Chapman, Loyola Marymount or Calarts grads - advice needed.

In My Humble Opinion
1

Took the eldest Chinette on the West coast University tour. She’s deep into art and already did RISD, Parsons and Pratt in the spring, with a bonus tour of 3 weeks intensive summer class at Parsons.

Then we did a whirlwind tour of Socal last week. Flew in and did Chapman University and the Buick Film School in s. LA (Irvine area) last Thursday. Beautiful campus. Film college has a great new center and a digital arts wing.

Fought a few hours of traffic north almost to the grapevine and Valencia for Calarts. Did a pretty amazing tour where China bambina was totally blown away. If you want to be in one physical building with 2000 students across film, acting, dance, animation and other art 24/7, this is the place. Did I mention Roy and Walt Disney founded this school? Tour was breath taking with China Bambina saying “this is my stretch into Harvard.”

Ducked out of the tour to go hit Harvey Mudd and the Clairmont Consortium. Had a classmate a year a head at Harvey Mudd give us a couple of hour tour. Tres cool. The Clairmont consortium were all pretty neat. One could have a spectacular college experience and learn something here.

Saturday drove up to Loyola Maymount. Which has a breath taking campus a mile from the beach, down the street from Santa Monica and 30 minutes on a good day from downtown. Pretty awesome. Film school and animation isn’t as advanced as Chapman but seemed pretty good.

China Bambina decided that

  1. NY is full of new Yorkers
  2. Manhattan smells like piss
  3. Been there, done that and no burning desire to go back
  4. Sunshine is awesome (we live in Seattle)
  5. LA vibe with the intersection of Hollywood, gaming and high tech is a giant magnet
  6. Unlike RISD, Parsons and Pratt, one doesn’t have to sweat how they will get into the industry if do something like a digital art major and compsci minor

Dad decided that

  1. these schools will work hard to make it affordable
  2. at the end of the day, we’ve planned ahead and we can afford the schools
  3. want to cry at the missed opportunity of my youth, yet proud to have bootstrapped my way up to the University of California, survived the meat grinder, got out in the real world, and then gamed the system so my child has a leg up on 95% of all other high school students with a shot at rarified air.

Then just to complete the SoCal tour, shot down to Alpine to see my relatives before flying back to fog.

Just cause it is IMHO, anyone out there with experience at Chapman, LMU or Calarts want to chime in on your experience?

2

Manhattan may smell like piss, but any commute in SoCal will suck everything that is suckable (x a zillion soul-killing zillions). Can Chinette live near the campus of choice?

I had students go from UCSD to RISD who really liked it and had high praise; and, as you write, L.A. is the epicenter for anyone interested in the creative arts.

A friend taught for Chapman and found the culture to be too conservative (aren’t they Christian-based?) YMMV, friend is a diehard liberal.

3

Chinette will live on campus for at least the first year. Then nearby if not on campus.

Chinette liked RISD ok, did a summer course for high school students at Parsons. But the SoCal art vibe in the film schools (she’s not doing film but that’s where digital art/animation is housed) plus glorious sunshine made it an instant winner.

Chapman is pretty loosely Christian, and used to be Christian based. Loyola is 50% catholic but Jesuits as educators are pretty engaging. Calarts seems to be about as secular as you can get.

4

Living around Loyola Marymount will be more expensive, and more crowded. It’s a very desirable area. Conversely, if she wants to be in City life, it’s a good place to be. My folks lived near CalArts for years. It’s a haul down to LA proper, but they have all the mod cons at this point. It would be cheaper to live, and fairly easy to get around. I hear good things about both programs.

My advice would be to base her selection on the program first, teachers and campus environment second, and use her preference for location third. I freely admit that I am no longer in college. :smiley: If she is more concerned with access to the city life than other aspects of her decision (rather than one of the many factors), I would strongly advise a gap year. Sometimes it’s just a good idea to blow off some steam before you start college. It sounds like she is most interested in digital arts and animation, so I would suggest she start her focus and decision making process there.

ETA: I have also heard that Chapman tends to the religious and conservative. A friend’s daughter just graduated.

5

Have you guys looked at USC? My BFF graduated from film school there; UCLA is also a film studies powerhouse. I don’t know what USC costs compare to what RISD/Chapman costs these days. My niece went to UC Santa Barbara and now works for Pixar on the front lines of production.

I checked in with my friend who teaches at Chapman. She confirms it’s quite conservative and not the most comfortable place in the world for non-Christian conservatives.

