Help Me Weigh College Acting Programs!

Hello CC friends! Upon receiving most of my college admissions decisions, I am trying to weigh the pros and cons of each program I have been accepted to. I really need help! Any links you can give me, ways to contact current/past students, personal opinions, etc, would be immensely appreciated. I was waitlisted to NYU Tisch yesterday, so my current options are:

  • Boston University (BFA)
  • Carnegie Mellon (BFA)
  • Emerson College (BFA)
  • Syracuse University (BFA)
  • UCLA (BA)
  • UCSD (BA)
  • USC (BA)

I am considering each one of those options, but the race is really coming down to Carnegie Mellon and UCLA. This is where I need to most help. A bit of context for each:

Carnegie Mellon:

  • One of the most respected, selective, prestigious collegiate acting programs in the world.
  • Daily intense acting training (which is important to me)
  • Lots of personal attention
  • High post-graduate success rate in both New York and Los Angeles
  • Cost: Over $70 thousand per year, and I would end up with lots (upwards of $150,000) of student debt.

UCLA:

  • Much broader, but less focused education, considering it is a BA
  • Lots of connections with friends who will end up writers and directors in the industry
  • Los Angeles location makes it possible to make connections with agencies/casting directors/producers while in college (even if you’re not allowed to audition while in school, it is still possible to market yourself, network, etc).
  • Cost (I live in Cali, so in-state tuition): About $35 thousand per year, with practically no student debt upon graduation.

As you can see there are pros and cons to both, and I would love any informed outside opinion. It is really coming down to this:

Do I want to spend four years focusing on my craft with day-in and day-out tunnel-visioned acting training, at one of the greatest acting institutions in the world, and come out of school (as an ACTOR) with $150,000 student debt?

OR

Do I want to spend four years networking, meeting both active industry-people and classmates who will end up in the industry, working on my acting skills with less focus, but also practicing writing/directing work, and come out of school with practically zero student debt?

As hard as it is to say no to CM, with instate tuition UCLA is amazing. I have heard great things about the program and they have produced some amazing talent. It is a BA, but conservatory style so you will get the same type of training you would receive at CM. That being said, CM on your acting resume makes casting directors pay attention. However, everything comes down to auditions, as you know.

What a choice to have! You must be incredibly talented so wherever you do end up, I don’t think you will have a problem finding work and being successful!!!

If I were your parent, I’d suggest going with the lowest college debt, allowing you to attend auditions after graduation, and not being a slave to the monthly payments. Have you looked at the monthly payments of the high debt schools? Imagine life after college, and do a budget, planning on living at home/in your own place with room mates/food/insurance/etc. I assume a parent is cosigning these loans, since your limit is much lower. There are student loan calculators that calculate how much you’ll need to earn per year to pay the monthly payment, enter the 150K, and look at the size of the payment.

You have amazing options and are clearly very talented!! I agree with @DoinResearch . Really, really look at the debt. This is exactly what we are trying to do with our S right now. Having little debt will allow you the freedom to network and audition after graduation while high debt will put you under a lot of pressure to make money right away. Plus, UCLA is UCLA! 120,000 applied this year! How can you say no?

I agree that UCLA with no debt is the obvious choice. About a year ago, someone posted here on CC, saying that they went to CMU, took out $90,000 in student loans, had graduated a year ago, and yet haven’t booked anything. This person was very upset and bewildered, saying that they must be talented since they got into CMU, and got all this great training, and yet isn’t booking roles and is suffocating in debt. There are no guarantees in this business. If you can go to a great school like UCLA and still get great training and not have any student loans, you will be way ahead of the game!

Do you want to be in film/tv? Go to UCLA. Not that the program is necessarily geared toward that, or that CMU students don’t do wonderfully in it, but come be in L.A., meet your peers, network, be part of it all, get a great education, and come out debt-free into a career where, unless you are VERY VERY VERY VERY VERY VERY lucky, it will take you a ton of time to pay it off.

Now, if you specifically want to work on the stage, might be a different conversation (though the debt convo would be the same…)

Congrats on such great acceptances and I do see why you are struggling here. However, 150k is a tremendous amount of debt (probably about $800-$1k a month in payments) and plenty of people graduate from CMU and do not get agents or jobs right away. With the money you save at UCLA, you could do a summer intensive at Stella Adler or other such program to get that intense conservatory experience. My son knows several students in the acting program at UCLA and they do seem happy there. Good luck to you!

Using http://www.finaid.org/calculators/loanpayments.phtml, with debt balance of 150K over 10 years, its over $1700 a month, minimum adjusted gross income of 114K annually to pay it off.

OMG. I think I’m gonna cry. NO!!! No, no, no, no, no …

Carnegie is an amazing program, but nothing is worth that kind of debt if you plan to be an actor. UCLA is a great option if you plan to stay in LA afterwards to pursue screen work. It also offers you the opportunity to stay in town during the summers to take industry-specific classes that most graduates of even the tippy top BFA conservatories are still going to need, but often won’t be able to afford because of all the debt with which they made the poor decision to strangle themselves when they were 18. I can make some recommendations if you’d like.

@Gyokoren Can you suggest any industry specific classes for summer? We are weighing options for our S and it is coming down to $$ vs. big name. Have family in LA and am thinking about summer being a time to spend there.

@frontrowmama Sure. The teachers that I always recommend to new graduates coming to LA are Lesly Kahn, John Rosenfeld, Billy O’Leary, and Stan Kirsch. They’re all part of the same teaching lineage and are kinda specialists at getting college trained newbies acclimated to what we really need to be able to do in the market. That’s why they’re often called finishing teachers. John, Billy, and Stan used to work for Lesly before they branched out to start their own studios with slightly different takes on things. I know that John has had college students study with him over breaks and I’m pretty sure that Billy would allow it. I don’t know as much about Stan and Lesly might be a little too tough for somebody still in school although she has a branch studio Santa Monica where one of her senior assistants is the main teacher, so there’s always that. However, I would honestly recommend that you maybe save any of them until the summer after third year because they’re more effective the more solid one’s foundation already is.

For after first and second year, I’d recommend a good on-camera class which is something I think college programs should begin first year and don’t. A great one for that would be Annie Grindlay since the intensive classes are twice-a-week although she will probably pass a younger student on to her assistant, Carla, who I’ve heard is excellent in her own right. Some other good ones to look into are Margie Haber Studio, Tess Kirsch, Saxon Trainor, Christinna Chauncey, and Robert D’Avonzo although I imagine that Robert has a mile-long waiting list after all the props that Jenna Fischer gave him in her new book.

Now some schools might frown on doing this or even forbid it and I’m not gonna say to do it anyway and just not tell them. haha However, something no school should have a problem with is improv. UCB has the hot hand with that right now and The Groundlings and Second City are great as well. I’m not as familiar with how the schedules at the latter two work, but at UCB, you could do one level per summer and then when you graduate, there would be one left to go before you would be eligible to join a team and that is always a good tribe to be a part of starting out - besides the beneficial effects it can have on one’s acting in general.

@Gyokoren Wow! Thank you so much for this information! It is very much appreciated and I will hold on to this!!