I started to search for a pattern in a discussion forum talking about who they thought was the top design school in the world. I read every post. I wrote down the school and the reasons given on why it was the top. Most reasons were “because I said so” with a descriptor like “fantastic” “great” “outstanding” and “good”. Other popular reasons were: anecdotal references (self-pride, hired someone, know friends), reference to established brand stereotypes, reference to historical figures, association with prestigious employers, and relationship of faculty. These arguments are too general to distinguish the schools apart.

Conclusion of reading through all those posts? With 66 schools mentioned out of 97 comments. That’s a lot of schools with not much consensus, which means there’s no such thing as a “top” school. It’s the wrong question anyway. Schools aren’t intended to be a top-down tower stacked on top of each other. Each exist for some particular purpose and it’s disingenuous to the students and the profession to rank schools by arbitrary criteria especially in a vertical hierarchy.

It doesn’t exactly matter what school you went to, or if you even went to school at all, especially in design. Is Stanford a good school because their education is superior, or because they only accept smarties who push themselves? Is Art Center good because they kick out everyone who can’t draw? Like everything else it’s the price you pay and the school’s brand-control. Here’s a little secret, Pasadena Community College (PCC) has a good number of instructors who teach at both PCC and Art Center. The teachers love teaching, and so they do. The cost of an Art Center class is ~$3500 each, PCC is around $70 each. Are you telling me that an Art Center class is 50 times better than a class at PCC? Maybe the advanced classes might be better, but I don’t know about 50 times better. I suppose you’re paying for something else, and it’s certainly not a better education. What ever your education background might be, I’ll put my money down on your level of passion and gumption instead.

What I’d rather see instead of a top-down hierarchy is a description of the school’s focus and philosophy (which I’m going to hope is unique per region per cost bracket), then measure THAT against the student’s work. Then we can talk about whether that school is delivering on their promise and share that information with potential students. If it was an infographic map, it’d be a bunch of vin-diagrams with overlapping bubbles, not a top-down pyramid.

What’s the philosophy and focus of your school? What was the philosophy of your Alma mater?