Hey Whipple, Squeeze This, 6th Edition

17JUST START WORLD WAR III: WHAT IT TAKES TO GET INTO THE BUSINESS.

GONE ARE THE DAYS when juniors were hired off the street because of a few promising scribbles on notebook paper and the fire in their eyes. The ad schools are pouring kids out onto the street, many of them with highly polished online portfolios. Question is, should you go to one?

If you can afford tuition to an ad school, go.

Frank Anselmo, of the School of Visual Arts, advises anyone seeking an ad career to enroll in a school:

There's no way to replicate being in a room with peers who are all hell-bent on kicking each other's butts every week. It's like ballplayers competing for the same position midseason before playoffs. Part of what's great about being in a class is the requirement to come in every week with new ideas. That constant expectation of your brain to keep pushing, it really makes you step up your game.

As of this writing, the top-rated professional schools on my list are the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, Brigham Young University in Provo, the Creative Circus in Atlanta, Miami Ad School, NYC's School of Visual Arts, the University of Texas in Austin, and Virginia Commonwealth University's Brandcenter in Richmond.

Up in Canada, my friends Nancy Vonk and Janet Kestin say they're seeing good students come out of Ontario College of Art and Design University, and Mohawk College in Hamilton. My friend Anthony Kalamut runs a good ad program at Seneca College. And with Suzanne Pope at ...