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College

California College of the Arts

#38 in Best Colleges for Design in America
  • B-
    Overall Grade
  • 4 Year
  • San Francisco, CA
  • 352 reviews
B-
Overall Niche Grade
How are grades calculated?
  1. Academics
    B-
  2. Value
    B-
  3. Diversity
    A+
  4. Campus
    C
  5. Athletics
    NG
  6. Party Scene
    B+
  7. Professors
    B-
  8. Location
    A+
  9. Dorms
    D
  10. Campus Food
    NG
  11. Student Life
    B
  12. Safety
    B
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California College of the Arts is ...
Private not-for-profit
Athletic Division
—
Athletic Conference
—
Address
1111 Eighth Street
San Francisco, CA 94107
Website
cca.edu

California College of the Arts Rankings

Niche rankings are based on rigorous analysis of key statistics from the U.S. Department of Education and millions of reviews.

Admissions

Acceptance Rate
65%
Application Deadline
—
SAT Range
—
ACT Range
19-27
Application Fee
$70
SAT/ACT
Neither required nor recommended
High School GPA
Required
Early Decision/Early Action
—
Improve Your SAT/ACT Scores with Test Prep

Cost

Net Price
$38,276/ year
National
$15,523
Average cost after financial aid for students receiving grant or scholarship aid, as reported by the college.
Net Price by Household Income
  • <$30k
    $27,467/ year
  • $30-48k
    $27,625/ year
  • $49-75k
    $29,565/ year
  • $76-110k
    $34,683/ year
  • $110k+
    $45,732/ year
Student Loan Options from Lenders
Learn More
  • 1% Cash Back + affordable rates starting at 3.82% APR w/auto debit discount
  • No application, origination or disbursement fees

Academics

Professors
B-
Based on faculty accomplishments, salary, student reviews, and additional factors.
Student Faculty Ratio
11:1
Evening Degree Programs
No
79%
of students agree that professors put a lot of effort into teaching their classes.24 responses
46%
of students agree that it is easy to get the classes they want.24 responses
29%
of students agree that the workload is easy to manage.24 responses

Majors

Most Popular Majors
  • Illustration
    47 Graduates
  • Graphic Design
    38 Graduates
  • Industrial and Product Design
    38 Graduates
  • Animation, Video Graphics and Special Effects
    30 Graduates
  • Architecture
    22 Graduates
  • Interior Design
    20 Graduates
  • Painting
    20 Graduates
  • Human Computer Interaction
    19 Graduates
  • Multimedia
    18 Graduates
  • Metal and Jewelry Arts
    12 Graduates

Students

Full-Time Enrollment
1,444Undergrads
Undergrads Over 25
12%
Pell Grant
30%
Varsity Athletes
—
Poll
What one word or phrase best describes the typical student at this school?
Based on 15 responses
Report
  • Creative
    60%
  • All extremely different with own opinions
    13%
  • Distant
    7%
  • Driven
    7%
  • Heavily depressed and stressed
    7%
  • Stressed
    7%

Campus Life

Freshmen Live On-Campus
58%
Poll
86%
of students say they don't have Greek life.21 responses
Poll
96%
of students say no one pays attention to varsity sports.28 responses
Poll
What one word or phrase best describes your school?
Based on 14 responses
Report
  • Intense but Fun
    43%
  • Professors are what make the school worth it.
    21%
  • Expressive
    14%
  • Introverted people, artistic environment
    14%
  • Cool people, crappy environment
    7%

After College

Median Earnings 6 Years After Graduation
$34,500/ year
National
$33,028
Graduation Rate
60%
National
49%
Employed 2 Years After Graduation
87%
National
83%
75%
of students feel confident they will find a job in their field after graduation.16 responses
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California College of the Arts Reviews

352 reviews
All Categories
CCA has an incredible community that invites diversity in order to create an environment where students and faculties are open to freely exchange their ideas and creativity. I found it easy to meet new people and the community was overall very welcoming. Academically, I had minor issues in regarding some programs that fail to provide broader opportunities and options following certain specific major programs but there are professors who aided me significantly through out my first year in college! There aren't any sports or athletics clubs that are offered and unfortunately the school also doesn't offer any gyms for students to access.
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I study an undergraduate in Animation and going into my sophomore year. Although CCA has great teachers from Pixar, the teachers don't really seem to help you unless you ask for help. There are many great resources, and you can definitely learn more than you could ask for in multiple disciplines! Lately, CCA has opened new VR classes for animation and have a new professor who is the author of Force: Dynamic Life Drawings. Individually, you WILL spend a lot of money for his classes, and with a little asking around you'll find what is worth your money. The exchange program offers you to go around anywhere in the States, but you also have the opportunity to go overseas! CCA has a lot of great programs to take you on trips, you get to improve a lot.
The campuses lack photos, the website is old, once I arrived there I didn't even know how my room is going to look like. As an international student, they don't offer you much and there isn't such thing as "diversity" because it is not a very big college, I get that. They didn't help me with much being international, nor financial solutions or different attitude because I had no idea how the system functions, I had to find out for myself. Also, they pretty much give scholarships to everyone. The college is SO EXPENSIVE and the scholarship is not even "there" because you can't feel like it actually helps your budget. You have to pay for your food, that is another point that annoyed me, you have to pay to wash your laundries, again, why? It's just, you invest so much money into this school and you still have to pay for the little things.
But yeah, the teachers are great, hands down.