About
California College of the Arts (CCA) is highly regarded for its interdisciplinary approach to art and design education, boasting top-tier, nationally ranked programs in industrial design, architecture, animation, and interaction design. The student experience is defined by a collaborative, maker-centric culture on a newly unified San Francisco campus that fosters a tight-knit, diverse community of socially conscious creators. What truly sets CCA apart is its deep integration with the Bay Area's innovation economy, which provides students with unparalleled networking opportunities and direct career pipelines to world-class creative and tech giants like Pixar, Apple, and Google.
Wikipedia:The California College of the Arts (CCA) is a private art school in San Francisco, California. It was founded in Berkeley, California in 1907 and moved to a historic estate in Oakland, California in 1922. In 1996, it opened a second campus in San Francisco; in 2022, the Oakland campus was closed and merged into the San Francisco campus. CCA enrolls approximately 1,239 undergraduates and 380 graduate students. In January 2026, CCA president David Howse announced the college will be closing at the end of the 2026–2027 academic year, with Vanderbilt University taking over the campus.
Location
Cost & aid
Outcomes
Admissions
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Essay prompts
If California College of the Arts asks for supplemental essays, the prompts are in the Common App.
The personal essay is separate: see the Common App essay prompts.
Student Body
Varsity sports
No data. This school isn't in the U.S. Department of Education's athletics (EADA) file, so we can't list its teams. That doesn't mean it has none.
Programs & Earnings
Institutional
Wondering if California College of the Arts is the right fit for you?
SchoolScout builds a personalized college list — reach, match, and safety schools — tailored to your profile, grades, and goals. Get financial aid estimates, scholarship guidance, and deep dives on every school.