<p>Does anyone have more info on USC Interactive Media compared to the University of Utah Entertainment Arts and Engineering? Any info would be greatly appreciated! Thanks</p>
<p>Focusing about that, too</p>
<p>Son just got Presidential Scholarship at Utah! for the EAE program.</p>
<p>It is probably much easier to be accepted to the Utah program as the rumor is the USC IMGD has a 3% acceptance rate.</p>
<p>^and even if you weren’t accepted into the utah program you could change majors into it very easily.</p>
<p>Not applying for the Utah EAE program but also applying to the U of U for other reasons, was hoping for a large scholarship but haven’t received anything yet…both of my favorite schools, utah and usc, have yet to come through…</p>
<p>@rgosula where are you from and when did you receive the scholarship notification, was it in a packet or just a letter?</p>
<p>@GamerGal, Yes, possibly easier, since he did not get invited to USC interviews. But certainly put us on notice, since it is full non-resident tuition, plus housing, plus a stipend. And the Princeton Review ranked them #1 undergraduate gaming.
<a href=“Top Game Design Press Release | Public Relations | The Princeton Review | The Princeton Review”>http://www.princetonreview.com/game-design-press-release.aspx</a></p>
<p>@yoskis, packet yesterday - southern california. Question: why is it one of your 2 favorite schools? We still are wondering how Utah ended up ranking so high in Game design, when the university is not ranked so high overall.</p>
<p>Son is still hoping for 1/2 National Merit at USC , plus Pell and CalGrant, and that could make it happen there too, but the Utah scholarship is so darn good.</p>
<p>Couple other links as we are trying to convince ourselves:
<a href=“http://continuum.utah.edu/features/game-on”>http://continuum.utah.edu/features/game-on</a>
<a href=“University of Utah's video game design program No. 1 in nation - The Salt Lake Tribune”>University of Utah's video game design program No. 1 in nation - The Salt Lake Tribune;
<p>I work in the videogame industry (market research company with devs as my clients) and am very familiar with the pros and cons of the top schools. I was shocked to see Utah come out of nowhere but I believe they have a fabulous new facility, faculty with real-world experience and partnerships with top developers. </p>
<p>@GamerGal : what is your personal ranking of the game design schools? Not just between these 2, but what would be your top 10? With a summary of your pros/cons?</p>
<p>@rgosula It is 20 minutes from the mountains. I can ski everyday in the winter and climb, hike and bike in the summer. There is more to college than the rankings. I can graduate at the top of my class with an ABET accredited degree in whatever field of engineering I want to do with. Have no debt even without scholarships-instate tuition after the first year-have less academic stress. Rankings are definitly NOT everything. However, there are some definite negatives. The comuter school aspect, the mormon population-which can be good and bad-, the fact that it is basicly unknown. It is not Harvard-which I got into early- but who cares, that is not what life is all about. </p>
<p>That is why USC is/was(?) my dream school. Highly ranked school on the up and up. Active ski team with a cabin in mammoth even with mammoth being far away form the mtns. Great engineering and business schools. Warm location in an urban enviroment, diverse school, great campus life. </p>
<p>Good luck tho</p>
<p>My son has also applied to Game Design programs. We nixed Utah due to its location which probably was not fair as some of the other schools he applied to were also far away from the industry. We were looking for a more traditional college experience and so eliminated schools like DigiPen or Full Sail. At the end of the day here are his choices in order of priority:</p>
<ul>
<li>USC</li>
<li>RPI</li>
<li>WPI</li>
<li>RIT (check out that forum for my pros and cons list)</li>
<li>Drexel (Will be declined)</li>
<li>DePaul (Safety. Will be declined)</li>
</ul>
<p>USC is his top choice due to having faculty who actually worked at developers, it’s location in the middle of the industry (which really helps with internships), it’s brand new interactive media building and it’s outstanding reputation which helps anyone get a job. If you walk into a dev with a USC game design degree peoples eyes light up.</p>
<p>He has already been admitted to WPI, DePaul and Drexel, all with generous scholarships. RIT has a brand new MAGIC studio and based on their scholarship grid he will get a good scholarship plus it is $10k less expensive than the other five schools. </p>
<p>By far USC is his top choice. But with IMGD being so extremely competitive he put the USC Viterbi CS (games) degree as his second choice. My personal opinion is he won’t be accepted to IMGD but may be to Viterbi. If so then we will need to compare and contrast all the remaining schools including cost. That program is so CS focused and there is no room for a sound/music design minor which he really wants to do as well.</p>
<p>I guess you being in the industry helped your son focus his choices on gaming more than my son.
