Coming down the wire for final results of BFA MT auditions and it’s looking like my D will not receive any acceptances. Heartbreaking given the amount of work put into this process! She has some BFA Acting options, loads of BA Theater options and is on a few MT waitlists, but she’s already starting to consider a gap year and reapplication next year with maybe a more equal emphasis on Acting and MT. Gulp! Should she just read the writing on the wall and come to grips with the likelihood that an insanely competitive MT career is not in the cards? I want to be supportive, but also don’t want to re-live this. Looking for advice, pros and cons of each option from those (parents and students) who have gone down this road before, and camaraderie with those who are going through this experience this year. Thanks for the guidance and support!
I will chime in here that the two gap year kids that I have are VERY happy to talk to anyone considering it. Neither one of them initially wanted to do a gap year (nor did their families) and worried about what schools, peers, etc. might think . Both now say it was the right decision for them and are happy to help others. DM me if you want their emails! They actually decided on that path because of overbooked senior years and not enough time to focus on auditions. However, there were several legacy members here who had experienced success with gap years and I showed them THEIR stories to help them make their decisions. So just paying it forward!
Hi @MTMamoo , Here is a link to a thread posted by @owensfolks : their D took a gap year, and the journey is described on this thread from the Class of 2022:
http://talk.qa.collegeconfidential.com/musical-theater-major/1989083-gap-state-p1.html
And check out Post #111 on the Final Decision thread from 2022: http://talk.qa.collegeconfidential.com/musical-theater-major/2059578-final-mt-decisions-background-class-of-2022-p6.html
@owensfolks D had several great choices after her gap year and chose to attend Shenandoah. I hope everything works out for your D this year, but I hope these links help in the event you (or others) would like to explore the idea of a gap year. Sending hugs and positive vibes your way!!
While D is still evaluating her options so I don’t have the experience or camaraderie to share re: a Gap Year, I could still see it coming to the same conclusion depending on how her waitlists shake out.
Totally circumstantial but I read an interview with Samira Wiley (Orange is the New Black/Handmaids Tale) that illustrates an incredibly successful career attained after a pile of BFA rejections. Imagine what the talent we all would have lost had she decided this path wasn’t in the cards for her. https://www.glamour.com/story/emmy-nominee-samira-wiley-rejected-theater-schools.
@MTMamoo I am so sorry your D has had such a tough time. Something similar happened to someone very dear to me last year --applied to 15 schools, all lottery schools with tiny admit rates, and got into none of them. This is a talented kid, great training, did all the big summer programs, etc. etc., so not someone who just didn’t know where she stood in the pool but the result was shocking and disappointing. It really speaks to the necessity of having a balanced list (and I am sorry I don’t recall what you’d said about your list, so that tidbit is not aimed at you, just a general note.)
They decided to do a gap year and try again this year with a bigger list. She has fared better this year but with caveats. Every “no” appears to be that much more painful for having been heard twice. Every time a dream school comes off the list of possibilities it’s devastating all over again. She has a few options and is waiting to hear from a few more schools but the PTSD from last year is real.
Another thing to consider is their feeling that this year feels even more competitive than last year. Not sure why that is, maybe it was the common prescreen, maybe it’s a real sense that the pool is continually getting larger, and maybe it’s just a perception that’s borne of the trauma of doing it twice, but that’s how they feel.
So that’s just a caveat. If you have good options on the table and you feel like one of the acting programs will give her great training, where she can still take voice and dance, then take a close look at whether she thinks one of her options might be a good fit. She might thrive in one of the places that wants her there.
A gap year can be great and it can yield much better results the 2nd time around - there are stories on this board of kids doing it again and rocking it, so I don’t want to dissuade you if you feel it’s worth it. But since I saw you write that you weren’t sure if you could put yourself through this again I just wanted to validate that concern of yours - it’s another rough ride the 2nd time around too, so worth weighting the cost/benefits.
So sorry for your rough season. Hugs to you and your D!
