Opinions of SCAD
Bumped into a couple of sites with tons of comments on SCAD. I thought it wouldn’t hurt to document them on my blog so that they may benefit some people looking to apply for admission at SCAD.
Art School FAQ hosted on Livejournal is a pretty nice place. But there are a lot of misconceptions (or just facts blown out of proportion) about SCAD’s operations. No school is perfect. But SCAD seems to be the only school people like to bash on quite often.
StudentReview.com is another nice place to look at what people think of their schools. SCAD got a “C” for campus safety… Yikes. I think the Mayor of Savannah needs to really do something about that. Slow business for SCAD also means slow business for the city. While SCAD gets a B average, other more prestigious schools in big cities don’t seem to do quite as well in certain areas.
I hope people actually visit SCAD and talk to the professors, students and the people there. Reading opinions from those online forums is only one way to find out what something is “like”. But nothing beats the experience of visiting the school and talking to the people there in person.
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April 5th, 2007 at 7:40 pm
I have some opinions on SCAD. It sucks. The school facilities are incredible but many of the professors and faculty are, in my experience, terrible. I have a long write up of my experience over the last year here
Also, the C rating of campus safety is about right. While I was there 2 students got robbed at gunpoint inside the gated dorm complex by two people from the hood across the street.
There’s a lot of praise for SCAD out there but people looking to go should know there are some of us out there who came away from SCAD with pretty negative opinions.
April 5th, 2007 at 9:01 pm
I am sure you can also find people who came away from Harvard, Stanford or Yale with negative opinions. I guess the point is, everybody is entitled to his own opinion. But I’d like to stress that anyone who’s looking into anything — attending a school, buying a camera or vote for a president, do your due diligence and make what’s the best decision for YOU and only YOU, not based on someone else’s “feelings” or “observations.”
SCAD has room for improvement on many things. Unfortunately on crime, there’s only so much SCAD as a school can do. The City of Savannah needs to step up and work with SCAD on what needs to be done to minimize victimization of its students as well as citizens of Savannah. Can SCAD do more? Sure, it always can. And over the years, my own observation tells me that they have done quite a bit. Why wouldn’t it want to improve security to protect its students — its bread and butter, its cash cow?
Speaking of crimes on students, I’ve heard of students of other schools being victims of crime. What’s new? The bottom line is, no matter what city you are in, do what makes common sense and protect yourself. Savannah, IMO, is a little high on the crime scale. But as long as you do the right things, you can always minimize your chances of being victimized. Cheers.
August 21st, 2007 at 7:24 pm
I’m feeling a bit down.
Although my FAFSA has been approved, the portfolio scholarship approved, and my Stafford Loan assigned, I still have to look for about $20,000 dollars. My problem is that I went to see if I could be approved for a private loan with Citibank and found out I needed a co-signer since I don’t have credit. In this case, my father. When they got back to me, it was denied. The problem now is that my father attempted to take out a loan with his own bank and now he’s not eligible for any. He did this for my sake. I, perosnally, don’t have anybody else to help me out on the co-signing process. Nobody at all. I told my advisor the problem and told her that perhaps I won’t be able to make the Winter quarter since my hands were tied. She’s nice and all and has helped me. But her e-mail response was: “That she understood that I was trying to keep a level-head about this. And good luck on my future endeavors.” Honestly, since then, I’ve been feeling quite down. It’s not my fault that financially I can’t cover my own education and stuff. I feel I’ve been screwed over, to tell you the truth. I was wondering what advice you could give me. Is there another way?
August 23rd, 2007 at 2:41 pm
Maritza, I am sorry to hear about your situation. Higher education in the United States does cost a bundle. Hopefully that will change soon (considering the U.S. Government is funding the Iraq War at 2 Billion USD each week, surely they can cough up at least that much to fund education).
I am not a professional nor am I a guidance counselor. But I do have this to say based on what I’ve seen at SCAD… You are NOT screwed. Consider enrolling into a community college for a couple of years. And then transfer to SCAD. But first find out how SCAD’s transfer system works from the colleges you are interested in transferring to SCAD from (what classes and how many credits are transferable… etc). So you work the system and maximize transferability of each class and credit.
This gives you a few advantages:
1. Save money with affordable tuition on foundation courses like life drawing, color theory, English/Math requirements… etc; these classes don’t change no matter what school you attend — color theory is color theory — it doesn’t matter if it’s taught in Japanese, English or in a community college!
2. Try to work part time to save up some money to help pay for SCAD;
3. Establish a good credit during this time. Some credit is better than no credit at all. Even if you end up only able to loan $5000, that’s still tuition for a couple of classes or art supply for the duration of your study at SCAD.
4. You will end up with a degree from SCAD even if you transfer in mid way. A degree from SCAD is considerably worth more than one from a community college; but by going this route, you are only paying for a smaller portion of what it’d have cost you had you gone through with it all four years.
5. In my own opinion, I think the last two years of SCAD as an undergrad is when you’ll meet some of the most interesting people, have some of the best ideas and learn from some of the most interesting professors anyway. (Though I do have to say that I had great time with some of my foundations professors!) So you won’t miss much.
Do some math and see if this makes sense. I bet you will be looking for far less than $20,000 if you transfer after two years in a community college.
I hope this helps. And good luck. Feel free to post back on your decision and future endeavors.