Parsons School of Design

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• Top 6 Art Schools of All Time

  Currently #2 · score 0

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• Rhode Island School of Design

  Rhode Island School of Design was founded in 1877 in Providence, Rhode Island, established in part through the efforts of a group of women affiliated with the Rhode Island Centennial Commission who wanted to create a dedicated school combining fine arts and industrial design education. RISD built a close, formal academic relationship with neighboring Brown University, letting students at both institutions cross-register for courses, a distinctive arrangement giving RISD art and design students access to a full research university's broader liberal arts curriculum. The school has consistently ranked among the very top art and design programs in the country, with particularly strong reputations in industrial design, illustration, and architecture, and its alumni include numerous prominent working artists, designers, and creative directors across major industries. RISD's combination of its founding by 19th-century civic-minded women reformers and its unusual academic partnership with Brown University has made it one of the most highly regarded art and design schools in the country.

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• Savannah College of Art and Design

  The Savannah College of Art and Design was founded in 1978 in Savannah, Georgia, notably later than most other major American art schools, and it grew rapidly by restoring numerous historic downtown Savannah buildings into campus facilities rather than building an entirely new dedicated campus. SCAD distinguished itself with an unusually broad range of specialized degree programs, including animation, game design, and themed entertainment design, subjects that many older, more traditional art schools had not historically emphasized as heavily. The college expanded significantly beyond its original Savannah campus, adding locations in Atlanta and Hong Kong along with online degree programs, growing into one of the largest private art and design schools in the world by total enrollment. SCAD's combination of its distinctive historic-building campus restoration model and its unusually broad range of modern specialized design programs has made it one of the fastest-growing and most expansive art schools in the country.

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• School of the Art Institute of Chicago

  The School of the Art Institute of Chicago was founded in 1866, making it one of the oldest art schools in the United States, and it has operated in close connection with the adjacent Art Institute of Chicago museum, giving students direct access to one of the largest art museum collections in the country. The school built a particularly strong reputation in fine arts and has historically emphasized experimental and conceptual approaches to art-making, and its notable alumni include influential figures across painting, photography, and contemporary art more broadly. The school's deep integration with a major encyclopedic art museum is relatively unusual among American art schools, letting students study working artworks spanning thousands of years of art history as a direct extension of their own studio training. The School of the Art Institute of Chicago's combination of its status as one of the oldest American art schools and its unique direct integration with a major world-class art museum has made it one of the most academically distinctive art schools in the country.

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• Pratt Institute

  Pratt Institute was founded in 1887 in Brooklyn, New York by industrialist Charles Pratt, originally established to provide practical, affordable technical and vocational education to working-class students, before evolving over the following century into a prominent art, design, and architecture school. The school built particularly strong reputations in architecture, industrial design, and fine arts, and its Brooklyn location has given students unusually close proximity to New York City's broader creative and design industries compared to schools located outside major urban centers. Pratt's origins as a practical vocational institution founded by a wealthy industrialist reflect a distinctly different founding philosophy than many art schools established primarily around fine arts education, and that practical design orientation has remained part of Pratt's institutional identity. Pratt Institute's combination of its founding by industrialist Charles Pratt as a practical vocational school and its later growth into a prominent architecture and design institution has made it one of the most historically distinctive art schools in the country.

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• California Institute of the Arts

  California Institute of the Arts, commonly known as CalArts, was founded in 1961 through the merger of the Los Angeles Conservatory of Music and the Chouinard Art Institute, with significant funding and involvement from Walt Disney, who envisioned a combined school for all the arts under one institution. The school built an especially strong reputation in animation specifically, and its alumni include numerous influential figures who went on to lead major animation studios, reflecting CalArts's close historical ties to Disney and the broader Los Angeles entertainment industry. CalArts has also built a significant reputation for experimental and avant-garde approaches across music, theater, and fine arts, giving the school a somewhat unusual dual identity spanning both mainstream entertainment animation training and more conceptually experimental artistic disciplines. CalArts's combination of its founding with direct Walt Disney involvement and its outsized influence on the professional animation industry has made it one of the most distinctively positioned art schools in the country.

