California College of the Arts (CCA) — Local services in San Francisco

If I could give them a minus star, I would be happy to do that. Do not waste your time nor your money, this so called "art school" is good for nothing. From teachers to admins, everything is a constant unpleasant situation to deal with. Teachers really DO NOT TEACH anything, students have to find out and learn everything mostly by themselves; teachers are stuck up, they thing they are the biggest deal and that the students are nothing unless they get to have a favorite one. None of the students here study and work, most of them come from rich families that pay for them to do "something in life" and that something will certainly be nothing because hardly one gets to have a decent, paying job after being ripped off for years.

For rich people this is certainly not important but not for poor or middle class people that want to advance in life and make big efforts to get loans and on top of that pay monthly tuition. We ended up investing about $85,000 for a basically useless degree.

They break their student's spirit, they belittle, ignore, degrade them; make them feel they are not entitled to any success if they are not the star of the class. My child worked extremely, extremely hard to try to make his dream come true but ended up completely sick and hopeless.

Lastly, teachers steal student's ideas and nothing you can do about it because they have students sign an agreement before beginning of classes. First they tell them that those ideas are worthless, of course.

Look for better options. California is full of excellent and transparent schools, colleges and universities let CCA out, it isn't...

I have only taken two semesters here and I can confidently say that there are alot of really amazing talented students and it is a shame that they are wasting their potential at an institution like this. Maybe it's the location of the school but the dorms cost way too much for what you get and on top of that they don't offer summer classes for alot of the courses, so they incourage students to transfer credits from a different institution if they want to take classes in the summer. Also one day I was told there is a hold and I can't register for courses because my highschool diploma isn't valid since it needs to be sent directly from the school isnt that something you mention to a student early on before they're enrolled at the school???There are a few really amazing professors but other than that this institution is a joke and if you are interested in going into debt and not growing as an artist then this is the perfect place for you!! Having said that you can grow as an artist anywhere it's all up to what you make of things but sometimes the environment has an effect and this school is more concerned with making as much money with as less consequences than actually worrying about their students, and having their students "clean up" after semester ends is also a bit insane considering how much money they make off of students and they couldn't even hire or pay someone to do that, so all and all if you are interested in the cool printing and art equipment that they have (which also costs money) then maybe this school is for you otherwise I don't...

This is a soulless school, with excellent faculty sprinkled occasionally throughout. They present a great and forward thinking image on the outside, and on the inside try to cheat students and faculty alike. Their first priority is outside appearance, and one of their last is the students. Trying to get things fixed here when they inevitably screw up your schedule or take away your scholarship or any number of other things mid-semester is like going to the DMV, if the DMV was worse than it already is and charged you $30-45 thousand a year. This is a greedy institution so disorganized their financial aid documents even say "Please return to the Financial Aid Office by 12/31/1967." CCA is only slightly better than Academy of Art University in terms of being concerned about your education experience or personal well-being. Go...