The Best Culinary School – How to Choose

I’ve always loved food, appreciated what I was eating, and enjoyed feeding other people. And although I have been blessed in that I have always been passionate about food, it wasn’t until an injury freshman year of high school that I realized culinary school was my destiny.

Here’s Caitlin’s story, and in her words:

I’ve always loved food, appreciated what I was eating, and enjoyed feeding other people. And although I have been blessed in that I have always been passionate about food, it wasn’t until an injury freshman year of high school that I realized culinary school was my destiny.

When I was very young, my goal was to play soccer at DePaul and study political science – going to a school for culinary arts was not in my playbook. But, fate had a different plan: at the age 14 I tore my ACL and my meniscus. The doctor’s wouldn’t operate on me because they didn’t want to stunt my growth in one leg. As a result, I spent countless hours in physical therapy, and therefore countless hours with Physical Therapists.

I would often bake cookies for my Physical Therapists to attempt to get out of certain exercises… 

And, it became a ritual that every day I trained, I would bring something for my trainers to eat.  It was my favorite physical therapist, Bob, who finally broke it down for me: drop the dreams of playing soccer, and instead go to culinary school.  Just like that. I was hooked up to some machine and he brought me the newest Food + Wine magazine to read (the cover displayed the picture of the best chefs of the year).  Then and there, my fate was sealed.

The Cooking with Caitlin team gets asked a great deal about different culinary schools around the country – how to select the best one, where did I consider… Here are my recommended steps when choosing the right culinary arts program for you;

How to Select the Best Culinary Arts School

1. Make a list of what you want to achieve.

2. Do your research on the top culinary schools in the nation. I looked at some of the top 10 culinary schools: the Culinary Institute of America, the French Culinary Institute, the Midwest Culinary Institute, Johnson and Wales, Le Cordon Bleu programs, and Art Institutes nationwide. The culinary school that I chose was CHIC – The Cooking and Hospitality Institute of Chicago, Le Cordon Bleu.

3. Read up on the cities in which each school is located. For me, it was important to live in a big city.

4. Think specifically about housing – does the program offer housing, do you need to live on your own. What does that mean by way of costs?

5. What sort of externship programs does the school offer? Is this important to you? I wanted a school with the best possible chance to send me to Italy.

6. Consider the costs. I think that culinary schools are deceivingly expensive. The programs are usually about a year and a half to 2 years long and cost as much as a four-year college. Think about it though in terms of the food – a big part of the culinary school cost is a direct result of the steaks and lobster you are learning to cook.

7. Start contacting the schools and ask for additional information. The materials I received were loaded up with details on financing, living and other information I could not readily find online.

8. When you do start to narrow your search, I would recommend talking with the job center. It is the job center that will help you with a job after you are finished with school. Know your resources.

Remember, when I first started researching culinary school programs, I was only a freshman in high school. Imagine me as a 14-year old carefully printing out the handbook of each of the schools, highlighting costs, high points, what I would learn, and externship program possibilities. And then finally, on one fateful night, when I felt totally prepared, I pled my case to my parents. Lucky for me, I had 3 more years to wear them down.

And the rest is history. It’s just like the wise quotes you hear: “Choose a job you love, and you will never work a day in your life” (Confucius) – it is totally true.