My background:
I’m a high school senior and I’ve been accepted to two schools, one of which I’m certainly going to: Virginia Commonwealth University and Syracuse University. I’ve been drawing since I was very young and in high school I took art classes all four years. I plan to to a university with a strong arts school to prepare for a career in television and film (my greatest aspiration is to work for Cartoon Network or a similar production company). I also want to have the chance to take classes in subjects outside of the arts, which is why I applied to universities instead of merely art colleges. I am having difficulty choosing between VCUarts and SUVPA. Here’s the rundown:
-VCU is financially a much better option. I’ve been offered a dean’s scholarship of $6,500 a year and an additional scholarship of $3,000 for my first year, the latter of which was only open to me as I was also accepted to the VCU honors college. This means tuition for at least my first year would be a little $20,000. SU offered me a scholarship of $20,000 a year, which sounds great but since it is a private school, the regular tuition is much higher and I’d end up paying anywhere from $35,000 to $45,000 a year (the numbers vary depending on which site I look at). I’m not interested in taking out tremendous loans so I am hesitant about SU.
-I know quite a lot about VCUarts and not as much as SUVPA. I live in Virginia and thus it was easy for me to visit Richmond and see VCUarts for myself. I was only ever at Syracuse once, and I didn’t even go inside anywhere; I was merely in the car as we drove through the campus (time restraints). I know that VCU has a strong arts program with a handful of majors to choose; if I go there, I will most likely pursue a degree in Kinetic Imaging or Photography & Film. For Syracuse, I had to apply outright to one program, and I applied to Computer Art & Animation. This is interesting
-When I did see SU, I admired the campus a lot. It looked to be a good combination of a traditional university aesthetic and an urban setting. VCU is pretty much only an urban setting. That really doesn’t matter much to me, of course I like the traditional university look but I loved living in the city (6 years in NYC) and I’d have no problem doing it again. I honestly don’t care about the racial makeup of the student body or anything like that.
-I do care to some extent about reputation. VCU is very highly ranked for its arts and medical schools, but not much else. The impression I get (and I could be wrong) is that VCU puts a lot of resources into these two schools and thus they’re very good, but the rest of the university is more or less average. This wouldn’t affect me much since the vast majority of my classes would be in the arts school. SUVPA is not ranked as highly for fine arts by USnews, but SU has a bunch of decent rankings from throughout many of its schools. Perhaps it’s not right of me to think about things along these lines…
-Ultimately I want to go to a school that will prepare me for my career. As I’ve said, my goal is to work for a production company that creates animated TV shows or films. I’ve seen some student work from VCUarts students and some of it I liked, some of it I didn’t like. I’ve seen work by SUVPA students, and honestly I wasn’t all that impressed by what I saw. I know this is a shortsighted way of judging the school as a whole since it’s ultimately up to me what I accomplish, but it gives me an idea of the kind of things they learn. As I said, I know a lot more about VCUarts at this point than I do about SUVPA. If anyone could perhaps give me some more info on SUVPA in their response, that would be much appreciated. But my main question is, what do you think? Would I be better off choosing VCU or SU?
whoops, forgot to finish writing (right before “When I did see SU”): This is interesting because they both have a foundation year where you basically take a set of core classes for arts students, and spend the next 3 years on your major.
I think you’d be insane to not go to VCU if you want a career in art. It’s the #2 art school in the country and for you is the economical choice. I just looked up Syracuse and it’s #10. I’m fairly certain that VCU innovated the art foundation curriculum in the early 1970’s.
You should be very careful with money if you intend to have a career in art. There are on line tools that will show you what your payment on student loans would be. $35k per year for four years is $140k, or about $1400 per month for ten years!!! Why would you mortgage your future for a lesser program?
Virtually every ad agency in this region and beyond is headed by a VCU grad. There have been some cartoonists from VCU. Phil Trumbo, the guy who created “Hey Doug” and Gary Brookins (“Shoe” and “Pluggers”) came from VCU ARTS. That’s just off the top of my head. VCU has a symbiotic program between the arts and business and engineering schools, da Vinci Center, that is constantly winning awards and professional experience for the participants.
At any rate you will do what you want. It drives me nuts to see kids borrow so much money that they will be wage slaves after college. And don’t forget your parents will have to co sign the loans. You can only borrow $5500 the first year.
OSPREY- you have any insight into VCU graphic arts undergrade? D Is choosing between RIT with $10,000 scholarship and VCUarts no money. Both are oos.
I’m actually in quite a similar situation as you. I got the exact same aid for cuse and would have similar tuition for VCUarts (eligible for honors program too), except I selected graphic design. I kind of agree with you on not being super impressed by the student work (different major but still) at VCU for graphic design, although the foundation year works on display were awesome. From the glimpse of what I saw in the Cuse warehouse, the students were very creative, but I’m not so sure about film. @OspreyCV22 , if you could offer more insight on the relationship between the arts and business schools I would really love to hear it!
Also, correct me if I’m wrong but after the foundation year at VCU they have you use the work you produced to apply to different majors, which is a really innovative concept but can perhaps also seem intimidating. The students also told me that if you slack off they WILL kick you out of their program. So the students there will definitely be motivated and hardworking.
After reading your summary I think VCU may be the better choice. Its program seems to be more suitable for what you want to pursue and you may like the atmosphere better since syracuse isn’t much of a city (and still 5 hours away from nyc). You can definitely work in nyc later with your connections and in the end it’s really about how much effort you put in. Also, it costs way less and you’ll stay in your state (idk if you would prefer that but for some it’s a plus).
@stones3 I didn’t see your question; has she made a choice yet? A quick google puts RIT as #33 for fine arts and VCU is #2. Which school is cheaper though? If you will be taking out loans for school I would go to the lower priced school. I know RIT has a reputation for engineering but I have never heard anything about their art program but I don’t live in that region.
@artschoolloll Google " VCU da Vinci." There should be many articles out there about the relationship.
Thanks I will look at VCU Da Vinci. RIT is a top ranked design school (maybe not fine arts) its very well known for things like industrial design, packaging, graphic design etx. Also, I know VCU is #2 grad program but how does that translate to undergrade? Any idea what VCUarts admission % ?
@stones3 - VCU was on my daughter’s short list of art schools. In addition to offering a broad range of art majors, the school is in a cool city, Richmond, and offers more of a mainstream campus life than most dedicated art schools. Admission stats are tricky with art schools because they are relatively high when compared to what we hear about mainstream college acceptance rates. Some of the most highly rated dedicated art schools, e.g., RISD and MICA, have seemingly high acceptance rates when you think of the sub-10% rates of Stanford and Ivy League schools. My understanding is that a main reason for this is the relative unpredictability of student acceptance of admissions invitations. The mainstreams have this down to an actuarial science. The art schools, not so much. That said, my understanding from speaking with several deans of admission and attending numerous accepted students presentations, is that applications to dedicated art schools swelled this year. Pratt receiving more than 8,000 from which it accepted only 600. That’s getting down to the 7% range of elite mainstream colleges. Your child’s acceptance into any of these top schools is a great accomplishment! Btw, my daughter also applied to RIT. We found it (surprisingly) to be one of the most well-rounded, complete art programs to which she applied. She just doesn’t want to be in Rochester… Let us all know what your child decides.
thanks for the info. Looks like its going to be VCUarts! At least that’s what she said last night. In the end it really has the most to offer of any of the top schools we considered when you look at the full
spectrum from AFO to Da Vinci to Qatar to Grad program to Brand Center etc… Now we’ll see if she can actually take advantage of all that … where is your child going?