hey can anyone give me information or personal experience on some schools im applying for?
ringling school of art and design
cal arts
savannah school of art and design
any first hand information or reviews would be great
thanks
Well, if you have money, The Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California, also known simply as Art Center, is generally regarded as the best art school. It is very competitive. You’ll be paying for a good education, and you’ll be paying a lot of money for it; about $11,000 each term. The good news is that it’s in a big city, and companies will frequently give students real-life projects to do. So it’s good for networking for future jobs and getting good experience, so long as you don’t mind going into debt for the price of a luxury car, or more.
As for other schools, interestingly enough, my house is a 10 minute walk from Cal Arts in Valencia, California. It’s a very well rounded art school in both traditional art, animation, and music. Again, also very expensive. Valencia is one of the most pleasent places you can live in. It’s small(ish) but still sorrounded by big-city things to do, and there are a lot of people that work in the industry that live in the city. Cal Arts is known for their animation alumni. So, if you want to do things like, oh say, work for Disney, then Cal Arts is a good place to go (Disney get’s a lot of recruits from there).
Don’t forget that both of those art schools are very liberal. I’m not saying liberal is bad, but it is a good word to use to describe the atmosphere where you might occationally see a naked man playing his trumpet in the quad as a display of artistic self expression. So, things can be a little wierd, and that goes with most art schools. However, from my personal experience at Cal Arts, you don’t see a lot of that kind of stuff, maybe once or twice a year, so I wouldn’t fret too much if that’s something that you worry about.
I can’t tell you much about Savanah School of Art’s programs/education, but I can tell you that Savannah is quite a nice town. I live within a 4-5 hour drive of it, and if you like southern culture its pretty much the place to be.
Don’t forget, Forest Gump was filmed there 
.
what major are you looking for?
I want to major in animation, and right now im leaning towards Ringling.
Metsys did you attend calarts? how difficult was it to get in?
Calarts is more of an experimental animation school. However they produce really nice work. Ringling seems to be a technical animation school which produces great looking stuff with not much plot or originality. Savannah I heard was a really good school, yet cost 48000 a year. I go to Uarts and am majoring in Animation, its more geared to traditional 2d animation, but the concepts apply to 3d as well. Its fine are programs I think are what keep me going there. The sculpture courses are great and translate to 3d modeling skills in blender.
I was attending a music composition program there when I was in high school (back when I was serious about being a composer). So my experience is mainly with their music program and the general atmosphere of the school. Plus I associated with quite a few people that are very familiar with their programs. But no, I wasn’t a tuition-paying student with them. I’m not too sure exactly how hard it is to get in there, but I’m guessing it’s harder than the other schools you are applying for, since I’ve never heard of them :).
Since you are going into animation, Cal Arts is a good place to go. If you have the money, and get accepted, I’d go there.
If I had a chance like that, I’d go with Ringling. I’ve seen some of their work (it was over 6 years ago, but I remember), and that’s partly why I got interested in animation (but now I’m stuck with having to study Graphic Design…). But I think either Ringling or Cal Arts will be good for you.
One thing that might help you make a decision is to see a lot of the student work coming out of all those schools, and see which of their work fits more of what you’d like to do. Depending on the school, the students will usually do things a certain way or in a certain style or with a certain methodology, and it’s usually because of the types of teachers that get employed there.
See what’s coming out of those schools and see what’s more up your alley. That should help you make a decision or reinforce it.
damn, those are increadibly expensive, if you don’t mind travelling, europe is a lot cheaper (500€/y)