Full Sail credibility questions

[Bubs]

So for the past six months i've been looking forward to attending Full Sail in Floridia, starting at the tail end of November. However, we've always wondered about the credibility of the school, but seeing as how no one here in Texas actually attended (much less heard of) Full Sail, we went by the best resources that we could find at the time.

Earlier today my dad informed me that a customer commented on Full Sail when it was brought up in their conversation, and he began to rant about how the school was a complete waste of money. His son went into the music degree programn and was completely ripped off (i'm not sure how, but I do know that he works at a KFC as of now). All those industry job opportunities promised by Full Sail apparently weren't honored or something, so now he's $30,000 in debt and not anywhere in his degree. This didn't happen recently either; the kid graduated a couple of years back.

So now I don't know what to do here. Does anyone know what really goes on down there at Full Sail, whether you've actually attended and graduated or you're just in-the-know?

Any information welcome.

[SpookyFish]

This guy who graduated from my high school last year attended Full Sail for 1 year for game design. According to his younger brother, the school is a complete waste. I've heard the same from a few other people aswell.

[Bubs]

Oi, that isn't something I wanted to hear.

I've been asking the same question at other forums and (for the most part) i'm getting the same response.

Not sure what to do now.

[Elwell]

There were a couple of virulently anti-Full Sail threads here a couple of years ago (try doing a search), but we don't hear a much about it these days. Maybe they cleaned up their act, maybe people just aren't posting.

[Seedling]

My husband graduated from Full Sail as valedictorian about eight years ago. He and (if I’m remembering correctly) four others have been our technical artists here at Turbine. My impression from these folks and from my one visit there is that if you are driven and don’t expect the school to hand you a career, then you can get a lot out of what they have to offer. If you expect them to magically get you into an industry, you will be screwed. (I suspect this is true of any arts school.) Also, if you want to be an artist, you will need to supplement their education with a fine art education, because they teach tools primarily. (When I last visited they had a grand total of one fine-arts classroom.) I think these technical two-year schools could be a lot more effective for artists if paired with one or two years of illustration or traditional animation education.

[Zirngibism]

I was interested in the Full Sail game design program, but there were a couple things that turned me off.

The admissions guy would brag about one thing on the phone: the fact that they had the most up-to-date technology. He went on that they insisted on having the very latest and greatest. Well, the problem is that I'd rather be educated to adapt to whatever new program's thrown at me, not just the latest... (which is going to change anyway).

Then, the guy told me that it was because they had such superior technology that their price for one year is so high.

"Oh?" I asked, not remembering seeing it on their info brocure; "What is it?"
He very quickly said "65,000 a year". (Isn't that more than Harvard? I still wonder if I heard wrong and he meant it was that price for 2 years.)

"WOAH", I thought, then asked "But you do give out scholarships, right?"
"Uh, yeah we do look into things like that" he said very quickly. (Must not be too much).



My AP art teacher also warned me about them very emphatically, saying that they rip you off.

Perhaps I should still get more information about them but I'm pretty set on CCAD anyway.

[strangedays315]

I went to fullsail for an open house a few months ago, I thought their facilities were really impressive. Like someone poster before, everything is top of the line in all of their departments. I met this guy whos in recording arts there, he was saying out of the (these numbers may be off) 100 or so people that started in his class, theres only like 20 something now. One thing I didnt totally dig there, was that its not a 4 year school, they jam 4 years of college into 1 or 2 non-stop years, tahts why so many people drop out. From what ive heard though its one of the top five media schools in the country. On the otehr hand its EXTREMELY demanding. Hope this helped a bit.

[Bubs]

So a friend of mine who was also interested in attending Full Sail asked the same question at his forum and got this really informative response:

I was considering going to Full Sail for a while. I was pretty adamant about it actually. I took a couple of their tours, I read through their materials, I looked at their programs... the facilities are great, the equipment is there, the atmosphere is fantastic. Everything checks out, but I keep hearing (like you) bad things about Full Sail.

There was a fullsailsucks.com website that Full Sail sued to get taken down. I hear the professors are washed up industry people, or actually, people who never made it to be washed up. If you look through the back of the catalog at the list of professors you'll see a lot of them are graduate at Full Sail. I heard they sometimes have classes that are full with 400 kids. I heard the kids that go to Full Sail are rich spoiled kids who have no talent and want to make 'phat beats' or become a big budget filmmaker without doing any work.. I heard 'job placement' is getting someone who does the job you want coffee. I can keep going...

I was turned off by all this. Not to mention Full Sail isn't regionally accredited... no math, english, gen ed.. etc.. which I thought was great until I realized I was just being lazy and that kind of laziness attracts bad students and professors, etc.. And also you can't transfer your Full Sail credits if you want to get out of there (because they're not regionally accredited)... I may be wrong so do your own research (that applies to everything I say).

I chose SCAD (Savannah College of Art and Design) because of the caliber of the student's work and the good things I heard about it. I stayed at SCAD for 1 term--the school was great and so were the professors, but I wasn't comfortable living there so I went back to Florida and I'm in UCF (University of Central Florida). I haven't taken any major specific classes yet to be honest, but from what I've heard and seen I won't be disappointed. The general education classes so far are top notch and the professors are the kind you dream of when you're sleeping through your high school classes.

UCF is a great school, digital media, filmmaking, and other nice programs here. The graduate film, digital media, game deisgn, etc programs are even better than undergraduate too.

Anyway, just thought I'd lay what I know (or suspect) out there.

BTW, Full Sail is really freaking expensive! And they increase their rates every year by like 3 grand.

If you're feeling disappointed now I'd back away from Full Sail because I think it'll get worse. But of course, if you're talented and/or you're willing to work hard I'm sure you can find success wherever you go--as some Full Sail students have... (there are a handful of moderate to very successful graduates that they keep parading around their school literature).

Oh and also, I doubt Full Sail looks good on a résumé because of the reputation of their students, but again, I may be entirely wrong. And who cares, as long as you have a strong folio to show them--that's what matters most in our kind of field.


I think this pretty much sums up my question regarding the school. Now I gotta figure out just where the hell i'm gonna go now :(

[Dose206]

Well, it seems as though you're willing to go out of state, but how far? There are some (seemingly) great schools in the US, Ringling, RISD, CCAD. You should do as much research as you can. If you were prepared to go to and pay for Full Sail, then I think you'll find that monetarily you still have many options open to you.

[Mirana]

For Reference: Full Sail is accredited (http://ope.ed.gov/accreditation/) as a Technical College (http://ope.ed.gov/accreditation/InstDetail.asp) through ACCSCT (http://www.accsct.org/). It's likely that their credits would be transferable amongst other tech schools, but not among 4-yr schools (although it is up to the individual college as to what is at their standard).

Also, if you have any questions about SCAD that you can't look up in other threads, let me know.