Pairing business, technology and creativity, our students come to the heart of Silicon Valley to deepen and grow their passions. The result? A skilled and dynamic community with a social life that is surprisingly robust.
Immersive, collaborative and designed to unlock your creativity—for over 130 years USV has been helping people turn their passion into their professions. Today, it’s your turn. Explore our program offerings to help you develop the skills you need for the job you’ll love.
This is the beginning of that adventure, as well as your first assignment. If you already have existing work to show us, simply gather and organize it. If you don’t have any samples related to your prospective field of study, please see below for details on what you should plan to create and submit.
Along with your application to the Game Writing concentration, we'd like to see two original pieces of your creative writing:
The short story must be an original work, double-spaced and between 800 and 1,000 words in length. It can feature entirely new characters or it can be based on an existing, well-known intellectual property (IP) of the student's choice (e.g. Harry Potter, X-Men, The Walking Dead, etc.). If the latter option is chosen, please identify the IP in question. The piece should be a complete, self-contained story with a beginning, middle and end.
The script sample must be an original work, employing standard "Hollywood"-style script format, and must be no more than 15 pages in length. It should be a different story than your Short Story submission, and may feature entirely new characters or may be based on an existing, well-known IP of your choice. Your script may be a complete standalone story, or a scene from an implied larger tale (for example, a "lost scene" from a popular movie or game). In the latter case, please briefly "set up" the script so its context is clear.
You may email your samples directly to your Admissions Advisor.
Work may be submitted in PDF format (preferred) or as a Word document (.doc, .docx).
Your writing samples will be judged based on structure, dialogue writing, command of the English language, and general demonstration of narrative capability.
Do you have any questions, or need any help to submit or create work samples? Please contact the Department Director, Ricardo Kayanan, or your Admissions Representative. We are here to help you.
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