I was going to go to AI in Vancouver fresh out of high school, but it was $35k for a two year program (pricier than most 4 year degrees in Canada at the time), not including living expenses. I decided I should check with some of the game studios in the area to see if they actually hire as many people as the AI rep claimed. None of the studios said they'd hired anybody out of there, and the people I know who went there do not work in the field they went there to study.
I never really know what to say to people when they tell me they're going to AI. I want to tell them to quit, but I'm pretty sure they don't refund the tuition, and expect most of it paid up front.
[deleted]
2016-02-25 06:02
my god. Imagine how crushing that'd be, to go and spend 35k and find out that it was all for nothing. I still remember the guys from ITT tech giving a convincing pitch to my high-school friends and I, and some of us seriously considered going there. I still can't believe our school let those guys through the gates.
Well, to be fair, in that industry your portfolio speaks more than the school you went to. If you worked hard and did some amazing stuff while you were there you could probably get into the industry. As far as I'm aware the AI in Vancouver just ships grads over to the Electronic Arts studio across the street for a term and that counts as "95% of grads are working in the industry within 6 months of graduation", but they're rarely rehired for additional projects.
That said Kekai Kotaki went to an Art Institute, but he dropped out when a teacher told him to quit drawing and listen to the lecture. So he's basically a drop out of one of the worst art schools in North America, yet he's one of the biggest names in concept art now.
Well when I went they told me they had an 80% placement rate for jobs. At the time the school had 10 students in the program and not working in games or animation. They changed the program 3 times while I went. I was allowed to focus on TV animation/ production ( I wanted to do flash / storyboarding ) 6 months before I was to graduate I needed a 3d animation reel and only 3d, needless to say o didn't have enough money to finish out.
When I did try to go back I was told no, I needed to retake all of the classes that involved technology...... So every class.
Wow, that's messed up. I feel like they should have gotten some kind of legal trouble over that, but I guess since they're not an accredited college they probably don't have to adhere to the same rules a university or technical college would.
I'd assume that SVA isn't listed because the guy who runs the site hasn't come across it yet. I certainly don't think for-profit schools are excluded, as the school I attended (Concept Design Academy) is listed and was definitely for profit (although I certainly had a great experience there). There's also a handful of other for-profit schools I recognize there on the list (3 Kicks, Gnomon, etc.)
[deleted]
2016-02-26 06:14
Another good resource if you're interested in illustration is the Society of Illustrators. They have a list of all schools which have had students with winning entries in their annual scholarship competition (and plenty of other art schools as well), and if you click "view by winning entries" on top you can see how many awards each school's students have won.
Speaking of SVA (mentioned below), they rank second on this list with an impressive 208 awards, just below Ringling at 215.
Hello. I'm Andrew, the guy that runs ArtSchoolDB. Thanks for linking to the site and thanks to everyone who checked it out.
I wanted to address some of the things you guys mentioned.
I've gone back and forth on what types of schools to include. Someone mentioned for-profit schools. I started by listing primarily small ateliers and academies. For example I'm a student at the Ani Art Academy Waichulis. Schools like LAAFA, Grand Central Atelier, Concept Design Academy, Watts Atelier, all seem like affordable options that provide high quality education. You don't get a degree, but nobody cares about an art degree. Online schools are also heavily featured.
I wasn't sure whether to include some of the bigger, ridiculously expensive schools like Art Center or RISD, but eventually I did. I figure it's better for people to see what their options are.
I don't include universities or colleges unless they are specifically art schools. This is partly personal bias. I went to a very prestigious university after high school and was not impressed by what I saw there.
SVA isn't on the list right now because I took down the page for it. They employ some sort of service that will notify you if you don't have the right info or images on your site if it's related to SVA. I was supposed update the logo I was using and haven't gotten around to it. They are one of the schools I feel iffy about listing. Tuition's too high, plus cost of living in NYC.
Again, thanks for checking out the site. If any of you have suggestions to make it better, or you know of schools that should be featured let me know. The best way to get in touch would be through the contact page on the site.
[deleted]
2016-06-19 20:20
New Masters academy has an insane amount of content for what you pay for, there is one lecture on perspective that is a ridiculously long series and he covers so much.
Chinpokoman
2016-02-25 00:55
Pretty cool. Nice to see some honest reviews.
AutomatedApathy
2016-02-25 03:10
Glad to see the art institute not on there. A fraudulent school designed to steal money
Uncomfortable
2016-02-25 03:22
Oh there's plenty of those. It's just nice of them to be labelled so clearly.
ghostdate
2016-02-25 04:41
I was going to go to AI in Vancouver fresh out of high school, but it was $35k for a two year program (pricier than most 4 year degrees in Canada at the time), not including living expenses. I decided I should check with some of the game studios in the area to see if they actually hire as many people as the AI rep claimed. None of the studios said they'd hired anybody out of there, and the people I know who went there do not work in the field they went there to study.
