<p>Great post, Frazzled, and congrats to your D. It’s like winning the MT lottery!</p>
<p>Frazzled, what fantastic news!!! Congratulations to your D!</p>
<p>frazzled, what a moment that must have been! To echo what you said, if I’ve said it once here, I’ve said it a thousand times, don’t try to figure out what is going on inside the heads of the auditors, especially since the info is second hand from the kids, who are justifiably hyped up when they are relaying their experience! It is futile. Sometimes they think “man I really nailed it” and they most likely did, but they don’t get in because of SO many other variables and factors, mostly jus because so many worthy kids audition for so few spots. Sometimes they second guess, think they screwed up, nit-pick as they rewind it all in their heads, and end up crying tears of joy. Amazing isn’t it!?</p>
<p>I’m finally off the road and can tap out the review.</p>
<p>Frazzled covered things well from the parents point of view. I’ll add the numbers. You know how we love to know about that!</p>
<p>In the Musical Theatre overview (which is where I met frazzled and her beautiful, bubbly D) we were told that they like to have a class of 24, preferably 12 boys, 12 girls. To get to this number they accept about 35-40. They said that there are about 30 auditioners each audition date. They have 4 dates which would mean that they accept 40 students out of 120, or a third which makes the acceptance rate seem super high! The D said they had at least 37 people auditioning because she saw that someone was number 37. Even if they have 40 at each auditon that’s an acceptence rate of 25% which is still high. I don’t recall mention of the total number of prescreens. There was at least one person from CA, though. The prescreen definitely widens the audition pool!</p>
<p>The D said that they got behind in time with the dance call. She felt that it was three hours, but said it was probably 90 minutes to 2 hours when it was scheduled for an hour. After the dance call, the auditioners were held in the smaller theatre where they were entertained at some point and just talked to each other. She said she spoke with frazzled’s D a good bit. She was the 7th person to audition. A number of the kids were sent adjustments via email based on their prescreen, so they would come into the audition with those changes. They asked The D to change one of her songs and her monologue. When she got into the audition room, she did her pieces (I don’t remember which order). They worked on one of her songs. Interestingly enough, so far this audition season it seems they only have adjustments to her songs, not the monologues. She still does the songs the way she has trained each time because what one person wants to see may not be what another person wants. </p>
<p>Overall, she thought the audition went well. She didn’t realize how well, however, until she received an acceptance email later that night!! That was a complete shock! Her first acceptance and SO soon after the audition. In the overview, they said to expect to hear a yes, no or maybe within two weeks. The wording in the offer email was “to dispense with the suspense…” YES! Can all schools do this? PLEEEEEASE!!!</p>
<p>We now have a break until Chicago Unifieds and then it’s…it’s over. Whatever shall we do when that happens?! Oh, right, lay in wait for decisions…</p>
<p>Congrats to both frazzled and gsomt D’s! I am jealous of the swift response! We are still waiting for results from her first audition in November… Which were promised last week… But now we hear it will be by the end if this week. The waiting part sucks!</p>
<p>My D’s MT audition was the past Saturday on the CMU campus. As I sit in a hotel in NYC (because we’re here for her NYU Tisch audition this afternoon), this tired mom decided to write the CMU review before I forget how it went…</p>
<p>We checked in at a registration desk (staffed by current MT and Acting students) in the Purnell Center at 8am and handed over resumes and headshots which were paired with manilla envelopes that had already been prepared with our kid’s names. We then joined the rest of the kids and parents in a large classroom. There were about 40 kids auditioning…about 2/3 girls and 1/3 boys. They then started calling kids up one by one to take Polaroids of them to attach to the envelopes.</p>
<p>I didn’t see quite as many nude 5 inch heels as I did at Elon, but instead there were lots of low, black, ankle boots. 3 or 4 girls were wearing character shoes. All the girls were wearing dresses or skirts and tops. The boys had a range of outfits from khakis and white button downs with blue blazers to brightly-colored button downs with black pants. Lots of individuality.</p>