My son applied to USC/Utah/Georgia Tech/UC Santa Cruz due to their game programs,
but also applied to UCLA/Berkeley/MIT/Stanford/Caltech due to general engineering strength.
Also we are probably more focused on the Computer Science side, as he chose Viterbi-Games as first choice and SCA as second choice.</p>
<p>By the way his stats are 2300 SAT, 4.0 UW, 4.42W, NMSF, Robotics Club, Summer Internship Android game development, Latino</p>
<p>Your sons stats are definitely higher than my sons stats. His are 3.83 UW, 5.3/5.0 W, 31 ACT, top 10%… He had strong essays and excellent recs. I think his portfolio was solid but when only 20 are selected for IMGD out of 1,000 (supposedly) the odds are just poor.</p>
<p>I waffle on CS (games). I actually think he would be happier at RIT, WPI or RPI. At RPI he would only need to take 4 more courses and he would have his CS degree as well.</p>
<p>My son is in about the same situation. He has a lot of programming and game design experience and has had a summer software developer internship. His states are 2380 SAT, 4.3 WGPA. NMSF.</p>
<p>So far his results are:</p>
<p>USC Viterbi CS (games) still his first choice, but not invited to scholarship interviews,
USC SCA second choice. I loved his portfolio; but what can I say, I’m his mom.</p>
<p>U of Utah, with full-tuition, OOS scholarship We visited while on a ski trip. Very attractive for quality of life and financially.</p>
<p>UT Austin, Turing Scholars (attracted to new game design program in collaboration with Radio-Television-Film school) </p>
<p>MIT deferred EA
Carnegie Mellon, waiting
not really considering other schools, although he applied to two more.</p>
<p>Watching this thread with interest. My son wants a CS (games) degree. His stats are lower than the ones in this thread so far (3.4 UW, 1950 SAT) but he has a lot of game development experience and a strong soccer background. USC Viterbi is his big reach. He’s into Utah, Oregon State, DigiPen, Chapman, U of the Pacific, and Drexel. Waiting on Northeastern and will probably apply to UVic. </p>
<p>This is going to be an interesting decision. The schools are pretty different, and I’m not sure how my son will decide. We’re making some visits, but I’m not sure how to evaluate the programs. I also have a CS (but not gaming) background. As @GamerGal27 says, internships and industry location may turn out to be a big factor. Although here in Seattle there are plenty of companies for him to intern with if he comes back in the summers.</p>
<p>As you are visiting schools the first thing to do is grab the head of the games program and ask them point blank “How many of your games faculty have actually worked at a developer?” I have done this and been astonished at the lack of real-world experience. </p>
<p>On internships and co-ops one can always rent an apartment in another city if your school is far away. However you can’t solve the problem of faculty not having experience.</p>
<p>There are six big gaming hubs in North America: San Francisco, LA, Seattle, Austin, Montreal and Vancouver. Living in Seattle will definitely help with internships.</p>
<p>Wow, GamerGal, seattle_mom, rgosula, and geomom, your sons all sound truly amazing. This field/major has certainly ramped up in a big way over the past 7 years–my S1 started at USC IMGD in 2008,and S2 in 2011. If there are any specific questions you have about the program or any other aspect, I’d be happy to try to answer them. Best of luck to your sons!</p>
<p>@madbean you are so nice to say so!</p>
<p>Here is the dark side of being in the games industry:</p>
<ul>
<li>a 7 year average tenure due to burn out from incredibly long hours</li>
<li>big publishers continually going out of business reducing opportunities for corporate jobs</li>
<li>lots of smaller devs popping up as well as influx of Indie devs which means learning how to get games published is key (RIT actually has a publishing group)</li>
<li>having my sons peers raise an eyebrow when he says he wants to get into game design as many for-profit schools have denigrated the reputation</li>
</ul>
<p>I am sure I will think of more cons later.</p>
<p>Having a CS spin to the major makes one much more marketable as they could always make a lateral slide into another industry.</p>
<p>I agree with these downsides. The things that make me approve of this as a path are:</p>
<ul>
