Savannah College of Art and Design — Attraction in Savannah

I’m a SCAD alumni that studied at both the Savannah and Hong Kong campuses. Savannah’s definitely got the bulk of the resources and experienced professors as compared to Atlanta and Hong Kong (can’t say exactly for Lacoste). Generally if a prospective student is considering all of the campuses I encourage Savannah, since the alumni/student success administrative team is much larger there.

SCAD is very much what you make it, you need to work hard and utilize all the resources here to forge a career later on. A lot of students don’t access everything or don’t look to even utilize it, especially the CLC courses which can help propel you into internships (and into jobs). There is some bias when it comes to particular majors and sometimes bias towards the top 5-10% of talent here. Campus tours show prospective students the beautiful new freshman dorms but don’t show the mess that can be the upperclassmen dorms. It was frustrating when during finals an available computer in Monty (necessary for specialized software only in that building) is nowhere to be found yet the freshman dorms get a new pool.

If any prospective students are considering SCAD, my biggest advice is to make use of EVERYTHING this school makes available to you. Work hard, do well, and you’ll join a network of incredibly talented bees. Many people pick this school and do the bare minimum and wonder why they’re having a tough time in an already tough creative industry.

Pro’s: Many dedicated staff, a massive creative pool of talent, wonderful people, easy access to the international campuses, state of the art equipment, design challenges and CLC courses, readily available interview and job prep, and a network of SCAD bees that will support you in the industry.

Con’s: Poor upperclassmen housing, broad curriculum (if you’re looking for a specialized career path it’s tough to focus in on it sometimes), large workload, poor distribution of computers/software, some professors haven’t been active in their industry for many years, parking can be tough, and of...

SCAD seems to place getting your money out of your pockets and into millionaire Paula Wallace's bank accounts above all other considerations.

Can you get a good education here? Of course. Is it worth the price? Not really in my opinion and experience. To put it politely, the staff at SCAD were not "up front" with me about certain matters, wasting my time and money. My counselor was clueless and unhelpful. My interaction with the head of one of the departments was very negative, and their interaction with me was needlessly rude and abusive on their part. The resulting complaint to the ombudsman - almost comically complicated to file, and of course with no real consequences to the person who treated me so absurdly awfully.

My experience showed me that you cannot trust any of the people you're paying to do what they're paid to do. You have to hound everybody to get anything done or they will drop the ball. My experience with my hometown community college, by contrast was exceptionally professional and efficient. SCAD cost much more, but the service and professionalism amongst the staff was relatively poor. It doesn't inspire much confidence when your community college seems to deliver and your mega-expensive college won't or maybe can't.

After talking to other people who majored in the same field at other colleges, I get the impression that SCAD is particularly bad in this respect. The only thing keeping me from giving SCAD one star is the fact that one may actually be able to get an excellent education. But everything else about the college - from the rudeness of the staff, to the ever changing faculty, to the high prices and irritatingly poorly planned campus pull the rating way down. Yeah, I learned, but it was an incredibly frustrating and unsatisfactory experience, and I felt like I was wasting my money every step of the way. If you can get into some place else - get into...

Scad is allegedly and IMO a scam. I unfortunately wasted 3 years of my life there and countless dollars. Get a masterclass membership (it’s like 160$ a year or something) and you will learn much more for WAY LESS and from more notorious teachers. Scad offers “therapy” sessions for students, but it’s really just a way for them to see if you’re thinking of leaving the school and not giving them anymore money. They also keep a record of what you come to speak about in your “therapy” session and all the staff who work there (in the therapy office at least) can read your chart and see what you told the “therapist”. I also needed SCAD’s medical urgent care once as I had the flu or something and they made me wait for over an hour in the patient room, no doctor ever came to speak with me so I walked out and they had the audacity to ask me to pay for my visit even though they had done NOTHING but just stick me in a room. If all that isn’t enough, you have to walk everywhere, there’s no parking. Half the professors are weird egotistical jerks. The idea that it’s a top school is allegedly a marketing ploy, they let in something like 85% of people who apply, if you can take out the loans to go there, they will 100% let you in (allegedly). IN MOST CASES YOU DO NOT NEED AN ART DEGREE (or at least not one this expensive) please thoroughly consider other options before choosing this school. I can say without a doubt that my time at scad was the WORST time I’ve ever experienced (I obviously have a negative bias because of my experience, ofc trust your gut and your own judgement though) but if I could go back in time I would never even apply. I can’t tell you how amazing it is to leave this review from my perspective, I hope this can be a warning for someone and I hope you make better...