film-school Applying to film school!!

L

Laura357

Hello! I'm going to be a senior in high school this year and I am planning on applying to film school.

Just some background info: I have been actively involved in filmmaking since freshman year, so I would guess that I have more experience than the average kid my age. To date, I have created, filmmed, and edited five documentary films, all of which have been on the festival circuit and have recieved considerable recognition. I am also in the top 5% of my class, GPA-wise.

Some of the film schools I am considering are: NYU (Tisch), Northwestern, American University, Syracuse University (New House), Emerson College, Ithaca College, Florida State University, Boston University, etc.

Also-I am pretty sure that I don't want to go to an "industry" school like UCLA or USC (because I am primarily interested in documentary, although I am open to new things)...

Any advice? Other ideas? Did anyone attend one of those schools/any other film school and would like to share their experiences?

Thanks so much!!! :)

-Laura
 
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I don't know where you live and how hard it is for you to go visit the schools, but definately go look at all of them. I was considering NYU, Emerson, Syracuse, BU and a few others. I visited BU and it was okay, but the film program didn't seem like it was anything special. Don't get me wrong, is a great academic school, and being as you are in the top 5% of my high school class, the academics interested me, but if you really want to go into the industry the academics isn't as important as the film program. I visited Syracuse and realized that while their Newhouse school may be very highly regarded, as far as film goes their program is all split up. You can major in film in their art department, but then you end up focusing a lot of theater, and in Newhouse you can major in TV,Radio, and Film, all three together as one single major. On top of that the Newhouse school didn't seem as focused on actual production time, more focused on academic classes, and if your major is the three things you spend very little time actually doing film, because the small amount of time you spend on your major versus academics is split between doing TV stuff, radio stuff, and film. So Syracuse was out for me after I visited there and saw this. I eventually chose Emerson just because I live closer to Boston and I love the atmosphere at Emerson, I would have been very happy at NYU too I am sure, but the one negative thing is that I hear students are cut throat competetive towards each other there, while I have found everyone at Emerson to be very collaborative. So that's my input, hope it helps, maybe I'll see you at Emerson next year.
 
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thanks! I know a girl who goes to emerson and she likes it too. the only thing I'm not too keen about is that emerson doesn't seem to offer many liberal arts classes. (i could be wrong)
 
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I think the programme at Ithaca College is more tv-oriented. That's what I got from talking to the students, anyway.

Last time I was there (3 years ago), IC was considering making on-campus living mandatory for all 4 years of college. I don't know if they finally went ahead with that policy, but it would be worth checking out just in case. That would really be a negative for a lot of people.

Having said that...

...Ithaca is the greatest city in all of the fifty States. :cool:
 
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