<p>My daughter has applied to SVA. We visited in February and the vibes were good. I liked the area of NYC in which the school is located: city residential, with lots of shops, places to eat, grocery stores and the like. Also, there are a number of other college residences in the area (NYU, Bernard Baruch), so there's a good number of other college students around. What I would like to hear, from some one who goes to SVA, is what the school is actually like. Good teachers? Interesting courses? Lots of work or not so much? Decent residences? Good facilities and equipment? Competent or incompetent administration? Come on. Somebody from the school. Let us know.</p>
<p>I agree people! Bump
I have yet to hear an extensive review of SVA.
Also for anyone replying to this. How easy is it to change your major at SVA?</p>
<p>I am heading out for the day, so I can't reprise a lengthy answer here. Do a search under my name and you will see previous posts.</p>
<p>i am the same as unsoccer mom.
look at my profile and see where i have posted. there are many many things about sva.</p>
<p>Unsoccer-Mom and brokenapertures, thank you. I dug through your posts and got some good info on SVA. For Skyline, here's two narratives I pulled from Unsoccer-Mom and brokenapertures. Unsoccer-Mom wrote the first two paragraphs. brokenapertures wrote the last:</p>
<p>My daughter is a fine arts major at SVA in their honors program. Ironically, she transferred to Smith after her freshman year and then transferred back after one semester...</p>
<p>SVA started out as a school for illustration (mostly comic books) and then became very well know for their graphic design program. My daughter feels that SVA has become one of the top art schools in the country because with so many working artists and professionals teaching at SVA, the school tends to be on the cutting edge of the new trends out there. She started thinking she would concentrate on sculpture but now feels that she wants to be able to integrate sculpture, photography, painting, and video. She has interned with artists, hopes to do work-study in a gallery, and spend afternoons at the Guggenheim. Her friends are film students and photographers and she is constantly exposed to new ideas. She is quite happy with her choice. That said SVA, like most art schools, is notoriously stingy on financial aid and NYC is outrageously expensive.</p>
<p>I know that SVA breeds its photo majors to be industry professionals in the editorial/fashion/documentary fields. The program has the very latest up-to-date digital photo technology/scanners/labs, etc. and has both black & white film developing AND color film developing facilities and classes, which is relatively rare. All of the professors at SVA are practicing artists, as well, which is useful for students who desire to really get his or her foot in the door in the harsh art/advertising/design/print world that is NYC. I think the school has something like 700 professors. This is obviously a huge number, and it is very different from the traditional college professor experience. The huge majority of professors are part-time. </p>
<p>Good stuff, but I'd love to get more, in particular, about the film program. Can anyone give me some inside info?</p>
<p>I can't help you with the film program but I've got a friend who was an animation student, whose foundation courses from what I can tell are similar to the film program's (two classes called "Acting for Animators" and "Acting for Filmmakers" turned out to be exactly the same class). She didn't have issues with the staff but hated the curriculum; she found that she wasn't being challenged enough intellectually and she was bored with and overworked by her animation classes. She transferred to a liberal arts school after her second simester, and she seems to be enjoying herself much more there.</p>
<p>Obviously my friend's issues with the school won't be everyone's issues. She didn't know until she tried out SVA that she wanted to continue learning subjects outside of the artistic spectrum and for all I know she would have had that problem with most existing art schools.</p>
<p>in terms of the teachers at sva, all i know is that they have a ton of them. ive been watching interviews with various people (graphic designers, graffiti artists, etc.) and it seems like everyone teaches at sva or has at some point.</p>
<p>hmmm.. was wondering if it'll be easy to change major at SVA. say for those that has different foundation classes..</p>
<p>OK. We'll give this one more try. My daughter's been accepted to SVA, MICA, VCU, and University of the Arts (so far). We've gotten some in depth info on all but SVA. So, SVA people, please, some inside information about the school and especially about the film program. My D has to make the big decision very soon, and any information would be really helpful.</p>
<p>Amptron what part of film is she interested in? I do know that SVA was ranked as one of the top 10 schools ( considering both US and Canadian schools)for animation.</p>
