I am a senior in the undergraduate program at SCAD.
I don’t think you need to be enrolled and taking classes for 5 years to become prepared to be an industrial designer. I do think that you need that amount of time, if not more to let your education percolate.
Design is a field that is extremely different from any other. Even though much of the work that students are known for involves a high level of technical skill (sketching, model making, adobe and 3d modeling) the core of good design and consequently a good designer is their way of thinking. Companies like to see finished products, but they are even more interested in your process, the messy drawings in your sketchbooks and the way you talk about what you do. To be a great design thinker it is your responsibility to squeeze everything you can out of your education.
If you are wanting to get into design to be a stylist (someone that designs the outside shell of a product) then I would advise developing your sketching talents, which again will take much longer than a year to bring to a satisfactory level.
However, if you wish to design the experience of a product; not just the way things work, but the way things make you feel, and how a product impacts humanity on a greater level, then you need to find a school that will teach you the basics of design thinking which will become a foundation for all of your future design work.
The SCAD ID program is undergoing a transition right now. Many new professors are being brought in (teaching both undergraduate and graduate programs). This means there is an opportunity at SCAD to really push the boundaries of what industrial design can be. So it is hard to attest to the prestige of the program. SCAD has an MFA program that seems to be geared a little more toward, furniture and marine design in the physical side of things as well as design management and service design in the theoretical side of things.
If there is anything I have learned in time at design school, it is this. You get out what you put in. No matter where you go, your work ethic is what will make you successful.
Hope this made sense and offered some help!