<p>Hey everyone- I'm pretty new here. I'm still waiting on my letter from Boston Conservatory. But, being the worry wart that I am, I do like to plan for the worst. If I'm not accepted, I do plan on attending a state school for a couple semesters as a general liberal arts major before trying to transfer again to another BFA program. And this time I plan on attending unifieds and auditioning for several programs as well as giving BoCo a second try. But I was wondering... I heard about how Emerson does not accept transfer students into their theatre dept regardless of whether or not they are willing to start again as freshman. Is it sometimes harder to get accepted as a transfer? By the time audition season rolls around again, I will have already completed 15 liberal arts credits, which is approximately a semesters worth of classes. Even if I'm willing to start over as a freshman, do admissions people at different BFA programs tend to select students straight from high school, or do I have as good of a chance as anyone else to get into a BFA program having already completed some college classes? I'd appreciate whatever advice anyone can give. Thanks!</p>
<p>MTgeek,
I've heard it really depends on how many openings the programs have. And that sometimes depends on how many students leave a program. </p>
<p>Ithaca, for example, mentioned that only a handful audition for MT transfer (compared to the freshman pool) but since we don't know how many slots they have for transfers, it's hard to calculate whether the odds are better as a transfer than as a freshman.</p>
<p>I'm not sure of each school's requirements, but I do know my daughter was accepted to 10 programs (8 MT, 2 Voice Performance) as a transfer student from a state university. At CMU, there seems to be one transfer student in each class this year, including a twenty-one year old freshman. </p>
<p>Most of the credits you bring as a transfer to the CMU MT/Acting program are worthless. (My d was an MT major at the state university and none of those specialized credits counted.) MT at the School of Drama is a conservatory program and only has three requirements outside of the MT curriculum: English (which you can pass out of if you took it as a freshman), Computer Skills, and a History class. Repeating your freshman year discourages many from applying, but my d has been thrilled with her four years of training at CMU and has no regrets spending five years in college. Every school will have their own policy though, so you need to go online to each school you are interested in and check out their requirements.</p>
<p>Finally, I think it may have been CoachC who posted that often a transfer student will have more maturity, confidence etc.which shows as a positive during the audition, but as chrism said it all depends on the numbers. So I certainly would go for it if BoCo doesnt work out this year. Good luck and since you are a worry wart, I will think positive for you!</p>
<p>Also, I didn't mention this, but my main reason for wanting to attend a state school if not accepted to a BFA is that I was lazy for a couple years and my transcript from high school is appauling (a 2.5 gpa w/ lots of C's). I REALLY want to get a good gpa working at a college level to prove that I'm smart enough to do the work, and that I have matured alot since high school. If I can manage to get between a 3.5 and a 4.0 while attending a community college, and they look at those new grades, I would think that they wouldnt give me an automatic rejection because my high school grades are below standard. I could be wrong, but I'd imagine they'd look at my college grades more favorably than my HS transcript.</p>
<p>MTGeek --</p>
<p>i bumped up a thread about this same topic that you might want to look through. it's called "going to a fallback freshman year."</p>
<p>i'll also copy and paste my first post from that thread, i think it answers your question:</p>
<p>speaking as someone who is sort of in this situation -- let me tell you that it is definitely not easy.</p>
<p>i auditioned for MT last year, and didn't get in anywhere except for once conservatory in NYC that i really really didn't want to go to that my mom made me audition for, and i decided not to go there. i came to the school i am at now (which has a very well-respected MT program) with the intention that after one year, i would either transfer into MT here or somewhere else.</p>
<p>now, after seeing the program here from the outside, i have decided to not even audition at the school i am at now, despite its reputation. i am auditioning for one school this year.</p>
<p>IT IS SO HARD TO DEAL WITH PREPARATION FOR AUDITIONS, RE-COMPLETING APPLICATIONS, DEALING WITH THE NEW WORKLOAD, AND ADJUSTING TO YOUR FIRST YEAR OF COLLEGE ALL AT THE SAME TIME. honestly, i had no idea how hard it would be to get everything done. i am managing fine because the academics here aren't challenging for me at all, but also taking time off from school to go to auditions is going to be tough.</p>
<p>on top of all of that, i have a new group of friends here who i love, and who i'm going to be leaving after this year. that's an entire social stress that has hardly been mentioned. fitting in in college isn't easy for anyone, and the idea of doing it twice is daunting, but considering my situation i am willing to do it. </p>
<p>please consider seriously whether you really want to go to your fallback school. since it IS a fallback, not only is it a possibility that you will be frustrated with the level of academics (which i am here, it is academically not as challenging as i'd like), but you will have to re-situate yourself in a new community 12 short months later. </p>
<p>just thought i'd give you a view from the inside,
maggie</p>
<p>MTgeek, If you take CC courses and do well at them, then your high school record will matter less, I"m pretty sure. So that is a great goal, and one that will demonstrate seriousness of purpose pretty well. go for it!</p>
<p>Hi..I think every school has different policies. AT OCU, if you can transfer the right amount of credits, you can enter in the same grade from the music program you are transferring from.</p>
<p>Hey MTgeek i am going through this right now (trying to transfer). I have found that most schools take transfer students if they are willing to start over as a freshman. I know that CCM, CMU, ithaca, julliard, penn state, and ncsa all are willing to take transfers if they start over as freshman (I emailed all of them). UCLA and NYU however, take transfer students who dont have any conservatory credit (aka you dont have to start over as a freshman). NYU makes you do 3 years of training but you can cut it down to 2 if you take class during the summer. UCLA only takes junior transfer students. Most of the schools take just about 3 transfer students i have found but not that many people apply. When i went to the ucla audition there was only 1 other girl trying to transfer in my audition group (and there were only 3 other audition groups). I just got back from nyu's transfer auditions (they have a bunch of transfer audition days though) and most of the students there were people who go to nyu and are trying to do an internal transfer. They didnt really seem to know what they were doing, one of the girls was wearing a track suit with pink running shoes, like she had just been to the gym. So if you go and get some of your GE credits out of the way it doesnt look bad. Many of these schools understand that not everyone is ready for a bfa program straight out of high school. Also taking an extra year to find the right monologues and songs just made me feel more comfortable in front of the auditioners. So it really isnt as bad as it may seem.</p>
<p>Thank you, operanoodle and cmujohonnas mom and everyone else.. the general feeling I'm getting is that only positive things will come from taking liberal arts classes from a state school. Keeping your mind fresh is never a negative thing.. And I guess as long as I'm willing to start as a freshman, I have as good of a chance as anyone else at this point. :) Anyone else have transfer advice?</p>
<p>Start preparing new audition material REALLY early -- you have no idea how overwhelming the switch to college will be.</p>
<p>And start filling out your apps now, it'll be good to have a lot of that stuff out of the way.</p>