I won’t advise on whether a gap year is the right choice for your family, but in response to your question about whether your child will ever find success in this field given zero BFA MT acceptances, I’d just like offer some comfort. There are SO MANY successful musical theatre actors who didn’t go to college at all, or went and studied something else, then did a 2-year actor training program after graduation, or went for 2 years to a BA and dropped out and worked on cruise ships and theme parks before getting their first Equity gig, or got their first Equity gig in a theme park or on a cruise ship … I mean, I actually know at least one of each of these people and I also know Michigan grads and CCM grads and AMDA grads and Broadway actors who majored in dance in college and and and …
There are so, so, soooooo many pathways to the career. It’s possible your daughter will decide MT isn’t where she wants to spend her life. This hustle is a forever thing, it doesn’t end after getting accepted to college. It’s also possible your daughter really and truly cannot ever imagine doing anything else. In that case, she will find her way, BFA program rejections be damned. I think our job as parents is to have faith they will get it figured out. Lay down the parameters for your expectations of them with regard to finances and where they will live, etc., and help them chart a course that’s sustainable whether or not they find immediate work in theatre or acting. The path feels very singular and narrow right now, but it’s anything but! The MT BFA is one pathway (and it’s not even guaranteed!). There are other pathways. Please do not be distraught – tell your daughter there are other pathways and help her identify a few if she is committed to finding her way in this business.
Well said, @Dance3Looks3 !!
@MTdreamin @Sitzprobe @tsamuique @Dance3Looks3 You’re all amazing!!! Thank you for the thoughtful advice and perspectives. @odette Thank you again for the offer to talk with your students. I will reach out once we’ve heard from all the schools. My D is not closing the door on anything yet. We are planning to visit some of her admitted schools in April (coronavirus notwithstanding) and keeping our fingers crossed for the waitlists. And yes, I truly believe that there are many paths and on good days, so does my D.
@PNWdrama @WombToTomb @Lilybird4 @AnxiousNovice I’m tagging you here, because I think you were interested in this issue from the “MT Acceptances How/When/Where” topic. (I’m still learning how this forum works.)
That feeling you get when you know your child won’t get into any BFA programs…but know that 40% of the stars of ‘Magic Mike’ got into Carnegie Mellon…smh
@MTMamoo You’ve got BFA Acting offers from some well regarded programs, which you named on a different thread. Congrats!! If we had been in your shoes a year ago, I would have been excited and relieved about those opportunities and would have counseled my D to take one, even though it wasn’t what she originally had her heart set on. Some suggestions: Look into whether those schools would permit your D to take voice and dance as electives. See if they allow Acting majors to audition into the MT program after a semester or a year. Ask if Acting students can try out for the musicals. Maybe their voice professors take private students. Perhaps there’s a good dance studio near campus. If she likes one of these programs and can build in some supplemental voice and dance, that could be a great option. Meanwhile, she’s also on multiple MT waitlists, and one of them might come through for her.
A recent BFA Acting grad from my D’s school was cast in the national tour of a Broadway musical last summer. A friend was redirected to Acting, but after a semester, she was able to successfully audition and switch over into their MT program. Another friend, an extremely talented singer and dancer, was also redirected to Acting at a different school. She is able to take voice lessons and dance classes on the side, was cast in the spring musical, and loves the program. Another friend auditioned for MT at Carnegie Mellon, and they asked her to sing seven songs. Yes, seven! Clearly, this girl can sing, but she did not get an offer from CMU. She also auditioned for MT at my D’s school but was redirected to Acting. (Go figure!!) She accepted the redirect and is very happy.
Like you, I don’t think I could have gone through this process two years in a row. And we all sympathize when you say this has been heartbreaking. Your D obviously is talented, or she wouldn’t have those Acting offers or the MT waitlists. No casting director is going to bar the door if she doesn’t have a BFA MT. You and your D have to decide what’s best for her, and maybe that’s a gap year. But there’s a lot to be said for the bird in the hand. You should both feel proud, because she has much to celebrate! I hope she ends up someplace she absolutely loves!
At least 40%, unless you know all the stars’ offer lists.
@StanfordAI – sure, but after high school Matthew McConaughey went to Australia and spent a year shoveling chicken manure. No joke! There are ALL kinds of paths to success …
My d has no BFA acceptances (but still a lot of schools to hear from). We hadn’t talked about a gap year because she has an academic interest that is her plan B. I’m getting concerned though that she has applied to so many schools and visited so few of them. We had planned to travel in April to schools that have accepted her but with colleges closing down this might not be possible. I would hate her committing to 4 years without seeing the school and testing for fit so it might come down to picking from the few colleges she has visited (should she get accepted) or a gap year.
