Hi, LaGuionista.
First of all, congrats on all of your admissions! I hope you've taken at least a few minutes in the middle of all of this decision-making stress to pat yourself on the back a little. Very impressive.
I actually went into the application process with USC as my unequivocal first choice, mainly because I thought it was head-and-shoulders above the rest of the pack in terms of industry integration. "USC gets you jobs" was the main selling point, and that's certainly true. The "USC Mafia" is a goofy name, but the manifestation is not fictional. The network they have is quite large.
After my interview with UCLA (the professor I interviewed with actually currently teaches screenwriting at both USC and UCLA), it turns out UCLA is just WAAAAY worse at selling themselves. I kind of had this feeling when you compare their websites, but it was validated in this interview. He spoke of current MFA students that have had to take leaves of absence from the program for a quarter or two because they just signed development deals with different studios.
He spoke of UCLA’s decision to more equally balance their course offerings in terms of Features to Television in an effort to become the TV writing school. This professor actually taught a class a few quarters ago on writing the drama pilot that was supported by the online content provider “Crackle”. Their development people read all 10 scripts at the end of the quarter and ended up purchasing two or three of them. Crackle is owned by Sony.
I say all of that to say that it doesn’t appear UCLA has an industry integration problem, and I like their actual MFA program a lot better than USC’s. USC’s got a more traditional set-up. The program is a little more structured, and they’re on the semester system rather than the quarter system. UCLA’s quarter system means you have a little less time to complete scripts but also means you have the opportunity to take more classes.
The professor spoke of the “shopping” period at the beginning of the quarter when everybody taking the same course pitches their story idea to the different professors teaching each section. After the pitching process, the teachers rank the students on who they want in their class, and the students rank the teachers on whose class they want to be in. Then, they’re paired with each other based on mutual selection and availability. USC might have this as well, but they’re much more transparent with stuff like this, and I’ve never heard about it. You can actually see the available courses on USC’s registrar’s page and read different teachers’ syllabi for those courses, so I don’t think they do this.
UCLA’s program is smaller too, for what that’s worth—I can see pros and cons for being smaller or larger. USC has the best production infrastructure around, so if you’re interested in getting as much out of that as possible, that’s a huge selling point. Both have events at the end of the year that bring in industry people to hear pitches and see featured work by students of the school. Both are two year programs. Both are largely based on workshopping scripts in a room of 8-10 students to one professor. Both are in LA. Westwood is a much nicer area than where USC is east of downtown, but it’s also more expensive.
Full disclosure, I was accepted into UCLA and rejected from USC, but I hope this doesn’t come off as sour grapes. USC is obviously a tremendous school, and I wish I were in this same predicament you’re in. Ultimately, I wasn’t left with a decision to make, but I’m much more comfortable with that than I ever thought I’d be.
Also, UCLA read 115 pages of my writing and USC read 23. I don’t know wtf that means, but I guess it does kind of feel good to be accepted into the school that read more.
Not sure of your situation, but I’d suggest getting on each campus and seeing if you can talk to some current students of each program. Or try reaching out to some of them on this site, maybe? While I have a lot of faith in the legitimacy of my research, it’s ultimately still just research.
See what info you can pull out of primary sources, go with your gut, and don’t look back. Both schools are great, and I can’t see you regretting either decision.
Hope this big, rambling mess helps at least a little.
