Trying to decide among 4 art schools (1 of which is not NASAD accredited

College Majors Visual Arts and Film Majors
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<p>Hi,
My son, N has been accepted to four art schools:</p>

<p>Savannah College of Art & Design (SCAD) - GA
School of Visual Arts (SVA) - NY
Ringling College of Art & Design - FL
Rocky Mountain College of Art & Design (RMCAD) - CO</p>

<p>Most of my family has sought after engineering, business, law, and medical degrees and therefore we know little about art schools. N's 1st choice was SCAD and has been so since he was a Junior. He was very excited until a few months ago when he had several discussions on the fact that SCAD is not NASAD accredited. Now he is concerned and quite frankly, confused by the decision he needs to make in the next few DAYS!</p>

<p>I read the recent thread posted on this site on the NASAD accreditation process, and that has shed some light and helped me to understand a litle more. However, I don't want the fact that SCAD is not NASAD accredited to interfere on future opportunities for N when he graduates.</p>

<p>Any insight or feedback on the remaining schools as well as the NASAD issue is appreciated.</p>

<p>Thanks</p>

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<p>Oh--BTW, he has been accepted as a BFA Advertising Design Major at SVA and Ringling, but SCAD has his specific major of choice which is Broadcast Design & Motion Graphics
Thanks</p>

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<p>there's little reason to believe that SCAD's lack of NASAD accreditation will affect his prospects in the future. it's not analogous to ABET-accreditation for engineering or anything like that, and it's accredited by other organizations already.</p>

<p>if he likes SCAD that much, then he should go there. if the accreditation deal still bothers him, i guess Ringling would be close in terms of environment, considering how they're both in the middle of nowhere in the South....</p>

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<p>The NASAD 'issue' is only an issue on these forums and others like this (such as core77) because a particular poster keeps trying to make it one. I taught at SCAD for close to five years. It's not perfect, but it's got a great deal going for it, particularly if your son is self-driven and motivated to seek out opportunities on his own. </p>

<p>Try reading these threads, too:</p>

<p>Core77.com</a> :: View topic - SCAD: comments, questions?
Core77.com</a> :: View topic - Does school accreditation mean a lot?</p>

<p>Take care.</p>

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<p>cwoolri201, I have been giving this a lot of thought over the years. NASAD tries to ensure that participating schools, and most top art schools are participating, have set certain standards for their programs. If you do your research, you will find that the vast majority of art programs and especially stand alone art schools are NASAD accredited. Moreover a number of professional organizations advise NASAD membership ( such as IDSA,which is for industrial designers as an example.). Thus, if there is a stand alone art school that isn't a member, it certainly raises questions for me.</p>

<p>I equate this with a business belonging to the Better Business Bureau (BBB). The BBB tries to make sure that their members act appropriately and deal ethically with their customers. Can a business be a good business for customers without belonging to BBB, Yes! However, if they don't belong to BBB, it would warrant questions in my mind about them and certainly make me do more of an investigation before I deal with this business. Personally,I rarely, ever deal with businesses that aren't BBB members.</p>

<p>NASAD is similar to the above-noted analogy. Yes, non-NASAD schools can be fine just like businesses that don't belong to BBB. This becomes particularly true since portfolios are crucial in job offers. In fact, there are people on various forums that argue that NASAD membership is irrelevant since portfolios and the local accreditation are all that matter.</p>

<p>However, you have to really ask why a school wouldn't belong to NASAD. I just think that if a school isn't a NASAD member, this warrants a lot further investigation. I can assure you the reason isn't solely cost or administrative hassle because the vast, vast majority of stand alone art schools belong to NASAD, just like the vast majority of businesses belong to BBB. In fact,the percentage of stand alone art schools belonging to NASAD is probably higher than the percentage of small businesses belonging to the BBB.</p>

<p>To be honest, if there were two comparable schools, offering two comparable programs, and one was NASAD accredited and one wasn't, I would send my kid to the NASAD program. Will it necessarily help in job offers, maybe and maybe not. However, it certainly can't hurt!</p>

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<p>Our D looked long and hard at SCAD when she was considering straight art schools (she went Lib Arts University with an art school within route) and were she to have gone the art school route it would have been SCAD or KCAI due to their reputations for gettting their student's goals met. Having just gone through this it is my NOT humble opinion that the two most important factors in evaluating any school are Program & Feeling of Fit for the student. It sounds like SCAD is that for your son.</p>

<p>In all of our dealings with SCAD they have stuck out as absolutely dedicated to the mission of producing graduates who get jobs in the career fields that they want. Contact the department head for Broadcast Design & Motion Graphics and ASK them some pointed questions about job placement post grad. Do not let anyone(including me) on an internet bulletin board do your due diligence or make your mind up for you. Motivated happy students thrive and produce good things wherever they are. Another thing I suggest you do is to talk to some people who do hiring in your S's intended field and ask THEM if NASAD accrediation matters and ask them about each of the schools he is considering.
Best wishes on your process and remember, CC and other sites like it are basicly faceless opinions of nameless people, some of whom have agendas. That is not to say there aren't some great ideas to gleen from all this but take it all with a grain of salt and ultimately trust yourselves. You know more than you think you do and you can find out most [factual] answers for yourself with a simple google search or search of a school's website.</p>