I am also in the camp of not having personal experience with a gap year BUT what I can tell you is that BA Theater or BFA Acting are GREAT Plan B’s. Sounds like others would say that a gap year is a great plan B as well and I would not have any reason to discount that opinion.
As others have mentioned, there is no “magic” in the BFA exclusively leading to work in this field over other majors. I think the decision is personal for your child - are they eager to jump in this fall and start this journey, skip this process for a 2nd time (I personally couldn’t imagine) or are they more patient and willing to wait for their “dream”. Our experience is that an acting degree at a lot of schools (Otterbein, specifically for my son and others that have talked about crossover on multiple threads) are like 80 to 90% of a musical theater degree anyway. Not to say that it is 10 to 20% LESS than an MT degree but that is nearly identical training for well over 3/4 of the classes. Otterbein MT and Acting have both cycled in and out of the top 30 list over the years (we all know how that list goes) but the acting program has cracked the top 5 a few times because it is essentially an MT degree anyway. The underclassmen acting and MT are in almost IDENTICAL classes including dance, MT, acting, dialects, etc. The casting pool is also completely intermingled - my singer first MT S did the spring play and an acting major was one of the leads in the musical. Unless there is SPECIFIC knowledge of programs purposefully not being integrated, my vote would to get into the “Theater” department and revel in the talent that ALL of these kids have. It could be very inspirational and REALLY not make a difference 1 year from now and certainly not 10 years from now.
Bachelor of Performing Arts or Bachelor of Arts - Theater is all your resume needs to say. No one is going to turn down your talented audition because of the letters at the top.
Just putting it out there in an effort to offer some comfort that while we all hope the commitment is for 4 years, people transfer in and out of programs all the time if they end up somewhere (having visited or not) that isn’t a great fit. Even under the best of circumstances, there are just some things our kids can’t assess from the outside. Try not to freak out too much about not being able to visit if we are in a pandemic. Evaluate the worst case scenarios your student might encounter at a school sight unseen (Are all of the upperclass theatre students zombies? Do none of the faculty speak English? Is there a hissing pit that opens under a random place in the dance studio every afternoon, sucking down 2-3 unwitting students who opted not to skip class that day? Is there no indoor plumbing?) and decide how likely they are. OK, OK, yes it’s great to be able to watch the classes in action and spend some relaxed time with current students and faculty, but at this point, how much would really be a deal-breaker and how likely are those deal-breakers? So much of this process has been completely out of our control. I feel like the COVID19 is just the cherry on top of the sundae at this point!
" I feel like the COVID19 is just the cherry on top of the sundae at this point!"
Well said.
@Dance3Looks3 I will openly share that Otterbein dorms do NOT have air conditioning and they admit that too on their tours. It’s only a problem for about the first month so bring a window fan or two). Didn’t dissuade my S 
@Jpkcmo but no hissing pit (with snakes, of course) under the dance studio?
I suspect that at most schools, since our kids don’t get to commit until much later than other students, the housing options are not premium anyway. That might be my biggest frustration with the process … our kids are ostensibly motivated, probably in the upper proportion of academic achievers in the incoming classes at these schools, and they’re among the last to commit (through no fault or negligence of their own) so they end up in triple rooms or the grossest housing options. Builds character I guess?
@BloomingGirl I once thought my “wait until you get in” to visit colleges was such brilliant advice… not so much now. I guess if my D had gotten into one of her desired schools for MT, she might enroll without a visit (not advised under normal circumstances). But given her uncertainty around the BFA Acting schools, she really needs to see the campuses and meet the students/faculty. We’ll do as much as we can online - seeking answers to all the great points made by @upstaged @Jpkcmo and others, but that’s just not the same as experiencing the campus firsthand. We decided to go ahead and book flights over Spring Break using miles, so we can cancel if we need to. Feeling grateful to have miles to use, even if the routing is ridiculously convoluted and flights might get cancelled by airlines last minute. That’s what I get for moving to the West Coast from the East and having a daughter who loves the East Coast!
@Dance3Looks3 Otterbein is so small that the MTers get the cream of the crop in housing choices. Equal opportunity grossness there - nobody gets A/C, not even the athletes (Division III sports). Their world class equestrian team has better accommodations for the horses than the kids (ok, maybe that’s a stretch).
A little levity about Otterbein is that they send a notification before classes start - “All fees including stable fees must be paid before you will be allowed to attend classes”.