<p>I only know about SVA through my son's ex-girlfriend...So, I certainly don't qualify as an expert. BUT, I do have to say - and this is perhaps obvious - that SVA, like NYU, is in the middle of downtown Manhattan. There is no campus. I say this because it's far more important than you think it might be. Know yourself and your strengths and weaknesses when it comes to going to a school in the midst of one of the greatest cities on the planet. New YOrk is amazing. I grew up there. But there are a million distractions, good and bad; kids (many of whom have literally more money than they know what to do with) do a lot of drugs (coke, pills and marijuana mainly) which are incredibly easy to get (you just have to stroll in Washington Square park for instance). When winter comes, and it's bitter cold with the winds coming down the dark streets, you have to be very, very strong and determined and independent to survive, particularly the first year or two when you are adjusting to college and independence. My son's ex's roommate became sort of psychotic--stayed inside ALL the time, never went out except for classes, huddled in her room and just sat. It was scary. Of course this won't happen to everyone, but please please know yourself. As for my son's ex, she too thought the first year was really easy challenge-wise and a lot of drudge work. She was in photography. But second year she got much more challenged and liked it a lot more. Of course, this is only one person's experience, for all that's worth.</p>
<p>Taxguy - She's primarily interested in cinematography. And before anyone asks why she didn't apply to NYU or USC or one of the other name film schools, well, first off, while her grades and SATs were good, they just weren't good enough for the extremely competitive big name schools. Second, she really wanted to go to an art school. Initially, she was torn between photography and cinematography, so she applied to art schools in which she thought she'd have a chance to do either or both. Over the course of the year, her focus shifted and now she's entirely focused on cinematography.</p>
<p>hoveringmom - I appreciate your concern, but we live about 30 miles east of the City in NJ, and my daughter's been going into and out of the City for most of her life. My wife and I also lived in Manhattan for six years, so we're all pretty familiar with the ins and outs of city living. As I said at the top of this thread, SVA is in an attractive area of Manhattan and granted, all you have to do is walk a few blocks or hop a subway to find trouble, but the truth is that in most schools, a kid can find the same kind of trouble a few doors down from his or her dorm room. I think my D's strong enough to handle all the bad stuff, so I'm mainly concerned with the quality of the school and the program she wants to enroll in.</p>
<p>Uuuuh...Make that 30 miles west of the City.</p>
<p>Ok--But I also grew up in NYC, and live just outside it now. I am certainly not trying to imply that your daughter will struggle, only that it's something to seriously consider. Nor am I trying to say that SVA or other downtown schools are bad. They are terrific, in so many ways, and, again New York is literally one of the greatest cities on the planet, and offers countless opportunities. But in my own case, we all (teachers, friends, NYU itself) thought my own son would be a shoe-in for going to college in the midst of downtown (we go into the city very often and, as I said, I grew up there). But he surprised everyone, and folded. He is now on medical leave of absence. In retrospect, I can see why, mainly because he lacked the maturity to deal with the major hurdles he faced in addition to the regular academic ones. Just something to think about, not a prediction of a particular student. Also, if you're well off, it's much much easier to live there - a fact which is obvious only when you don't have money - so if you have a lot of money, that will be a plus for your child. We did not (major scholarship) so my son was often surrounded by kids who literally got an allowance for $500, $1000/week (seriously) and who went out to restaurants and clubs whenever they felt like it, did designer drugs when they were not going to their shrink, could pay for taxis, didn't have to worry about paying the $20 for a museum entrance fee for a school assignment, bought their clothes at designer stores whenever they wanted to, and so on.</p>
<p>I stumbled across this CC thread initiated by unsoccer-mom that contains a good description of what the Freshman year at SVA is like. It's from 2005, but I expect it's still reasonably accurate. Here's the link:</p>
<p>I visited the school about eight months ago. I thought it was as good as you're going to get for a school in lower Manhattan. I'm going for photography and the building was very impressive. Very up-to-date labs and also something that caught my eye was the printers and ink were completely free, students only pay for their paper. I have some photos from my trip if anyone is interested.</p>