<p>I'm just wondering if anyone else has made it into USC's grad film school and if so, what their stats were.</p>
<p>I am fully aware of how few people are accepted both to USC and UCLA as far as graduate film school programs go and I'm basically wondering if <em>everyone</em> who applies is some genius 4.0 student with a film-festival-winning short already completed, or if there are more normal applicants I'd be competing against (normal as in still top notch people but not perfect).</p>
<p>I have a 3.99 (as a philosophy major, by the way) and am finishing up my undergrad program winter term. I won't be applying to USC for admission for 2005, but for 2006. Although my GPA is excellent (I had one A-), it is coming from Oregon State University, which is at best a middle-of-the-road, non-selective university. I had an excellent GPA in high school, too (3.85), but didn't get into USC or UCLA and after one depressing term as a film production major at LMU in Los Angeles, I returned to Oregon to go to OSU. I'm not sure how graduate admissions programs consider where you came from, though. I mean, OSU isn't an Ivy League school, haha, it isn't like straight As at OSU is super hard like it is at Stanford, but certainly I have done the best possible here. I couldn't do better than basically perfect grades, so I can't show that even at an Ivy League school I still would have excelled.</p>
<p>I also have no idea what your GPA means to a film graduate school. How important is it really? I obviously benefit the more weight that is put on grades, since mine are high. At OSU I have taken every offered class on film criticism, though we have no production program. I've taken film comedy, introduction to film studies, The New American Cinema, a study of the horror genre and specifically the Living Dead Trilogy (Night of the Living Dead, etc.). I'm also taking a screenwriting course my last term here at OSU with Prof. Lewis, who has written a number of books in the industry and is an editor for a major film journal. It's a tiny 10 person class, so I'm hoping to get a recommendation from him after this class (my 4th with him at OSU).</p>
<p>In my major, I've taken art and morality, art and aesthetics, film and religion, and film and philosophy next term. I decided to major in philosophy for the types of themes I could explore in film, with philosophy. That is my big goal, to be a philosopher through film. I am working on a paid research project with a professor next term as well on film and philosophy, so I have some academic work on the side to show for myself. There is a chance (this would probably almost guarantee me admission) that I will get to co-author a book on Star Wars and religion with Matthew Kapell, who edited Jacking Into The Matrix (he is a colleague of my film and religion teacher and she brought up the idea with him; he thought it would be fine, but hasn't found a publisher yet).</p>
<p>I have very little experience actually making movies, though, only a few old high school projects with friends and limited college work with a friend of mine working at the TV station here at OSU. I do, however, run a film review Website (OrbitalReviews.com) and I have done some professional freelance writing on film for online sources. I also wrote a book on Star Wars that found a literary agent in New York back about 3-4 years ago, before I graduated high school. So I have quite a few other extras on the side, but they're more on the lines of film criticism, film interpretation, and film analysis than actual production, which is what I want to do.</p>
<p>I stand a chance at winning the Outstanding Philosophy Student award this year, but again I am not sure if I will or not or if I did whether that'd mean much to a film grad school.</p>
<p>So what gives here? What do you have to have? I should be able to turn in some great essays for the application as I love writing and consider it one of my strengths, but am I competing against people with my same GPA who all went to better undergrad schools and have more filming experience? I am worried! Haha.</p>