<li>My son already puts in long hours either working on games or reviewing them in his blog. I don’t think he could stop his creative urges if he tried.</li>
<li>His ambition is to start an Indie game company.</li>
<li>His peers already raise their eyebrows because he doesn’t compete in the math/science competitions they think are most prestigious. He already marches to his own drummer.</li>
<li>He will get a CS major as well as maybe a math major, and understands he needs a fall-back strategy.</li>
</ul>
<p>My son has also applied to CS (Games) at USC, which is his first choice and a bit of a reach. I am just going mad with anxiety waiting to hear at the end of March! He has been accepted at DigiPen, which is his 2d choice, and UH Manoa (safety - both academic and financial - probably won’t go there unless can’t afford anything else). Waiting on USC, Santa Cruz (probably no way in heck we can afford it, being OOS and so little aid available, but he insisted on applying) and U/Denver. He’ll be fine if he gets into USC any way - into Dornsife (he’ll just transfer to CS later), in the spring…</p>
<p>I just don’t know what to expect (and I’ve read ALL the threads, so I’m not seeking “chances,” just venting). He has a 3.93 UW GPA (our school doesn’t weight, or offer AP courses - he’s taken all available “honors” courses, and also two programming classes through Stanford’s EPGY program, getting As in both), but only 31 ACT (and 1960 SAT, which he submitted, but maybe shouldn’t have… even his math was only 680, but judging from his broken down ACT score, it was the basic math questions that tripped him up with “stupid mistakes,” he got As in pre-calc and in his first trimester of a very challenging honors calculus course!). He’s very bright and has done a lot of programming but doesn’t do well on standardized tests for some reason. His high school doesn’t rank, but he must be in the top 2-3, maybe even #1 - but his graduating class has only 32 students. So, he’s what @Madbean might call “top of one heap”. He’s been a competitive swimmer for 10 years, earning some top-8 places at the State championships in distance events (but not good enough times to swim for a Div I school, and he doesn’t want to anyway), and loves to act - even considering a theater minor. He did FIRST robotics for 4 years (lead programmer in 11th/12th), founding member of the film club. His passion, outside of programming, is writing and drawing on an interactive role-play blog he created. His essay related to overcoming some challenges he’s faced in that. I have no idea whether it was “great” or “horrible” - it did capture his voice and spirit. He had what he feels was a “fantastic” interview with a Viterbi rep in early December.</p>
<p>I am constantly waffling in my head between “he’ll never get in” because of his SAT score, lack of a bazillion “leadership” roles, AP courses, or any substantial “feel good” community service (he got his mandatory hours, and a lot more, setting up computers at his school and helping faculty with IT), and “maybe he has a chance at Dornsife, at least” because of his GPA, swimming (not a hook, just a sustained EC) and acting. I’ve heard that male actors can be in demand? But he’s not a URM or even a female interested in engineering, he doesn’t have a nobel prize, nor has he even created any but the most rudimentary video games. Ugh - I wish this waiting were over, already! It’s bothering me a lot more than him, mainly because I really think it would be better for him if he went to a “real” university instead of DigiPen, and I’m not sure we can afford DigiPen anyway. While he really wants to go to USC, and feels it is the perfect place for him, he also thinks he’ll be happy at DigiPen if he gets dinged from USC. He is pretty easy-going (I’m not, in case you haven’t figured that out), and he loves Seattle.</p>
<p>He didn’t apply to Utah because it is more of a “commuter” school and he didn’t feel like he’d be comfortable in that environment; also he’s an atheist and worried about being persecuted in such a religious city. He wants to stay on the west coast, at least no farther east than Denver, so WPI, RIT, etc. were all out. We visited USC, DigiPen, Denver, and several other schools in October, and from that he put together his list. Now I’m wishing he’d applied to a few more schools.</p>
<p>But mostly I just wish the waiting was over. Thanks for “listening.”</p>