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.
College Factual reviewed 8 schools in California to determine which ones were the best for degree seekers in the field of acting. When you put them all together, these colleges and universities awarded 512 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.
When choosing the right school for you, it's important to arm yourself with all the facts you can. To that end, we've created a number of major-specific rankings, including this Best Acting Schools in California list to help you make the college decision.
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.
Every student pursuing a degree in acting needs to look into University of Southern California. Located in the large 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 roughly 71 acting students who graduated with this degree at USC in the most recent data year.
Every student who is interested in acting has to take a look at Chapman University. 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 roughly 14 acting students who graduated with this degree at Chapman in the most recent data year.
University of California - San Diego is a wonderful option for students pursuing a degree in acting. 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 approximately 8 acting students who graduated with this degree at UCSD in the most recent data year.
Pepperdine University is one of the finest schools in the United States for getting a degree in acting. Pepperdine is a large private not-for-profit university located in the large suburb of Malibu. This university ranks 16th out of 168 colleges for overall quality in the state of California.
There were about 8 acting students who graduated with this degree at Pepperdine in the most recent data year.
Academy of Art University is a medium-sized private for-profit university located in the large city of San Francisco. This university ranks 37th out of 168 colleges for overall quality in the state of California.
There were roughly 34 acting students who graduated with this degree at Academy of Art University in the most recent year we have data available.
Located in the city of Los Angeles, American Academy of Dramatic Arts - Los Angeles is a private not-for-profit school with a small student population.
There were roughly 150 acting students who graduated with this degree at American Academy of Dramatic Arts - Los Angeles in the most recent year we have data available.
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.
college factual
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.
.jpg){kind=link}