Hope this isn’t super late to be replying to this! And I apologize for the book I’m about to write, but I was in your daughter’s shoes about 7 years ago and just wanted to tell you my thoughts as someone who looked at a lot of the same schools.
I’m a scenic designer who attended DePaul. I’ve worked consistently for the past three years since graduating and will be interviewing soon for my MFA. When I looked at undergrad I checked out NYU, CMU, Emerson, Point Park, and DePaul. I was accepted into all and while DePaul was my third choice, it gave me a massive scholarship (DPU TTS gives amazing scholarships. Always ask for more money, they typically give it.)
My advice would be to ask your daughter what is most important to her. Does she want a big college experience with dorms and friends and a large campus? Does she want a very intense program or something that allows her to stretch a bit? And how certain is she that set design is right for her? Is she thinking of grad school?
I’ve dreamt of being a scenic designer since I was 13 and wanted an incredibly challenging and intense program in a city that has a lot of theater. I’ve found that being in Chicago was incredibly beneficial to my career for a lot of reasons. It’s a massive theater city- easily dozens of theatre companies that are eager to hire fresh faces and help newcomers out. It also meant that I could see more theater, which is pretty important when studying an art form. My teachers were all designing in the city so we saw their shows and were introduced to their colleagues, which put us in a great place to reach out to new acquaintances and get work. DePaul definitely doesn’t have much of a college culture- almost all the students live off campus after freshman year and we had a handful of theater parties. For the most part we worked twelve hour days either in tech or working on homework, etc. Although I missed having a football team and all the excitement with that, I found that it helped in some ways- I didn’t feel bad about having to be at the theater night after night working because I wasn’t really missing big college events. DePaul is also a conservatory, and while the first year is geared towards getting everyone on the same level in terms of artistic skills, you really don’t have the elbow room to explore much outside of your major. It’s very similar to a graduate program, which for people who are unsure of exactly what path they want to take can be very hard since changing a major most times means tacking another year or semester onto your already 4 year program. DePaul’s academics are also not really strong- I didn’t mind too much because I really just wanted to focus on theatre.
I would highly recommend a school in the city. CMU is an incredible program I couldn’t afford, but I have a friend who has his undergrad degree from there and designs for ABC in LA, doing TV, awards shows, etc. I’ve worked with some Emerson kids in Chicago and they definitely all look out for each other and like hiring each other to do jobs, and the friends I’ve had that go there have loved it and have work.
But just because she doesn’t go to a conservatory or city school doesn’t mean that she can’t also search out other opportunities. Everyone knows everyone in theater, which is actually really great when you work hard. I spent my summer before my senior year interning for some high profile designers that were more than happy to give a student a chance to experience first hand what it’s like to be successful in the field. Those names and shows on my resumes gave me a boost at larger theaters, who recognized the designers and knew that any intern of theirs must be trained well.
In terms of grad school, places like CMU, DePaul and Emerson will give her a BFA education that is equal to that of some of the mid-level graduate programs in the country. Because of that, it’s easy to go out and get work. I definitely recommend going somewhere where she could have a produced design, but I know that CMU doesn’t always guarantee it. However they do have a graduate program and your daughter would then get to meet people who have worked extensively already with a variety of places- and going back to the “everyone knows everyone”, winding up assisting a graduate designer could help her out so much, so please don’t mark the school off because of that. It’s a strong, amazing program.
I’ve talked a lot to older designers about their opinions on college and grad school for theater designers. Some believe that it’s totally worth it to pursue the top schools and really get a high quality education. Others have told me that a grad degree is just a check mark on a list of qualifications for larger designs and teaching jobs and your school doesn’t matter that much. A Tony-award winning designer told me that she’s still paying off her loan from graduate school and had to remortgage her condo in order to pay bills when a theater stiffed her a payment. Her main point was that theater isn’t worth going into debt for, although many feel differently. She was very adamant about taking on another major or minor that isn’t related to theater, because the fees and payments for designers are dwindling and often large designers also have a side job- such as a costumer testing fabric quality and strength for a manufacturing company, or a lighting designer teaching seminars about renewable energy, or something simple like being a landlord.
I guess lastly, the realities of working in theater are a lot different than simply going to school for it. Thousands upon thousands of kids go to school for design and wind up not doing anything with it. In the three years since I’ve graduated, I’ve had shows at regional theaters in multiple states and made a living wage, I’ve been unemployed for months, and I’ve been swamped with high-quality work in Chicago and still unable to pay bills. I’m living paycheck to paycheck now and work twelve hours almost every single day, alone in my apartment or at a theater. But I absolutely love it. I wouldn’t give up set design for anything, but in order to make a living you have to do something else- friends of mine assist larger designers and make a lot of money that way, others paint scenery for $20 an hour, others moved to Vegas to draft for large production houses and others are paint charges in small cities in the US, painting shows and having a great 9-5.
If she really wants this work, encourage her to go out and grab it by force. Any school that she goes to will help her in some ways and hinder her in others. Theater work is so finicky that again, she could have amazing work one year and be totally unemployed the next. Freelance is feast or famine, never in between, but the 9-5 design world does exist in event design and larger design companies. But theater is a wonderful community of some of the most caring, interesting and loving people I’ve ever met. Everyone is interconnected, everyone is willing to help fellow artists out, and the more people she knows that are doing the work she admires, the better off she is. That doesn’t have to happen through college though- internships, assistantships, summer stock, there’s just so many ways to have an education. I would never say that a person who goes to a state school will not be as successful, because it’s just untrue. The journey of education and growth isn’t a Point A to Point B thing, and the path of being an artist is typically long, crazy, winding and always surprising. I hope your daughter chooses somewhere where she is happy and comfortable, more than anything else.