Jump straight to PBR, It can be a lot quicker to make a material look "right" when you know the exact values in PBR. Since you are just applying for a school, by the time you graduate in a few years there will be much more PBR games out. It's better the be ahead of the curve. PBR can work great for stylized or mobile games.
Oh yeah sorry, it's not the decal tech. Yes, they are talking about using PBR. We have a bunch of PBR info on our wiki, should help explain what it is and how it works. http://wiki.polycount.com/wiki/PBR
Hey! I just recently finished my first PBR (or what I understand to be pbr) model! https://www.artstation.com/artwork/W2zVmv Tell me what you think! I'm still a newbie when it comes to all things 3D but I'm learning fairly fast.
[sketchfab]dfbf448c4cae494f9dc003fb87273b2f[/sketchfab] Cauterizer (PBR) by centium on Sketchfab [sketchfab]d32027b7dcca4f6192c155191788f001[/sketchfab] Crossbow (PBR) by centium on Sketchfab
If you’re interested, my sketchbook has some examples of textures for animated water, with breakdowns. It’s not PBR, but might help since it’s using tiled textures.