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From a mentorship perspective, I gained a lot. I also gained a lot from working on larger sets and leading those teams, and I'll say the undergrad students are super bright, passionate, and talented. Having them crew your films is a huge blessing.

In terms of launching a career, I'd need to know more about what you are trying to do post-grad. I have a day job and am sticking with that while I pay down loans, but I think I have the skills to throw my hat in the ring as a director or producer if I wanted to go after it, and I do believe my DePaul network would help. I'm in post for my first feature, and lots of that team was students I met at school, so in a way my MFA is already helping pay for itself just with the network I created. But I'm definitely more interested in low-budget indie films and would be happy to be able to have a career doing that while balancing another job (like teaching). I don't need to be a director 100% of the time all the time (Even though I'd LOVE it!)

I went to DePaul and actually just graduated earlier this year. Some of the directing program was 'under construction' so to speak while I was there, so there were some classes that were more useful and some that were less useful. I feel like that's probably the case at any school though since everyone comes in with different experience/interests/abilities.

There are some really fantastic, invested faculty at DePaul, and I am super grateful I met my thesis advisor. My cohort was also a major strength of the program, it was a really supportive group of creatives and in fact many of them I still work with outside of school. One thing I loved about my cohort was that it was small and everyone was interested in different genres/styles. It made for a great experience overall, even with some of the classes being lackluster (Editing and a class on post-production workflows and Proxies were a real drag).

THANK YOU FOR CONFIRMING!!! I was extremely surprised and thankful that Columbia has decided to provide its MFA Film applicants more time! Has this ever happened before?

With other programs yes. I can't remember about Columbia.

In my experience, this happened with Columbia at least once, last year. The initial deadline for the Film MFA application was December 3rd, 2024, at 11:59 pm, but the day before I received an email from the Office of Admissions and Financial Aid with the following text:

"We are aware that a technical glitch has affected some of our applicants‘ ability to upload their applications. To ensure that each and every one of you has an equal opportunity to submit, we are extending the application deadline a week, until next Tuesday, December 10, 2024 at 11:59pm ET. We expect to have the issue resolved in the next day or so."

When I checked the application portal, the status for my current application is "Deadline Expired" and I am not able to open my current application. I'm really hoping that's just another glitch and I'll still be able to submit!

Yes!

it's wise to write a good story and to hit the minimum page count, after that it's all about the quality of your writing

That is so fair, thank you!

Usually they interview ~100 people in each discipline and narrow that down to 24-25 people for admission with a few alternates because usually a few people end up not attending but they try to have the same amount of people in writing, producing, directing, and cinematography because of how teaming works.

That info is on the acceptance data page for AFI cinematography.

No. When I was going through this process last year I was definitely worried about this because I heard back in the second wave for writing, but there were people from the first wave who didn’t get in or were waitlisted and I got in.

It really comes down to the holistic view of applicants. They want diverse and unique fellows who will compliment each other since the first year is spent on cycle and the program is so small.

What a great question! There are definitely students with pets. I have 2 dogs but also am married so my spouse has definitely picked up the slack there and life generally.

I think it sort of depends on you and also your pets needs. The screenwriting program definitely gives the most room to be home because they have to bake in writing time. Producing on the other hand might be more challenging depending on pet needs.

If you’re only doing school (which I’d highly highly recommend) it’s about equal to a full time job with occasional weekends. So, if you think you could provide adequate pet care with that then it’s doable.

Very helpful! Thank you!!

@kingofsweaters Do you have a sample of what a weekly schedule looks like for a producing student?

It's a little difficult to say. With Berkeley, if you get accepted/rejected/waitlisted and the major you applied to was in the College of Letters and Sciences, you're in that whole pool with other people in the college. I think it's a first-come, first-serve and I'm not sure exactly how much the actual program gets a say. I'd wait it out, people are still sending their responses on whether or not they accept their offers and I'm sure once the college gets an idea of how many admits there are, they'll see what kind of room they have in each program. I don't think it's actually very hard to get off the waitlist with the school but with the college's involvement, it may be different. Sorry if that's a confusing answer, but I have a feeling everything will work out and you'll be in soon!

Awesome. I'm merging the film school review pages into one page for each program eventually so you can review it here as well.

I added the Screenwriting concentration as an option for the school.

Awesome! Tysm Chris!

Yeah it's really tricky, and has also changed (the requirements for projects as a directing track student) within the 2 years I've been here. So coming out of the program their hopes are that maybe you've found a different discipline that interests you other than directing, lol. It's not impossible to make a thesis honestly, as long as you have everything together for it. But yes, when we're talking about the possibility that you won't make a FILM per se, there is also the television track and they get a lot of money and there's opportunities to direct there.
In your first year, second semester you do make a 5 and a half minute film and that's the only only guaranteed film you get to make that's given the full filmmaking process but you're in a trio and have to help your other trio mates make their films as well.

DEFINITELY weigh out if USC is the right school for you because it's a great school for becoming a well rounded director, but they do not want you to think there's a directing program. They want you versed in multiple disciplines. You can also learn a lot about producing and writing within the program, I know other film schools don't have as good of writing programs if you're a directing student.

Super interesting - thank you so much for your detailed answers, I learned a lot here. Unfortunately, I never got a chance to attend an info session for USC during the application process in the fall so I haven't had a chance to learn more in depth about how their curriculum is set up - I just have been going off of the presumption that you know, USC is one of the top film schools in the country and I'll probably get a stellar education there. But you definitely shed some light on a lot of things for me and there's a lot to I have to think about (depending on if I even get in or not! haha). Thank you thank you!