Columbus College of Art & Design - Columbus, Ohio

Brad C.

tour review: 5 stars - Izabella was awesome and gave so much good information effectively in a short amount of time (~an hour?) - we were really impressed! Great Admissions staff as well as the faculty we met as well. Students' art throughout the buildings was all brillant too : )

Chi L.

It is a safe place. Nice diverse and inviting college. I liked the college visit, tour guide was great and I hope to attend soon. Door rooms nice 4 per room. Disabled & LGBTQ+ friendly.

Vinyl R.

Loved it. though I am still looking for a job in my field, i feel that I walked away after graduating knowing a LOT more than i thought i'd ever know. Most of the bad reviews in my opinion are from people who were not ready to commit, or work to learn. I might have had a hard time the first few years, but I greatly enjoyed and appreciated all my professors there. If you are willing to work and study hard, while at the same time have a passion for art, I highly recommend this school.

James C.

Very expensive.. Unpaid tuition at CCAD gets $35 added every semester it isn't paid. They just sent my unpaid tuition to a debt collector.. they added 3K ontop of what I owed CCAD. They refused to work with me. Although they get BIG donations to prop up the schools image and not help the students.

Jasmine F.

Just had a tour at this place as a potential student with a passion for Ceramics and drawing and I am sorry to say that I am offended. For the cost of this place I was expecting to be blown away, but this place truly only cares about its 2D art and architecture. I was extremely offended to find only one ceramics display, and the ceramics room being mixed together with glassblowing! That is dangerous and unsafe. This place is a joke and I feel bad for any student going there, knowing that there is extremely better places out there! I'm giving this place a 2 star review and that is me being generous!

Aaron B.

Great school, but it's very challenging. Most of the bad reviews come from people who dropped out. I would say that as a Graphic designer, the school set's you up to be a professional in business practice and has you work with a lot of real-world clients. Over-all, Great school and program. I would recommend it to anyone who is strong and wants a challenge. You won't sleep when you're here.

Anna S.

If you want to be a concept artist or a character designer, don't go to this school, it's a waste of money and time. I graduated from CCAD in 2015, majoring in illustration. The illustration major was the only major offered entertainment design class. But they are not heavily focused on concept art techniques, because these professors are from the comics or illustration field. They don't understand how the concept art industry works, and the industry's standards. Concept art or character design are all done digitally, but I have never seen an illustration teacher do demo paintings on PS. Every time you come to class, you do projects. After the project, there was another project. There's nothing being taught by the teacher you learned on your own. Also, their illustration teacher doesn't know how to use PS to paint. Most of them come from a traditional painting background, and most of their teaching style are outdated, you ask them how to use the layer options, how to render paintings, how to set up brushes in photoshop, how to do AO style paintings, how to combine 3D models to paintings, they don’t know, Nowadays, 2D artists are required to know how to paint on computer, yet their teacher can teach you that. I should’ve drop out the first month, I was so stupid wasted my money and time to attend this trash school.

CCAD's basic drawing fundamental class is like a hobby drawing class. Only one teacher can teach and demonstrate, and his name is Gordon Lee, the best anatomy teacher in the entire school. No one else can teach better than him. Most of them are lazy, just standing there walking around, or playing with the computer. The teacher's criticism was useless. If the perspective is wrong, the teacher won't fix it, they won’t tell you what you did wrong, If your gesture drawing is not right, they don't point it out, they don't show you the proper techniques to learn it. They just let you find mistakes by yourself. again they don’t correct your mistakes if you do it wrong, this school pretty much accept any students, they don’t care if you improve or not, they just want your money

If you want to know what a good art lesson looks like, watch youtube videos. If you want to know how a good art teacher grades a student's work, watch Proko's example. Have a good art teacher is very important. But unfortunately CCAD's illustration major failed to offer that. Think about how much you paid for their classes and not getting the right information

So if you are a high school student thinking about doing illustration or concept art, before applying for art schools, do more research on your own before taking 60k+ student loans, because a lot of them are scams, just like this school. There are better and cheaper art lessons out there, and already a lot of well known concept artists out there teaching lessons. You can find their lessons on skill share, gumroad, or youtube. They can teach way better and have more industry experience more digital painting experienced than CCAD's professors. Find the art style you like and learn from them. Save your 60K of student loans, spend it somewhere else that's more worth of your time and effort. Again DON'T GO TO THIS SCHOOL, IS A WASTE OF MONEY. The way they teach you it’s not gonna get you the job, if you going to this school, your chances of getting into concept art or character design industry is 0%.

Orion O.

I attended CCAD for 1 year. While I had A's in all of my classes, I was unable to complete my degree due to a schedule conflict that I was told would not be an issue.

I work full time during the day. Before enrollment, I explained to Admissions that I can only attend classes at night due to my work schedule. They explained to me that this would not be a problem and I would be able to complete my degree though night classes. After a year (and a whole lot of money!) I was informed that if I wanted to complete my degree that I would have to attend classes during the day as that is the only time core classes are taught.

They offered to sign me up for another semester of night classes in hopes something changes in their policy and we can "wait and see". I don't know about you, but that is a lot of money for a "wait and see". So here I am, $15k later at another school.

As far as the classes, half of the classes really worked to teach you something. The other half you would watch a YouTube video and and do an assignment. The teacher was there if you had questions, but would often differ you back to the YouTube video stating "I don't know the software that well".

And if you do decide that this is the school for you, I recommend you take classes during the day. Night teachers are hard to find it seems so it is not uncommon to see a Pottery teacher teaching the Drawing class.