<p>Toxic-
Since when is Savannah the middle of nowhere??? It is one of the most famous & oldest historical cities in the US and with SCAD branch campuses in France and Atlanta one can hardly say it is in the middle of nowhere.</p>

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<p>Taxguy-
Based upon your screen name and what I know I do for a living, you and I are both business people and I am guessing about the same age since our kids are close in age. I think a better question in this situation is would you ever hire a graduate (were you in a position to do so) from a school that was not NASAD accredited?
I WOULD... matter of fact, knowing what I know now, it would be the LAST thing I would consider. Furthermore, considering all the people (both students & faculty) that I have come in contact with during the college search process, I would first identify schools that had the specific program in the area I wanted to hire and then look at the track record of others who have entered that field fron the school to just identify students I would like to interview - after that the school they attended would fade away as a factor in their hiring and I would focus on the individual, their talent, and how they presented themselves.</p>

<p>It seems you wouldn't even consider hiring someone from a school not NASAD accredited? If that is correct, then we cancel each other out.</p>

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<p>I think there are bigger fish to fry than NASAD accreditation here. In terms of quality, reputation, and location, one of your schools stands out pretty far from the rest. Unfortunately, it doesn't offer the ideal major. I would look to see if the better school overall had anything to offer in that area despite it not being a named major- some schools have a designated separate major for every little branch of things, whereas others have more broad majors and allow specialization to occur based on elective choices. So if there is some level of support for the sort of work that your son wants to do at SVA, then he should go there and never look back.</p>

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<p>Believersmom, I would definitely take a look at the work done by the student who attended the NON-NASAD school. If I were impressed with his/her work and interview, I probably WOULD hire them, if that would surprise you and others here. </p>

<p>As I said, it is accreditation and portfolio that matters most and maybe the quality of the courses and/grades might also filter into the equation . </p>

<p>That said, I still think that attending a NASAD accredited school is better than one that isn't a member. There maybe educational differences, better quality liberal arts offerings etc. I don't know. Also, if I am going to post a job listing, I probably would pick a NASAD school for job listings over that of a NON-NASAD school </p>

<p>I will admit that I think that you and larationalist make a good point: if there were offerings at SCAD that I didn't feel were as good at NASAD schools, I would send my kid to SCAD.
MY problem is that I don't know why a school isn't NASAD accredited. One poster noted that NASAD requires a minimum compensation standard for professors. Maybe professors at non- NASAD schools receive less! If that were the case, wouldn't the better professors be teaching elsewhere? Frankly, I don't think I and you will ever know the reasons for non-accreditation.</p>

<p>Moreover, as a non-artistic parent, I have NO WAY of really evaluating the quality of an art school or the knowledge or reputation of its professors. Maybe Kolko was trained by Ansil Adams? Who knows. </p>

<p>However, assuming that I can get a quality program for my kids in the same major,why not send them to a NASAD approved program?</p>

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<p>taxguy, there are a host of reasons, many of which are perfectly harmless, and I'm sorry if I oversimplified in my other post. Some besides the finances....</p>

<p><em>politics. If someone at the school gets </em>*ed off at someone at NASAD, they suddenly decide not to be accredited anymore.
*NASAD likes things lumped together. I think you can get art majors accredited without the design majors, but not the other way around (I think I'm remembering this right, but there's a chance that I'm exactly backwards). Anyway, this creates situations where programs are dependent on each other to maintain accreditation, which sometimes causes difficulties. So for instance a school isn't accredited, and maybe that's because of the ceramics program, but you're interested in graphic design. Does that have an impact on your program of interest? Not really.
*Accreditation costs money. Yes, I know these places charge an arm and a leg, but administration costs are a real kicker. If a school decides they'd rather have some new computers or better cameras or what have you, then I'd have a hard time saying they should have spent that money on NASAD accreditation.</p>

<p>I have never seen an employer advertise that they specifically want someone with a degree from a NASAD school. I have never heard anyone outside of these forums site accreditation as a big mark against a school. Go where you will get the best education, and let your portfolio do the talking when you graduate.</p>

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<p>Larationist, what you are saying makes sense and is probably true. SCAD, however, was in an unusual position. It had some charges against it for athletic fraud a while back. There were also a number of charges spearheaded by a former SCAD professor, of academic dishonesty by the institution,with supporting documentation etc. Thus, you are talking about an organization that had a lot of dishonesty allegations leveled against them!</p>

<p>Admittedly, these were at least 5-10 years ago;however, there was a LOT of bad "smoke" concerning SCAD . To clear this up, they absolutely should have gotten NASAD accreditation! It would have been good business and frankly, I think would have put a lot of these suspicions to rest. Failing to do this, just makes me and others even more suspicious about them. </p>

<p>You mention it could be a combination of factors such as cost and administrative hassle. Frankly, that is baloney. SCAD has plenty of money. Moreover, probably 95%++ of the stand alone art schools have NASAD accreditation EXCEPT SCAD. Why not?</p>

<p>I met two professors on this forum alone (RainingAgain and maybe Kolko) who were fired. Does SCAD not have tenure as with other institutions? If so, does this affect the quality of professors that they attract? We will never know, and this is the problem. WE WILL NEVER KNOW!
There is just something here that doesn't sit right with me! Usually, when I smell a rat, there are rodents running around!</p>

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<p>Personally I like a school that seems a bit maverick in how it does things. In higher education there isn't enough fresh ideas and stimulation. As for tenure - it is a policy I despise in all levels of education as I believe it creates complacancy. I'd rather have professors/teachers that know they need to stay fresh and effective to keep their jobs. And lastly, sometimes after rats have been exterminated there remains signs that rats were once there - plus just a correction, when you SMELL rats they usually aren't running around it is because they are dead.</p>

<p>There isn't a school in the country that is scandal/blemish free and taxguy you seem to know a lot about what it takes or what the criteria is for NASAD accreditation and seem to think it would be very easy for SCAD to qualify, why is that not good enough? If you don't know the criteria that well then why does it matter to you so much? The fact that SCAD appears to have "plenty of money" is irrelavant to how THEY choose to spend it. Perhaps they don't see the cost/value return that you would were you the president of the school. Perhaps it is because they are a FOR profit business and as such are under no obligation to open their books to the general public? Again, I think running higher education (or any education for that matter) as a business is a good thing.</p>

<p>Additonally, NASAD accreditation, contrary to what you put forth, does NOT insure that the general public will know any more about the quality of the professors than they are able to gleen now. So in essence, they could get NASAD accreditation and you still "...WILL NEVER KNOW!"</p>

<p>"There is just something here that doesn't sit right with me!" Something? What? Do you mean BESIDES the lack of NASAD accreditation, which is the beaten dead horse that I think you are really smelling :) )?</p>

<p>Don't hint or be coy, you have been analyzing SCAD for years here, what EXACTLY bothers you besides the NASAD thing? All the poking and vetting and due dilligence that you have done and continue to do despite your D being happily off to school now, and you just have this vague "something"? C'mon, what is the real deal?</p>

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<p>Look Believersmom, I just gave my opinion. You may take it any way you wish. I don't have specific information about SCAD since I have never visited the school. I freely admit this. I also freely admit that I am not artist.</p>

<p>As for tenure, frankly, I don't like it either. However, top professors generally will go where it financially better for them. If one school out of hundreds don't give tenure, guess what? Top folks won't generally stay there! However, we don't know if tenure is the issue for their lack of NASAD accreditation, or whether is comparable pay for professors, or whether it's the peer review requirement for NASAD school or whether it's the liberal arts requirement or something else. We just don't know.</p>

<p>I'll guess we will agree to disagree.</p>

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<p>
[quote]
Toxic-
Since when is Savannah the middle of nowhere??? It is one of the most famous & oldest historical cities in the US and with SCAD branch campuses in France and Atlanta one can hardly say it is in the middle of nowhere.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>personally, history doesn't make a difference to me. i used to live in Virginia, right next to UVA. Jefferson built it, blah blah blah, and that's nice and all, but i like the place for what it is now, not what it was before. Savannah is a historical site, but there still isn't a whole lot there. Atlanta and Paris are different, but i'm assuming the person in question will be in Savannah, as most people are.</p>

<p>anyway, it seems the bottom line as of now is SCAD is nationally recognized, whether accredited or not.</p>

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<p>Toxic_Waste, Let me make one thing clear about SCAD: They are accredited. There seems to be this confusion between having regular accreditation and NASAD accreditation. NASAD is an additional and optional accreditation. Schools like SCAD can have regional accreditation,which is found in all accredited colleges and universities without having to have this additional accreditation. My problem with SCAD has NOTHING to do with their regular accreditation,which they are.</p>

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<p>^ i know it's accredited by others, if you remember my first post. i was just trying to make a concise statement.</p>

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<p>Wow. RainingAgain has said, many, many times, that he wasn't a Professor, ever, in any way.</p>

<p>I left, quite happily, on my own free will, after five great years of teaching. </p>

<p>Do you have any idea what you are talking about at all, or are you just loud?</p>

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<p>Not that I want to throw in with TG :) ... but in the recent thread about accreditation <a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/arts-majors/498447-benefits-nasad-accreditation.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/arts-majors/498447-benefits-nasad-accreditation.html&lt;/a>
RA actually admitted he(she) was a prof that was in the firings with Rowan(?) and legal settlements prevent RA from saying more - which actually I believe says a lot considering that after that RA can be very objective about the school and what a great education it offers. In addition to you and RA, I have met and gotten to know other profs from SCAD and I've never been anything except impressed. I hope that when the time comes D will consider SCAD for grad school as I believe it will serve her well.</p>

<p>And MAN, jkolko, you are up EARLY!!!</p>