Film School Rankings are absolutely meaningless in the real world of film production. It’s like getting a gold star for going poop as a toddler. You feel excited and proud that you got in to this school (your gold star), but making doo doo as a kid don’t mean squat as an adult.

Similarly, film school rankings skew the reality for most young people. You’d think that going to an NYU, USC, or AFI would lead to some kind of advantage in the film business, but it’s rarely true. Film School rankings are a myth. Unfortunately, the myth is a real as Santa Claus thanks to publications like the US News and World Report and the Hollywood Reporter.

The Hollywood Reporter just released it’s top25 list of film school rankings back in July 2011. They mention that “everybody knows about the industry infiltration of USC and UCLA”, then seeks to highlight other film schools that also have industry “clout”.

This is what “clout” really means in the film business. If a school has clout it means you have a higher likelihood of getting an internship with a production company are having an industry pro speak at your classes. It doesn’t translate into a $50,000 a year advantage. Some schools like USC have excellent internship connections, but then again so does a community college like Orange Coast CC in Orange County. But what’s even crazier is that most internships and film industry experience never comes through college, it comes through meeting people and making connections on your own.

Film School Rankings Skew Reality

My friend Pete Atencio was shooting videos at the Oscars ceremony, interviewing celebrities, just a few months after dropping out of film school. How? He starting shooting his own stuff, shared it with people, impressed them, and got hired more and more. Pete was smart enough to drop out of school.

But because of Film School Rankings, people go nuts trying to get into these “name” schools. Then, if you go to a place like NYU, let’s say, you graduate and the job opportunity board looks like this:

These are the kind of pathetic job opportunities available for grads of schools that have the highest film school rankings. NYU recently discontinued its job placement service altogether and now has it’s grads compete with students from other schools on a “Monster.com” type job search engine.

USC grads don’t fare much better. For all the fanfare about that school, unless you get lucky you are going to be hustling your ass off like everyone else trying to find an in. In reality, this is the kind of opportunity available for film school grads:

And don’t you know about 1000 students from UCLA, USC, NYU probably fell over themselves for this opportunity. Truthfully, this kind of a job is a great opportunity to learn about film. You get to be on a set and see how it works for real instead of working on some retarded 10 minute student film that is costing you $50,000 in tuition.

However, look at the skill requirements. “Must be able to drive the DP to the shoot”. That’s the kind of skills required to get going in the film industry. You also might want to learn how to make coffee or pick up dry cleaning, because even grads of schools with the highest film school rankings like USC end up doing that. Here’s an in joke from Kevin Smith illustrating this point: