Acceptd Prescreen Fee Waivers

College Majors Musical Theater Major
1

Hi! My name is Jacob, and I graduated high school last year. I’m at a community college this year, but I’m looking to apply to schools as a musical theatre major this year (something I didn’t do last year because I didn’t think I was ready) However, I’m currently having an issue with the mere COST and money it takes to apply to all of these schools. I see people saying they’re applying to 20+ schools, which terrifies me, because I can really only afford to apply to 5 or 6 right now.
As it is right now, I’m paying for a college coach, dance lessons, headshots, and vocal lessons all by myself, and adding on the fee of actually applying to these schools is almost impossible as of right now. My parents make enough money so that I probably wouldn’t qualify for an application fee waiver, but are in no way willing to help me pay for any of this process, which means paying for application fees as well as travel costs is all up to me. Because of this, I was wondering if anybody had any tips on how to acquire fee waivers for schools and how I could work my way around paying $1k+ In prescreen + application fees. My current school list is as follows:

Baldwin Wallace
Carnegie Mellon
CCPA
UArts
Michigan
UNCSA
Point Park
Hartt
Manhattan School of Music
Marymount Manhattan
Elon
CCM
Temple

Does anyone know if any of these schools are flexible in terms of giving out fee waivers? I already tried emailing CCM, and they said no. I just sent in a request to Acceptd for a fee waiver for prescreens, but I am unsure if that will pass, as I do not have any official documentation that would exempt me from having to pay for these applications. Please, if anyone could help me out, it would be so greatly appreciated. Any suggestions or feedback works.

Thanks so much,
Jacob.

2

Jacob,
Acceptd doesn’t do fee waivers. The only way the fees can be waived is if the individual school agrees to waive the fee (and then essentially pays Acceptd on your behalf for their portion.) You might have more success petitioning the Admissions Offices to request a waiver of the institutional application fee, as there are mechanisms in place to waive those.
(This exact scenario is why we are trying something different with our prescreens this year which hopefully will keep cost down for the applicants.)

Michele
Florida State University

3

Are you still considered a dependent of your parents? If you’re not, then you may qualify for application fees based upon your annual income.

4

@jacobhendrickson I don’t think that Baldwin-Wallace has a prescreen and if you apply directly on their website, there’s no application fee. They don’t participate in Unifieds so you’ll have to spend money to get to their campus for the audition (and auditions dates fill quickly so apply there soon if you want to).