<p>After everyone was settled, the current students introduced themselves, and then Barbara McKenzie-Wood and Gary Kline introduced themselves. They explained the program and how CMU really prepares the kids to start working as soon as they graduate. They then said they’d begin calling kids to do their monologues for one of the acting teachers and the vocal auditions would be done with either Claudia or Gary. They told us they would be letting kids know if they’ve been accepted sometime between the middle of March and beginning of April.</p>
<p>The current students started calling small groups of about 5 kids to start auditioning. My D was in the first group, and she sand for one of the vocal auditors, Claudia. Then she was sent to sing for Gary. She says he made some positive comments and was very friendly. My D says her vocals were at about 95% and that although she did well, she didn’t “knock it out of the park.” My D is a singer first, then actor-dancer, so she’s particularly hard on herself with how well she performs.</p>
<p>Next was her acting audition, and she was called in to do her monologues for Barbara in one of the studios. They had a conversation and discussed her pieces and my D said she felt really comfortable and confident talking with Barbara. </p>
<p>After my D came out of the studio, that was it and we were free to go. It was 10am, so we were there a total of 2 hours. </p>
<p>I know the odds are slim, but I’m happy she had the courage to follow-through and try. :)</p>
<p>Stay tuned for NYU Tisch audition review!</p>
<p>The only thing I can add to GSOMTMom’s and frazzled35’s comments about Shenandoah’s January 18th audition - they said that 110 kids made it through the pre-screen, and that they had a much higher number of applicants from California than in prior years. They also said if your child was a petite ingenue, that you would probably be waitlisted since today was the very first audition. They want to see all the petite ingenues before they extend any offers. They put the head shots in piles by “type,” and say, for example, there’s only two of your type. If they feel you’re a good fit for the program, but a girl of the exact type is auditioning in 2 weeks, they will wait to see the other girl, then extend their offer (because they’ve seen 100% of the girls of that exact type, they can make their decision, so why wait to make the offer). However, if there are a ton of girls of the exact same type, you’re going to have to wait for the decision. Sorry we didn’t meet up GSOMTMom and frazzled35. I looked for people of your description, but didn’t see anyone who matched your descriptions of yourselves. Glad your daughters both had such great results! Congratulations to them! Shenandoah is a wonderful program and the people and the students couldn’t be nicer. It was a wonderful day for my daughter and she enjoyed meeting everyone. This is our third visit to campus, we saw All Shook Up at the school and it was a fantastic show, and the training in the program is amazing. My daughter would be delighted to receive an offer from them. With the way they train kids to actually get work and market themselves, to the research they do to keep current as to what is selling right now on Broadway and beyond, the people at Shenandoah really got it goin’ on!</p>
<p>Wanted to add this about PPU:</p>
<p>I’m not sure if this is new but it seemed some of the kids were sent to sing again for the heads of the depts. S auditioned in one room and was then sent upstairs to sing for the dept heads. He said all the kids waiting to be heard for the second audition waited together and encouraged each other. They could hear each other sing from the hallway. When S came out one of the girls had tears in her eyes and said “that was so beautiful” S said one of the girls crushed “Before the Parade Passes By”, he jumped up and hugged her when she came out.<br>
He got to talking to another boy that is a good dancer. They went to the dance call together, fist bumped “lets do this” and S felt it made him better to be with such supportive people. I love to hear those types of stories, so much more refreshing than any of the catty bull crap.</p>
<p>Thanks for adding that BethsMom. Do you remember if Johnathan mentioned the total number of prescreens viewed?</p>
<p>GSOMTMom - I have in my notes that only about 50% passed the pre-screen.</p>
<p>WHAT?!! You took notes?!! Impressive! So, I guess that means 220 prescreens. Sounds low to me, but Shenandoah may not be on everyone’s radar. They wouldn’t have been on The D’s radar had she not gotten a callback from them at SETC (Southeastern Theatre Conference).</p>
<p>At Rider, very pretty campus. D is in dance call and parents are waiting in a large holding room.
