LOOKING AT MY OPTIONS
While sick I realised I had some time on my hands. So this is what I did:

I visited the school that I was interested in getting into, the California Institute of Arts and then chatted with an old schoolmate whom I knew was studying abroad for loan tips.

That's how I got to know the existence of TERI.org (The Educational Resources Institute) which offers loans to foreign students so long as they can provide US resident cosigner.

So, with those in mind, consider the idea of being able to say the following were schoolmates of yours:

Henry Anderson (BFA 88, Character Animation) received an Academy Award nomination in 2000 for supervising animation on the film Stuart Little. Earlier, in 1992, he had won an Emmy for helping to create special visual effects on the TV movie The Last Halloween.

Robin Anderson (BFA 95, Character Animation) is the character art director at the gaming division of Saban Entertainment. Previously, she was an animator at Disney.

Brad Bird (76, Character Animation) wrote the screen story and directed The Iron Giant, among the best reviewed animated features of 1999. It won the Annie Award for Outstanding Achievement and was named best animated film of the year by the Los Angeles Film Critics Association. After joining Pixar Animation Studios, Bird wrote and directed the feature The Incredibles.

Dave Bossert (BFA 83, Character Animation) is a producer-director at DisneyToon Studios. Previously, he was the artistic coordinator and visual effects supervisor on Fantasia 2000 and, more recently, the associate producer of the short Destino, a work begun by Walt Disney and Salvador Dalí more than 50 years ago and completed only in 2003 by Dominique Monfery. Destino received an Academy Award nomination for best animated short in 2004.

Bill Brown (MFA 97, Film & Video) received a Fulbright Fellowship to investigate issues of nationality and national identity while traveling along the Trans-Canadian Highway. The result was a documentary film called Confederation Park, which won two awards at the 2000 Ann Arbor Film Festival. His next film, Buffalo Common, a work about nuclear weapon depots throughout the farmlands of North Dakota, screened at the Sundance Film Festival in 2003 after being named best documentary short at the 2002 New York Underground Film Festival.

Brendan Burch (BFA 00, Character Animation) has worked at the online film company AtomFilms, where he wrote and directed the short Chemo Phone. He subsequently went to work for IdeaRAGE, where he developed two original animated pieces for the Pocket PC platform. He is currently a lead animator for the Knowledge Kids Network and a partner in Six Point Harness, an independent animation studio.

Tim Burton (79, Character Animation) has directed the movies Pee-Wee's Big Adventure, Beetlejuice, Batman, Edward Scissorhands, Batman Returns and Ed Wood, among others. He is currently working on a new version of the classic Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, slated to be released in 2005.

Brenda Chapman (BFA 87, Character Animation) directed The Prince of Egypt for DreamWorks Pictures. Earlier, she had received an Annie Award for her work as story supervisor on the 1994 hit The Lion King.

Peter Chung (81, Experimental Animation) is the creator of Aeon Flux, the cult animated series that ran on MTV. More recently, he was one of the seven leading directors--alongside the likes of Mahiro Maeda and Shinichiro Watanabe--on the animated-shorts anthology The Animatrix. Chung's segment, Matriculated, was one of the anthology's most daring. Chung has since directed the animated short The Chronicles of Riddick: Dark Fury, released on DVD in the summer of 2004.

Sean Daniel (BFA 73, Film & Video) was president of production for Universal Pictures from 1984 to 1988 and supervised the films National Lampoon's Animal House, Coal Miner's Daughter, Fast Times at Ridgemont High, The Breakfast Club, Brazil, Field of Dreams and Do the Right Thing. In 1992, Daniel formed Alphaville Films, an independent media company headquartered at Paramount Studios, and went on to produce films such as Dazed and Confused, American Me, The Mummy, The Scorpion King, Pootie Tang and Intolerable Cruelties.

Eric Darnell (MFA 90, Experimental Animation) co-directed Antz, the first computer-animated feature produced by DreamWorks Pictures. Darnell is currently directing DreamWorks' Madagascar, an animated feature scheduled to be released in 2005.

Dane Davis (BFA 81, Film & Video) is founder and president of Dane Tracks, a sound design and editing studio. In 2000, he won an Academy Award for his sound effects editing on The Matrix. Davis has since served as sound designer and supervising sound editor on the last two installments of the Matrix franchise. He has worked on numerous other movies, including 8 Mile and Dogtown and Z-Boys.

