Education services company The Princeton Review has again selected University of Southern California as the top undergraduate and graduate school to study video game design in the U.S. and Canada.
USC was also selected as the best undergraduate and graduate game design school last year, and it managed to hold onto that status despite facing increasing competition -- more than 150 universities participated in The Princeton Review's survey for this year, compared to 50 last year.
Tracy Fullerton, an associate professor for USC's Interactive Media Division and director of its Game Innovation Lab, told USA Today that the university was identified as the top game design school because of its "focus on the artistry of game design."
Other schools receiving top marks for their undergraduate game design programs include the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, University of Utah, DigiPen Institute of Technology, and The Art Institute of Vancouver.
Rochester Institute of Technology, MIT, University of Central Florida, and Southern Methodist University were also recognized for their graduate programs.
The Princeton Review ranked the universities after conducting surveys with administrators that covered the quality of their curriculum, faculty, facilities, and infrastructure. It also collected data from schools on their scholarships, financial aid, and career opportunities.
Top 10 undergraduate schools to study video game design
- University of Southern California (Los Angeles, CA)
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Cambridge, MA)
- University of Utah (Salt Lake City, UT)
- DigiPen Institute of Technology (Redmond, WA)
- The Art Institute of Vancouver (Vancouver, BC)
- Rochester Institute of Technology (Rochester, NY)
- Shawnee State University (Portsmouth, OH)
- Savannah College of Art and Design (Savannah, GA)
- University of New Mexico (Albuquerque, NM)
- Becker College (Worcester, MA)
Honorable mentions– Undergraduate schools (alphabetical order)
- Bradley University (Peoria, IL)
- Champlain College (Burlington, VT)
- Columbia College Chicago (Chicago, IL)
- DePaul University (Chicago, IL)
- Drexel University (Philadelphia, PA)
- Ferris State University (Grand Rapids, MI)
- Full Sail University (Winter Park, FL)
- Georgia Institute of Technology (Atlanta, GA)
- Miami University (Oxford, OH)
- Michigan State University (East Lansing, MI)
- New Jersey Institute of Technology (Newark, NJ)
- New York University/NYU POLY (New York, NY)
- North Carolina State University (Raleigh, NC)
- Northeastern University (Boston, MA)
- Ohio University (Athens, OH)
- Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (Troy, NY)
- University of Advancing Technology (Tempe, AZ)
- University of California, Santa Cruz (Santa Cruz, CA)
- University of Maryland, Baltimore County (Baltimore, MD)
- The University of Texas at Dallas (Richardson, TX)
- Vancouver Film School (Vancouver, BC)
- Worcester Polytechnic Institute (Worcester, MA)
Top 10 graduate schools to study video game design
- University of Southern California (Los Angeles, CA)
- Rochester Institute of Technology (Rochester, NY)
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Cambridge, MA)
- University of Central Florida (Orlando, FL)
- Southern Methodist University (SMU) (Plano, TX)
- Carnegie Mellon University (Pittsburgh, PA)
- Savannah College of Art and Design (Savannah, GA)
- DigiPen Institute of Technology (Redmond, WA)
- Univ. of California, Santa Cruz (Santa Cruz, CA)
- Drexel University (Philadelphia, PA)
Honorable mentions – Graduate schools (alphabetical order)
- DePaul University (Chicago, IL)
- Full Sail University (Winter Park, FL)
- Georgia Institute of Technology (Atlanta, GA)
- New York University/NYU Poly (New York, NY)
- Parsons - The New School for Design (New York, NY)
- Sacred Heart University (Fairfield, CT)
- The University of Texas at Dallas (Richardson, TX)
- University of Utah (Salt Lake City, UT)
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I myself just went through the new gradute recruitment process, I had the issue of having a Bachelor of Game Design majoring in programming and design in a country with no graduate (or really any) positions in Game Development (and other countries not supporting internationals for Grad. Roles). I was lucky to find a recruiter & company that could see past my BA and to my tech skills, but it wasn't easy not many companies even understood what my qualifications meant technically, even though I had taught programming.
There were gaps in my degree, but I am motivated enough to fill them so it is a non issue. No degree is really watertight it is only the skeleton, it is and always has been up to the student to flesh it out.