The Royal College of Art offers degrees in fashion design, textiles and jewellery, amongst others, but only at the postgraduate level. In every course, students have opportunities to work with peers from other disciplines throughout the college. Situated in Kensington, West London, the RCA counts the V&A Museum and the Royal Albert Hall as neighbours, offering an idyllic area in which to study. The student body is very internationally diverse, with nearly 60 percent of students enrolling from out of country. In our survey, students scored the college’s teaching resources and facilities highly, and ranked both their teachers and peers very highly with 86 percent and 92 percent satisfaction rates. However, only 32 percent of students were satisfied with work placement provisions, and business, marketing and sustainability courses were identified as weaknesses in the curriculum.
1st
Graduate, Fashion Ranking 2015
Full-time fashion students
95
International students
60%
Student : Teacher ratio
15:1
Tuition: Domestic/intl
$15k/$44k
Acceptance rate
26%
Graduation Rate
97%
Courses Offered
Graduate:
MA Jewellery & Metal, MA Fashion Menswear, MA Fashion Womenswear, MA Textiles
Student & Alumni Comments
"Challenging, contemporary in its teaching practice and well connected in the industry."
"A very challenging and developing education with a keen eye on industry relevance, but with very little attention to promote students for employment."
"We were given room to grow, freedom to explore and power to disagree. But most of all were gained a brilliant sense of belonging (to the creative industry)."
"Very positive, personal, creative development and refinement, combined with greatly improved technical skills and lasting friendships."
"As the leading Design Institution in the world with the most respected degree, I felt that I learned very little, but worked extensively for free on industry projects that the college was very well compensated for. The most important factor for me to stay on was the degree, which was invaluable in opening the right door because of the reputation of the college."
"I find the graduate destinations I am seeing very promising and feel that my design work is really progressing. I feel let down by a lack of organisation and communication."
"I was accepted at both the RCA and CSM for the MA programs. I finally chose the RCA because of the teaching, facilities, size of class, all the obvious positives. I met great people, I grew as a designer and really honed my practice, however, getting a job has been difficult and I still do not have the type of job that I would want and expected to get from the training and experience I have."
Full Graduate, Fashion Ranking
The Business of Fashion's global fashion school rankings aim to provide an objective assessment of the top undergraduate and graduate fashion programmes around the world.