• California Coll of the Arts (San Francisco)
• Lesley U (LUCAD)
• Maryland Inst Coll Art
• Sch of Visual Arts
And I’m still waiting to hear back from
Cal Arts (response March 1st) and Pratt Inst (response April 1st). Also, MICA is the only school so far that’s offered me a scholarship, so that’s something to keep in mind.
Ideally, I’d like to double major in Fine Art (or Illustration depending on the kinds of people in that major) and Film, but unfortunately schools like SVA don’t allow that. SVA also doesn’t have a meal plan and has gotten a lot of bad reviews, but I’m tempted to go just for the location. MICA does offer double majors, but it would add a year to my undergraduate studies, which really sucks. I live in New York, so I don’t know if I’ll ever even get to see CCA, but from what I can tell it seems cool. I really like LUCAD, it has everything I want, but I feel like a degree from there is less impressive and the art school is waaaayyy too small. I don’t want to be a big fish in a small pond, I want to be amongst peers who want to collaborate and stuff like that.
Pratt and CalArts are both amazing schools but I’m not gonna count my chickens before they hatch - I just want to look at the ones I’ve gotten into already.
The major thing for me is a good environment for networking, opportunities to do theater/improv/stand-up, and classes that are engaging but allow for students to explore the city they’re in and get a head start in art fields. Also, I’m the kind of person values “interesting” over “good/nice”, so a pretty campus and gentrified neighborhoods really don’t weigh on how much I’ll get out of a school.
I really hope someone can guide me in the right direction with all this! Thanks so much in advance!
MICA, Pratt and SVA all have great illustration programs. Pratt is actually a bit more broad: you major in Communication Design and then sub specialize in illustration in your junior and senior year. It’s meant to be an interdisciplinary major so that you are well trained in illustration, advertising art and graphic design when you graduate. Freshman year you take the standard Art and Design foundation, then during Sophomore year you take foundational courses in ComD to expose you to the three disciplines. It’s a pretty structured program. Not sure if there is a minor in film - you’d need to check that out.
MICA is very interdisciplinary in comparison. They really encourage a major/minor combination so perhaps you can find room to major in one discipline and minor in the other. You would then be able to graduate in 4 years.
SVA is probably the strongest of the three in film but that’s just a feeling rather than based on actual observed rankings. It’s in Midtown so very different from Brooklyn and of course doesn’t have a campus. Pratt’s film department is very small but they have brand new facilities that look really cool.
You should definitely plan to visit as many schools as you can for Accepted Students Day - especially the NY schools.
One more thought: if you are considering film (time based media) along with illustration (which will depend on good observational and figure drawing skills) have you considered a major in animation? SVA and Pratt have excellent animation departments and MICA is respectable as well.
I don’t know anything about your other schools except that CalArts is tops, of course ^:)^
Congratulations on being accepted! Good luck with your remaining schools and with your eventual decision!
congrats on getting accepted to those schools! (I’ve actually applied to a lot of those schools too (MICA, SVA, Pratt) as well as some others)
“what school should i pick” threads are always super tricky because only you know what’s best for you (or at least you’ll know a lot better than strangers on the internet haha). Ultimately you’ll need to visit as many schools as you can too! Because what’s on paper will be completely different from when you step on campus and get to experience it for yourself. I probably can’t add much, since Mamelot covered a lot of useful stuff already, but…
SVA is a for-profit school so it won’t give out much scholarship and it’s already pretty expensive. I’ve seen a lot of bad reviews from there too. SVA’s main selling point is being in a big city/being surrounded by lots of creativity in general. There will be a lot of good artists going here that will motivate you, but also there’s probably going to be lots of not-so-good artists too considering SVA’s acceptance rate. With the internet and social media these days, it’s not hard to network and meet other artists online! I follow plenty of artists who were hired because of their social media presence too so being in a hot spot city isn’t necessary!
You said you liked LUCAD, but worry about it being small/less impressive but degrees hardly matter nowadays. Again, the internet is pretty big and you can always interact/collaborate with other artists online if you happen to be a big fish in a small pond (but I wouldn’t worry about this either).
MICA will give you a chance to do both things you’re interested in and that’s really good! you’re going to be paying a lot for an education so it might as well be things you want to learn. and an extra year isn’t that bad at all! they also gave you a scholarship; art school really isn’t worth going into major debt IMO. I don’t know much about the Baltimore area, but I’ve seen a lot of great artists coming from MICA (which motivated me to apply).
I don’t know if any of this was helpful? But I wish you the best of luck in choosing which school to go too!! Good luck!
That absolutely helps! Thank you so much!
(And as of today I found out I’ve been accepted to CalArts so that puts things in a whole new perspective! I think I’m between MICA ane CalArts right now! Super stoked
Congrats on all your acceptances! My son is awaiting CalArts for film (but I think it’s a huge reach and a little scared it’s so far away…!) he is also considering MICA but the year of foundation art really throws him off. He is a film guy, not an artist. He takes AP Studio Art now and does all his projects in photography. Wondering when @Mamelot said it’s interdisciplinary did you mean after that first year?
@BostonMomof3 yes, after the first year. MICA might offer an elective or two during the foundation year but in general all art/design schools - particularly those accredited by NASAD - are going to include a pretty standard first year. Not a lot of choice there. One thing about MICA, though, is that it does attract a good number of “non traditional” artists, many of whom, like your son, are not trained in the traditional drawing and painting and sculpture. So foundation year will be new to them as well!
You might pick up the book Art Schooled which was published in 2010. It was written about MICA and I found it very helpful in understanding the school. It’s a great place.