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• University of Chicago Booth School of Business

  The University of Chicago's Booth School of Business traces its founding to 1898, later renamed in 2008 following a major donation from private equity investor David Booth, and the school built its defining academic identity around free-market economic theory, closely tied to the broader University of Chicago economics department's influential free-market tradition. Booth has produced an especially large number of Nobel laureates in economics among its faculty, reflecting the school's deep integration with the University of Chicago's historically dominant free-market economics scholarship, sometimes referred to as the "Chicago School" of economic thought. The school offers an unusually flexible MBA curriculum with minimal required coursework compared to many peer programs, letting students design a significant portion of their own course of study, a structural approach reflecting the broader University of Chicago's institutional culture of intellectual independence. Booth's combination of its deep ties to the University of Chicago's Nobel Prize-heavy free-market economics tradition and its unusually flexible MBA curriculum has made it one of the most academically distinctive business schools in the world.

• Kellogg School of Management

  Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management traces its origins to 1908, later renamed in 1979 following a major gift from the John L. Kellogg Foundation, tied to the family behind the Kellogg cereal company, and the school built a particularly strong reputation specifically in marketing education. Kellogg pioneered a team-based, collaborative learning approach to business education earlier and more extensively than many peer schools, emphasizing group projects and peer leadership development alongside traditional lecture and case-study instruction. The school has consistently ranked among the very top programs specifically for marketing, and Kellogg has produced a notably large number of chief marketing officers and brand management executives across major American consumer companies relative to its class size. Kellogg's combination of its namesake connection to the Kellogg cereal family and its pioneering emphasis on team-based collaborative learning has made it one of the most distinctively taught business schools in the country.

• MIT Sloan School of Management

  MIT's Sloan School of Management traces its origins to 1914, later formally named in 1964 after a major donation from General Motors executive and MIT alumnus Alfred P. Sloan, and the school built its distinctive identity around applying MIT's broader engineering and quantitative rigor to business education. Sloan became particularly known for its strength in operations research, quantitative finance, and technology management, reflecting its close integration with MIT's broader scientific and engineering departments, a curriculum emphasis that distinguishes it from business schools with a more purely case-study-based approach. The school has produced a significant number of prominent economists and quantitative finance practitioners, and its faculty have included multiple Nobel laureates in economics, reflecting Sloan's sustained emphasis on rigorous academic and quantitative research alongside practical management training. MIT Sloan's combination of its namesake connection to General Motors executive Alfred P. Sloan and its distinctive engineering-driven, quantitative approach to business education has made it one of the most academically rigorous business schools in the world.

• Stanford Graduate School of Business

  Stanford's Graduate School of Business was founded in 1925, and its location in the heart of Silicon Valley has given it an especially close, distinctive relationship with the technology and venture capital industries compared to most other elite business schools concentrated on the East Coast. The school has consistently maintained one of the lowest MBA acceptance rates of any business school in the world, reflecting extremely high application volume relative to its deliberately small class size, a scarcity that has become closely associated with the program's exclusive reputation. Stanford GSB has produced an unusually large number of prominent startup founders and venture capitalists relative to its small class size, with alumni founding or co-founding numerous major technology companies, reflecting the program's deep integration with the surrounding Silicon Valley startup ecosystem. Stanford GSB's combination of its unique Silicon Valley location and its consistently ultra-low MBA acceptance rate has made it one of the most selective and entrepreneurially influential business schools in the world.

• The Wharton School

  The Wharton School was founded in 1881 at the University of Pennsylvania through a donation from industrialist Joseph Wharton, making it the first collegiate business school ever established in the United States, predating most other business schools by decades. Wharton built a particularly strong reputation in finance education specifically, closely tied to its location near New York's financial industry, and the school has produced an unusually large number of prominent Wall Street executives, investment bankers, and hedge fund managers among its graduates. The school's undergraduate business program, distinct from most peer institutions that offer business education only at the graduate MBA level, has consistently ranked among the very best undergraduate business programs in the country, reflecting Wharton's unusually broad scope spanning both undergraduate and graduate business education. Wharton's combination of its status as America's first collegiate business school and its especially strong ties to Wall Street finance careers has made it one of the most historically significant business schools in the country.