UCF video-game graduate school ranks No. 2 nationally

By Denise-Marie Balona, Orlando Sentinel

University of Central Florida is home to a new medical school, a top-ranking research group and graduate programs for the region's business leaders.

And now it will be known nationwide for its ability to turn a group of people once seen as society's slackers – video gamers – into professionals capable of making big bucks in a multibillion-dollar industry.

On Tuesday, the Princeton Review, which puts out a host of college rankings each year, released its first-ever ranking of video game graduate schools. And UCF ranked No. 2 behind the University of Southern California.

UCF's program is small but its students have seen success, university officials said.

Since the Florida Interactive Entertainment Academy opened in 2005, it has awarded master's degrees to 191 students who went to work for companies such as Disney, Google and Electronic Arts, which creates games for the Nintendo Wii and Microsoft Corp.'s Xbox 360, and Zynga, creator of the Farmville video game popular with Facebook users.

The Review ranked schools based on data collected during a survey of administrators at 150 schools in the U.S. and Canada. It considered factors such as curriculum, faculty and financial aid.

"For students aspiring to work in this burgeoning field, and for the companies that will need their creative talents and trained skills, we hope this project will serve as a catalyst for many successful connections," Robert Franek, a senior vice president at the Review, said in a prepared statement.

GamePro magazine will feature the ranking in its April issue, which will be on newsstands March 8.

The ranking focuses on 30 schools — the top 10 undergraduate programs, the top 10 graduate schools and 10 schools that rated Honorable Mentions.

UCF started offering game design as part of its undergraduate digital-media program last year,, a UCF spokeswoman said.



The top 10 undergraduate schools for video game design study for 2011 are:

1. University of Southern California (Los Angeles, CA)
2. University of Utah (Salt Lake City, UT)
3. DigiPen Institute of Technology (Redmond, WA)
4. The Art Institute of Vancouver (Vancouver, BC, Canada)
5. Michigan State University (East Lansing, MI)
6. Worcester Polytechnic Institute (Worcester, MA)
7. Drexel University (Philadelphia, PA)
8. Champlain College (Burlington, VT)
9. Rochester Institute of Technology (Rochester, NY)
10. Becker College (Worcester, MA)


The top 10 graduate schools for video game design study for 2011 are:

1. University of Southern California (Los Angeles, CA)
2. University of Central Florida (Orlando, FL)
3. Southern Methodist University (Plano, TX)
4. Rochester Institute of Technology (Rochester, NY)
5. Drexel University (Philadelphia, PA)
6. University of Utah (Salt Lake City, UT)
7. University of California, Santa Cruz (Santa Cruz, CA)
8. Savannah College of Art and Design (Savannah, GA)
9. Parsons The New School for Design (New York, NY)
10. The University of Texas at Dallas (Dallas, TX)