Fashionista

How to Make It in Fashion: June 21, Dream Hotel Downtown, New York

Monday July 11th, 2011

The Top 20 Fashion Schools in the US: The Fashionista Ranking
Fashion Careers

The Top 20 Fashion Schools in the US: The Fashionista Ranking

It’s summertime, and chances are you’re heading to the beach or hanging out with friends. But soon enough it will be September, so you might as well start thinking about your future educational endeavors now. If you have an interest in fashion, whether to design it or take a more behind-the-scenes role, there are tons of amazing school options to consider. For a comprehensive look, you can take a peek at our Top 50 Fashion Schools list, which pretty much covers the entire world. Think you want to stick with US schools? Then you’re in the right place!

We’ve compiled a list of the 20 best fashion schools in the country. As with our previous fashion school rankings, this is not scientific. We looked at data, jobs procured, opinions of people in the industry, and standout program offerings. We also wanted to show you that great schools aren’t limited to NYC–you’ll find colleges located in all parts of the country.

This list is meant to provide an overview of the schools’ strengths and to highlight some of their unique attributes. You’ll find fashion design programs here, but some of the schools listed don’t offer fashion design. Instead, they’ve gained a spot because they offer other amazing programs to prepare you for a career in fashion. We hope it’s helpful as a starting point. (Click here for the full list.)

Tuition prices don’t include fees and housing. And if you see an asterisk (*), it denotes a CFDA-affiliated program. Like our previous rankings, this list includes undergraduate degrees only.

Click through to review the schools and good luck as you embark on a new career!

(*Additional reporting by Sara Shabtai*)

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Published at 3:00 PM

Wednesday December 8th, 2010

The Top 50 Fashion Schools In The World: The Fashionista Ranking
Fashion Careers

The Top 50 Fashion Schools In The World: The Fashionista Ranking

If you want to work in fashion and are about to enter college, finding the right school for you can be a difficult task. We’d like to help. So we’ve painstakingly rounded up the 50 best fashion schools in the world. (Click here for the full list.)

These are not just design schools. We’ve included tons of colleges and universities that offer stellar fashion business, marketing, styling, textiles, and technology programs.

Methodology: To generate our list, we spoke to students, employees at the schools, companies who hire graduates, and industry professionals. We also considered tuition costs, demographics, famous alums, and variety in programming. It’s not scientific, but we tried to be as objective as possible. Keep this in mind if you don’t see your favorite school here or disagree with the ranking your alma mater received. The take-home message? These schools are all amazing, or they wouldn’t have made the list.

Tuition: Art and design schools are generally expensive. But you can see here that the prices range from almost $40,000 per year to free. (Yes, you read that correctly–thank you, Finland). Unless otherwise stated, the tuition you see is yearly for international students. It does not include room and board and incidentals. Also, tuition obviously changes yearly, so take it as an approximation.

How To Apply: Most of the schools have very similar application requirements, so we decided not to include them for each individual school. In general, you need a high school equivalency, letters of recommendation, essay, portfolio (for design students), interview. Some countries, for obvious reasons, have language requirements. We’ve noted where English is not the main language spoken.

Famous grads: Just because a school hasn’t produced a marquee name (yet) doesn’t mean it isn’t good. Every single one of these schools has placed students in major fashion houses, commercial labels, and other fashion businesses. Behind every Alber Elbaz (a Shenkar alum) are 50 Jane and John Does helping everything run smoothly. And getting paid damn good money to do it.

Other: If you see an asterisk (*) it denotes a CFDA-affiliated school.

Now dive in and learn something:

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Published at 1:10 PM