I never really know what to say to people when they tell me they're going to AI. I want to tell them to quit, but I'm pretty sure they don't refund the tuition, and expect most of it paid up front.
[deleted]
2016-02-25 06:02
my god. Imagine how crushing that'd be, to go and spend 35k and find out that it was all for nothing. I still remember the guys from ITT tech giving a convincing pitch to my high-school friends and I, and some of us seriously considered going there. I still can't believe our school let those guys through the gates.
ghostdate
2016-02-25 06:30
Well, to be fair, in that industry your portfolio speaks more than the school you went to. If you worked hard and did some amazing stuff while you were there you could probably get into the industry. As far as I'm aware the AI in Vancouver just ships grads over to the Electronic Arts studio across the street for a term and that counts as "95% of grads are working in the industry within 6 months of graduation", but they're rarely rehired for additional projects.
That said Kekai Kotaki went to an Art Institute, but he dropped out when a teacher told him to quit drawing and listen to the lecture. So he's basically a drop out of one of the worst art schools in North America, yet he's one of the biggest names in concept art now.
AutomatedApathy
2016-02-25 19:22
My portfolio was solid but I wasn't allowed to have just a portfolio to grad.
AutomatedApathy
2016-02-25 13:07
Well when I went they told me they had an 80% placement rate for jobs. At the time the school had 10 students in the program and not working in games or animation. They changed the program 3 times while I went. I was allowed to focus on TV animation/ production ( I wanted to do flash / storyboarding ) 6 months before I was to graduate I needed a 3d animation reel and only 3d, needless to say o didn't have enough money to finish out.
When I did try to go back I was told no, I needed to retake all of the classes that involved technology...... So every class.
ghostdate
2016-02-25 16:47
Wow, that's messed up. I feel like they should have gotten some kind of legal trouble over that, but I guess since they're not an accredited college they probably don't have to adhere to the same rules a university or technical college would.
AutomatedApathy
2016-02-25 17:22
They where and they did. They settled on a 100+ million, out of 15 billion. I'm unlikely to see any money returned.
[deleted]
2016-02-25 07:42
[deleted]
Uncomfortable
2016-02-25 16:22
I'd assume that SVA isn't listed because the guy who runs the site hasn't come across it yet. I certainly don't think for-profit schools are excluded, as the school I attended (Concept Design Academy) is listed and was definitely for profit (although I certainly had a great experience there). There's also a handful of other for-profit schools I recognize there on the list (3 Kicks, Gnomon, etc.)
[deleted]
2016-02-26 06:14
Another good resource if you're interested in illustration is the Society of Illustrators. They have a list of all schools which have had students with winning entries in their annual scholarship competition (and plenty of other art schools as well), and if you click "view by winning entries" on top you can see how many awards each school's students have won.
Speaking of SVA (mentioned below), they rank second on this list with an impressive 208 awards, just below Ringling at 215.
Uncomfortable
2016-02-26 13:32
Wow, it's even got a handful of Canadian schools. Definitely a great list for accredited institutions.
quabl
2016-02-28 16:57
Hello. I'm Andrew, the guy that runs ArtSchoolDB. Thanks for linking to the site and thanks to everyone who checked it out.
I wanted to address some of the things you guys mentioned.
I've gone back and forth on what types of schools to include. Someone mentioned for-profit schools. I started by listing primarily small ateliers and academies. For example I'm a student at the Ani Art Academy Waichulis. Schools like LAAFA, Grand Central Atelier, Concept Design Academy, Watts Atelier, all seem like affordable options that provide high quality education. You don't get a degree, but nobody cares about an art degree. Online schools are also heavily featured.
I wasn't sure whether to include some of the bigger, ridiculously expensive schools like Art Center or RISD, but eventually I did. I figure it's better for people to see what their options are.
I don't include universities or colleges unless they are specifically art schools. This is partly personal bias. I went to a very prestigious university after high school and was not impressed by what I saw there.
SVA isn't on the list right now because I took down the page for it. They employ some sort of service that will notify you if you don't have the right info or images on your site if it's related to SVA. I was supposed update the logo I was using and haven't gotten around to it. They are one of the schools I feel iffy about listing. Tuition's too high, plus cost of living in NYC.
Again, thanks for checking out the site. If any of you have suggestions to make it better, or you know of schools that should be featured let me know. The best way to get in touch would be through the contact page on the site.
[deleted]
2016-06-19 20:20
New Masters academy has an insane amount of content for what you pay for, there is one lecture on perspective that is a ridiculously long series and he covers so much.