If you plan on majoring in acting, you won't be alone since the degree program is ranked #323 in the country in terms of popularity. So, you have a fair amount of options to choose from when looking for a school.
In 2024, College Factual analyzed 81 schools in order to identify the top ones for its Best Acting Schools ranking. Combined, these schools handed out 1,686 degrees in acting to qualified students.
Your choice of acting school matters, so we have put together these rankings to help you make your decision. In order to come up with a best overall ranking for acting schools, we combine our degree-level rankings, weighting them by the number of degrees awarded at each level.
In order to find the schools that are the best fit for you, you may want to filter to one of the degree levels below.
The acting school you choose to invest your time and money in matters. To help you make the decision that is right for you, we've developed a number of major-specific rankings, including this list of the Best Acting Schools.
More interested in schools in a specific area of the country? Filter this list by region or state.
To further help you make the college decision, we've developed a unique tool called College Combat that allows you to compare schools based on the factors that matter the most to you.
Go ahead and give it a try, or bookmark the link so you can check it out later.
Although we recommend filtering by degree level first, you can view the list below to see which schools give the educational experience for the acting degree levels they offer. Only those schools that rank in the top 15% of all the schools we analyze get awarded with a place on this list.
Every student who is interested in acting has to check out University of Southern California. Located in the city of Los Angeles, USC is a private not-for-profit university with a fairly large student population. A Best Colleges rank of #11 out of 2,217 colleges nationwide means USC is a great university overall.
There were approximately 45 acting students who graduated with this degree at USC in the most recent data year.
It's hard to beat Yale University if you wish to pursue a degree in acting. Yale is a large private not-for-profit university located in the medium-sized city of New Haven. A Best Colleges rank of #8 out of 2,217 schools nationwide means Yale is a great university overall.
There were approximately 16 acting students who graduated with this degree at Yale in the most recent data year.
Every student who is interested in acting needs to check out The University of Texas at Austin. UT Austin is a fairly large public university located in the large city of Austin. A Best Colleges rank of #36 out of 2,217 colleges nationwide means UT Austin is a great university overall.
There were roughly 11 acting students who graduated with this degree at UT Austin in the most recent data year.
Any student who is interested in acting has to take a look at Boston University. Located in the large city of Boston, Boston U is a private not-for-profit university with a very large student population. A Best Colleges rank of #54 out of 2,217 schools nationwide means Boston U is a great university overall.
There were about 23 acting students who graduated with this degree at Boston U in the most recent year we have data available.
Located in the midsize city of Orange, Chapman is a private not-for-profit university with a large student population. This university ranks 32nd out of 168 colleges for overall quality in the state of California.
There were approximately 17 acting students who graduated with this degree at Chapman in the most recent data year.
UCONN is a fairly large public university located in the large suburb of Storrs. A Best Colleges rank of #86 out of 2,217 colleges nationwide means UCONN is a great university overall.
There were about 11 acting students who graduated with this degree at UCONN in the most recent year we have data available.
Located in the large city of La Jolla, UCSD is a public university with a very large student population. A Best Colleges rank of #38 out of 2,217 schools nationwide means UCSD is a great university overall.
There were about 8 acting students who graduated with this degree at UCSD in the most recent year we have data available.
Brown is a large private not-for-profit university located in the medium-sized city of Providence. A Best Colleges rank of #21 out of 2,217 colleges nationwide means Brown is a great university overall.
There were about 11 acting students who graduated with this degree at Brown in the most recent year we have data available.
Located in the city of West Lafayette, Purdue is a public university with a fairly large student population. A Best Colleges rank of #40 out of 2,217 schools nationwide means Purdue is a great university overall.
There were roughly 2 acting students who graduated with this degree at Purdue in the most recent year we have data available.
Located in the large city of Cincinnati, UC is a public university with a very large student population. This university ranks 5th out of 96 schools for overall quality in the state of Ohio.
There were about 15 acting students who graduated with this degree at UC in the most recent year we have data available.
Located in the medium-sized city of Las Vegas, UNLV is a public university with a very large student population. This university ranks 1st out of 9 colleges for overall quality in the state of Nevada.
There were about 3 acting students who graduated with this degree at UNLV in the most recent data year.
The bars on the spread charts above show the distribution of the schools on this list +/- one standard deviation from the mean.
The Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), a branch of the U.S. Department of Education (DOE) serves as the core of the rest of our data about colleges.
Some other college data, including much of the graduate earnings data, comes from the U.S. Department of Education’s (College Scorecard).
Credit for the banner image above goes to Donald Judge.
Your choice of acting school matters, so we have put together these rankings to help you make your decision. In order to come up with a best overall ranking for acting schools, we combine our degree-level rankings, weighting them by the number of degrees awarded at each level.
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