Skywater

While there are many great things about SAIC, their entire back office has the ability to become a giant hot mess in about five seconds. This was true both times I attended.

Never lived in NY. Chicago has a lot of opportunity for creatives and is super cheap to live in for a major metro area, and I see theatre gigs posted all the time on Chicago Artists Resource. That said, the most successful of my theatre buddies from high school went to NY and I have the sense that it's a harder grind but with more financial incentive. NYFA seems much, much busier than CAR but also more competitive. Speaking as a visual artist, the sense I have in my field is that Chicago is generally more open and easier to make-by-on-art-jobs than NYC but you're limiting yourself to a smaller, more communal world where the rewards are harder to earn.

Proximity to California is ideal but not at all necessary. OTIS is the top-ranked school for that in the So. Cal area and would be a good launch for a career in animation, assuming she got into the program and didn't wash out in the first year. (OTIS is a notorious bootcamp of a school.) Other than that, SVA and Savannah have good undergrad programs that churn out indie producers all the time while also having other departments. If she's dead set on comics, Center of Cartoon Studies in Vermont has a great reputation - but you have to be 100% committed to comics. It's not any cheaper than a first-tier art school undergrad program and there's only one major and one goal there.

I am considering this program. Despite being in the Comms department of NW, the Business School's rep makes me think this might be a good investment - one year, 56,000+ and the connections of NW to help launch you into a creative industry job. The only thing that frightens me off is cost, and it being a relatively new program. Has anyone here considered this/gotten degreed at Northwestern and have an opinion? The rotating admissions makes me think it might be less prestigious than I would hope. http://www.communication.northwestern.edu/programs/ms_leadership_creative_enterprises/index.php

At $70 a pop, I can't imagine applying for 10 grad programs. That's a lot of cash to burn on indecision. I also heard keeping it under 5, 6 tops, was better in terms of getting the professors you want to write recommendation letters.

I've been mainly working with neon while at SAIC. I am going half-time, but it's time to start considering my options. I would like to continue in this medium, but not every school has a neon plant or glass lab capable of accomidating me. So, let's have it: does your school have a neon lab? A glass program of any kind? Let me know so I can start looking into MFA programs that might work for me.