements. For example, SVA and Pratt are VERY portfolio oriented and don't require strong college boards and grades, while schools like Cincinnati and UCLA require strong academics to get in. In fact, Cincinnati doesn't even require a portfolio for design nor do I think UCLA does either.</p>