Pick a School

In response to this:

... As long as I'm here, I'll bring up another topic I'm passionate about:
Choose an institution of higher learning not by the quality or newness of its equipment or facilities, but for its faculty and program. All the state-of-the-art whiz-bang gizmos don't mean squat if the professors don't know how to teach, or don't know how to use the "toys" themselves. Besides interviewing potential professors and current students, a campus visit should also include seeing a performance. Now while it's possible a HS student will be impressed with any college production, it's not always a given. I once saw a production at a "name" theatre school, with an MFA program, and the production values were so poor there is no way I could ever recommend that school. Now that I think about it, that's happened at two different schools.

Another thing--I'm leery of any school where the students design too much. (Controversial statement? Please continue reading with an open mind, before responding.)
My college allowed only seniors to design mainstage productions, and rarely if ever would allow more than one student designer on a production. I see too many students who have designed many shows, but without proper supervision. Therefore, they lack critical analysis of their work, and don't know how to collaborate or defend/explain their design decisions. IMO, design is best learned via the mentor method, not on one's own in a vacuum. Choose a college, primarily, because of its faculty.

I just said this:

I would say that "Choose an institution of higher learning not by the quality or newness of its equipment or facilities, but for its faculty and program." is fairly on point. The real red herring here is often facility, in that whiz-bang facility doesn't always make a whiz-bang program. Both times I was a theatre student it was in less than state of the art venues and in some ways I think that actually enhanced the experience.

I would say it really is about the faculty, and to a lesser degree about the classes. Who are they, what have they done, what will be your access, and what are they actually going to offer in terms of education. At this point I don't think I could possibly recommend a program where there isn't an established, specific curriculum they can discuss with you.

With respect to gear, in the more technical specialties you likely do want to be sure you will have some experience on contemporary equipment. So again, having it doesn't mean for sure it is the right place, but different from facility, not having it does make a difference. Keep in mind though that there are many avenues at school to using cool gear. Where I work now we own a good chunk, but we also rent often, and there are other organizations on campus with a good inventory as well. So if the answer to "Do you have the newest shiny thing?" is no, ask about other opportunities to get the exposure before writing them off.

Designing, or more specifically "Another thing--I'm leery of any school where the students design too much." I think this is more about faculty than opportunities. As a design student you want to design, as a technical student you want to engineer and implement, as a manager you want to manage; these are all good and necessary experiences. It's not so much about how often as it is about how prepared and how supported.

Let's use "working" to catch all disciplines. If you are working a lot, but it starts as an underclassman and the faculty travels often... that may be less desirable than not getting to it until later. If you are working before you've had class prep for the tasks involved that might be less desirable. If faculty aren't in the shops or in the theatres that might be less desirable.

Conversely you also might want to watch out for programs where everything is done by faculty, staff or locals. Whether you design, engineer, or manage you want the opportunity to be the one actually doing it. So when researching, the level of student involvement is as important to research as they level of faculty involvement. I don't think you can make an assessment based solely on the number of opportunities. It's the nature and quality of the opportunity that matters.

The conversation picks up here.