Paul Demeyer (MFA 77, Experimental Animation) directed Rugrats in Paris: The Movie. Earlier, while at the animation studio Klasky Csupo, he directed spots for the likes of MCI and Taco Bell. Demeyer teaches at CalArts.

Pete Docter (BFA 90, Character Animation) is one of the key figures at Pixar Animation Studios. Most recently, he co-directed the Disney/Pixar hit Monsters, Inc., nominated for the best animated feature award at the 2002 Oscars. Docter also worked on the original story and provided additional voices for the film. Previously, he had won an Annie Award for co-writing Toy Story 2 and received an Oscar nomination for co-writing Toy Story.

Ralph Eggleston (86, Character Animation) has worked at Pixar Animation Studios since 1992. His film For the Birds won the Academy Award for best animated short at the 2002 Oscars. He also holds an Annie Award for his production design work on Toy Story. Eggleston has been named by Animation Magazine as one of the most creative people in animation.

Robert Fenz (MFA 02, Film & Video) has received widespread acclaim for his film cycle Meditations on Revolution, an eclectic set of five 16mm black-and-white experimental shorts. His work has been shown at the New York, London, Rotterdam and Vienna film festivals, the Pacific Film Archive, The Museum of Modern Art, and the Whitney Biennial, among other venues. In 2004, he received a Guggenheim Fellowship.

Steve Hillenburg (MFA 92, Experimental Animation) is the creator of the hit animated series SpongeBob SquarePants on Nickelodeon. In 2002, the show became the highest-rated kids' show on cable television. The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie was released in the fall of 2004.

William E. Jones (MFA 90, Film & Video) has directed two feature films and three short videos. His film Finished was voted best independent/experimental film of 1997 by the Los Angeles Film Critics Association. He received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1999.

Glen Keane (74, Experimental Animation) has been the supervising animator for memorable characters such as Tarzan, Pocahontas, Aladdin, the Beast in Beauty and the Beast, Ariel in The Little Mermaid, and Marahute in The Rescuers Down Under. He won an Annie Award for his character animation work on Beauty and the Beast and received an Annie nomination for Tarzan. In 2004, he received the Friz Award for Lifetime Achievement.

Mark Kirkland (BFA 78, Experimental Animation) has directed more than 30 episodes of The Simpsons.

Joel Lam's (MFA 01, Film & Video) thesis film, the documentary The Circle's Corner, gives a poetic representation of Hong Kong as experienced by three residents--one blind, one deaf and one mute. It won the award for best short at the Hong Kong Film Festival and was also shown at the Yagamata International Documentary Festival, the Viennale and Rotterdam's Shadow Festival.

John Lasseter< (BFA 79, Character Animation) is executive vice president of creative development at Pixar Animation Studios--described by the Los Angeles Times as "the most reliable creative force in Hollywood." Lasseter has directed Toy Story, A Bug's Life and Toy Story 2 and executive-produced Monsters, Inc. and Finding Nemo. He has won Academy Awards for Toy Story (special achievement) and The Tin Soldier (best animated short film). His original screenplay for Toy Story was also nominated for an Oscar.

James Mangold (BFA 85, Film & Video) directed the acclaimed Girl, Interrupted. His other movies include Identity, Kate and Leopold, Copland and Heavy, for which he was named best director at the 1995 Sundance Film Festival. He is currently working on the feature Walk the Line, a biopic about Johnny Cash.

Craig McCracken (92, Character Animation) is the creator of The Powerpuff Girls, an Emmy-nominated series on the Cartoon Network. The show originated as The Whoopass Girls--a work McCracken made at CalArts.

Michael Nguyen (88, Character Animation) was a supervising animator on the Warner Bros. animated feature The Iron Giant and handled character animation and storyboarding on 20th Century Fox's The Pagemaster. Nguyen owns and runs the July Films Animation Studio. Henry Selick (MFA 77, Experimental Animation) has directed The Nightmare Before Christmas, James and the Giant Peach and Monkeybone. He is currently working on a film version of Coraline, based on Neil Gaiman's children's novel. Gary Trousdale (82, Character Animation) and Kirk Wise (CRT 85, Character Animation) have co-directed Beauty and the Beast, The Hunchback of Notre Dame and Atlantis: The Lost Empire. Their Beauty and the Beast was the first animated feature to earn an Oscar nomination for best picture.

What do you think?
Sounds good, eh?