I'm just kind of flailing around in the dark, and I don't have anyone who can really help me figure it out.

well do you want in state or out of state?

do you have any friends who went to similar schools who can recc you some/

In-state (NJ) would be preferable for monetary reasons. Most of my friends are in high school as well, and those who aren't are... well, here.

commute or dorm?

look at geographic area first and that should help narrow it down

look at NYC metro schools

like CUNY schools

then try to figure out campus visits, especially because you're in state and there isn't a huge cost associated with traveling to visit

the only schools that immediately spring to mind in NJ that's public is like... rutgers

touou: I have, but my concern about that is how much it would cost to pay for the education/housing in NYC. Commuting from my current home is not an option I'd like to take.

Rutgers' art program is... meh.

I'd say for any area you're interested in, try and talk to people in the field. They'll very often have a good sense of where good stuff is done.

well CUNY is a public system so it's cheaper

I was looking at CUNY City College as a possibility

Maybe google college art programs or something like that in general, and browse around for things that look interesting to you?

I found Columbia by looking for plasma physics experiments and reading up on them to see what kind of stuff they did.

i have a friend who's doing illustration through CUNY

oh?

i think she's doing the city college program but she also lives at home so that isn't a concern for her

yeah she JUST got accepted

oh, congrats to her!

anyways....

unfortunately one of the main reasons i want to attend college is to get away from my current living situation, and that makes things significantly harder

yeah

List of colleges and universities in New Jersey - Wikipedia, the ... ?

i do have one college i really want to apply to (montclair state) that fits pretty much all of the criteria, but i also feel like only applying to one college is a bad idea

yeah

i applied to... 7

but i also went to a school where a lot of people applied to like 12

oh damn

it depends on how many apps you can afford to send

since like... iirc high schools tend to charge you for transcripts also

my high school hasn't mentioned anything about charging for transcripts, i'll have to check that out :|a

well it might be like 'you can send this many for free and after that we charge'

OR THEY MIGHT NOT. maybe my hs was just full of assholes

pff

thanks for telling me, regardless! it's def something i want to know about