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. When you put them all together, these colleges and universities awarded 1,793 degrees in acting during the 2020-2021 academic year.
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 needs 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 schools nationwide means USC is a great university overall.
There were approximately 71 acting students who graduated with this degree at USC in the most recent data year.
It's difficult 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.More information about a degree in acting from Yale University
Every student who is interested in acting needs to look into The University of Texas at Austin. UT Austin is a very 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 10 acting students who graduated with this degree at UT Austin in the most recent year we have data available.
Any student pursuing a degree in acting needs to take a look at Boston University. Located in the 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 colleges nationwide means Boston U is a great university overall.
There were roughly 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 fairly large student population. This university ranks 32nd out of 168 colleges for overall quality in the state of California.
There were approximately 14 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 suburb of Storrs. A Best Colleges rank of #86 out of 2,217 schools nationwide means UCONN is a great university overall.
There were about 9 acting students who graduated with this degree at UCONN in the most recent year we have data available.
Located in the city of La Jolla, UCSD is a public university with a fairly large student population. A Best Colleges rank of #38 out of 2,217 colleges nationwide means UCSD is a great university overall.
There were approximately 8 acting students who graduated with this degree at UCSD in the most recent data year.
Brown is a fairly large private not-for-profit university located in the midsize city of Providence. A Best Colleges rank of #21 out of 2,217 schools nationwide means Brown is a great university overall.More information about a degree in acting from Brown University
Located in the city of West Lafayette, Purdue is a public university with a very large student population. A Best Colleges rank of #40 out of 2,217 colleges nationwide means Purdue is a great university overall.
There were roughly 7 acting students who graduated with this degree at Purdue in the most recent year we have data available.
Located in the 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 17 acting students who graduated with this degree at UC in the most recent data year.
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 schools for overall quality in the state of Nevada.
There were roughly 16 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.
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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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