6

I’m just going to throw in ArtCenter College of Design in Pasadena, CA, in case you missed that one.

7

I delivered pizzas to LMU… does that count :). It’s near at least a few digital art power houses like Digital Domain which could be useful. From what I hear, what school you go to isn’t as important as having a really good portfolio showing what you’re capable of creating and/or meeting the right people.

USC and ArtCenter should definitely be in the mix although I tend to think of them as more film/industrial design. I could be 100% wrong on that though. Pasadena (ArtCenter) would be a fantastic place for a college student to live.

8

as someone who knew several calarts students in the late 90s and 00s unless your daughter isn’t the easy to be distracted type id avoid drama queen drug fest central.

Theres reasons that it was called "the best reality show not on tv "

9

Thanks all for the feedback and suggestions. To be clear, the Chinette is going for the study not the city life. The LA intersection of Hollywood, game design and high tech creates a really exciting buzz where the internships and something in the industry when you graduate are pretty given. Sunshine and beaches are a bonus not the goal. :slight_smile: Maybe I didn’t mention above, a computer science minor is also in the plan. And she’s looking for a digital design/animation focus rather than a more traditional approach (she has done that for the past 14 years). Ya, we should look into USC.

The Chinette did a summer 3 week course at Parson’s in Manhattan. She hit it pretty hard from 8:00am until the studio closed at 10:00pm almost every day. All of the programs we looked at are really intensive. Calarts was most amazing from that perspective. It’s a 24/7 beehive of creativity. I don’t worry about her not putting in the intensive work.
Chapman didn’t seem *all *that religious. Plus have a niece in the extended family that graduated last year. The Chinette has been talking with her a lot on the experience.

RadioWave - the LMU tour guide highlighted the fact that pizza gets delivered on campus AND students can use their meal plan money. :slight_smile:

Please keep the thoughts coming.

10

Chapman isn’t religious, although it was founded by religious people…like Loyola Marymount. Its also home to the Heull Howser archives.

11

Quick update: Chinette got accepted by both Chapman and Loyola Marymount film schools for their digital animation program. :slight_smile: They only take about 10% of applicants for the early admission round, and less for the regular application. Chapman is her first choice. Funny, but as soon as she got into Loyola first, Calarts fell by the wayside.

Chapman appears to really personally recruit after the acceptance, whereas LMU are kinda blasé. I heard this from a colleague who’s son got into both, but Chapman really went out to get him to attend and he’s now a senior there.

Here’s what Chapman did. My daughter’s specific essay on “why you are Chapman” was about the importance of names, why she dislikes how people almost automatically give her the diminutive “jacky”, her way of dealing with it is to introduce herself as “Jacques”. The closing line nailed it with “I am Jacques. I am Chapman.”

Chapman’s acceptance letter started with “Dear Jacques”. :wink: The envelope also came with a certificate of acceptance suitable for framing, and a scholarship worth $22k/year or about 1/3 of the cost. It was priceless to see my daughters reaction when she opened the envelope.

LMU acceptance letter was fine but that was it. Nothing yet on financial aid.

I will take at least Jacques and probably the whole family during winter break so Jacques can spend a day on each campus meeting some professors, students and maybe sitting in on a class.

I will make appointments with the financial aid folks. Hopefully by then Jacques will have also been accepted to the University of Washington (she is virtually guaranteed general admission since we are WA state), which clocks in at $25k/year including dorms and meal plans. Pretty straight forward. “Help us make this affordable compared with UW.”

Will see how things stand after the next visit. Very strange experience compared to my own. I applied to only one school in the University of California. There was no way to afford a private school or an out of state school. It was a meat grinder where my classes freshman year ranged between 100-500 students. Even in my first major of Economics, I never had a class smaller than 25 or knew my professor to any extant. It was only with my second major of Chinese, that I got to know my professors. Classes were small, and by 4th year Chinese I was the only student. Plus my profs knew me because I went to pretty much every office hour for 4 years. Actually, we still keep in touch 30+ years later. So, I am really happy that my daughter had the portfolio, test scores and grades to get into these Universities, and moreover she’s going to just thrive in the personal environments. I think we all want the best for our kids, and I feel pretty good 17 years on that she’s on the right path.

12

Number 2 P-son got into the Park School of Communications at Ithaca College. He was admitted to the Writing for Film, TV,and Emerging Media program. He got a scholarship named after the legendary Rod Serling, but will need more financial aid for it to be doable. This is not a degree to go into debt for. I’ve heard good things about Marymount.