I apologize to other CC moms, I am being antisocial today which isn’t me but I’ve got a cold and I don’t want to get anyone else sick. Bought some DayQuil downstairs at the bookstore (saw the large assortment of Rider shorts and thought of you MTMajor) so I might start feeling more social once it kicks in…
I’ll let you all know how the day went when D is done. right now we are just very happy that we won the Rider lottery and had the dance call/audition scheduled for the afternoon session which allowed us to drive to NJ this morning instead of last night.</p>
<p>LOL thank you for thinking of me! He wears those shorts all the time now.</p>
<p>Wondered if anyone auditioned at Wright State yesterday? D is a freshman and was one of the students helping at auditions. She auditioned the same weekend exactly a year ago!</p>
<p>Syracuse University on campus BFA audition:
Did not go in with S. Scheduled from 10-1.
S reported dance call not particularly difficult, and the focus was on technique.
Only other info I could get out of him was that the acting portion was more intense than any other audition has had. It sounded a lot like the reports from CMU- with corrections and suggestions to do the monologues in different ways.
He was out right on time, so the session was run efficiently. Sorry I don’t have more to report!</p>
<p>Exhausted mom reporting live from home the day after D’s MT NYU audition…(this was 2 days after CMU and 5 days before CCM).</p>
<p>We reported to Tisch a bit early for our 1:45 registration. We all were guided to a large holding area/student union-type area where we waited for the Admissions Director to greet us. He gave background info on Tisch, their education requirements of the MT and Acting students, the various studios, the number of kids they expect to admit for each program (I believe he said 64 for MT), and said that kids would be notified of decisions via email on or around April 1.</p>
<p>There were 1/3 boys and 2/3 girls in attendance, and MT and Acting students were in the room. Similar to CMU, the attire was very different than the jewel-toned dresses and 5 inch high nude pump uniform of Elon. Lots of individuality from both boys and girls.</p>
<p>The Admissions person then took role by lining up Acting kids on one side of the room and MT kids on the other. There were about 22 MT kids and about 35 Acting kids. They took their picture on an iPad and told parents MT kids would be done around 5:30 since they have acting, singing, and dancing. Acting kids were done much sooner.</p>
<p>They then took the kids upstairs to the studios and broke them into random groups and rotated them through the singing/acting/dancing auditions. Each group started with something different so for the parents asking if dance is first, yes, it can be. They also had ample time to change into outfits between auditions.</p>
<p>My D’s monologues were first, and she said she spent about 15 minutes after the monologues talking with the auditor about other interests, foreign language, volunteering, etc. She said he opened the discussion with “Tell me about yourself.”</p>
<p>After monologues came singing for my D. She introduced herself to the accompanist and took her place to start when the auditor started asking her questions. They talked for about 10 minutes and then he asked what she was going to sing. She sang both songs and they talked a little more and then she was on her way to change for her dance audition. </p>
<p>She said dance was the most challenging piece of the audition. My D is a singer first, then actor, then dancer. The auditor taught the steps and there were 2 Tisch students assisting. She said she picked it up quickly, but as always, she wasn’t as polished as the other kids. They had a chance to freestyle dance (is that what it’s called?) and then the auditor gave some words of encouragement to the group and sent them on their way. We walked out the door of Tisch at 4:45, so it was 3 hours in all. </p>
<p>So…now we wait until April 1. If anyone has questions, feel free to ask. CCM coming up on Saturday! :)</p>
<p>Busy weekend DoReMi! Did you get out of NYC before the snow?</p>
<p>Yes… thank God! That may have pushed me over the edge haha</p>
<p>Crossing fingers we have good weather for the drive to CCM!</p>
<p>And crossed fingers, eyes and whatever else that the weather is good and no flights are cancelled getting into and out of Chicago! (I want to start the wishing, hoping and praying early!!)</p>