Is it a bad idea to start at an acting school like Lee Strasberg or American Academy of Dramatic Arts, Stella Adler, etc. right out of High School instead of going to a traditional 4-year college? For those who can speak from experience please don’t hesitate to let me know. Also, is it too late to apply to those schools?
My D is a student at Stella Adler via NYU. She LOVES the training. I don’t know about fall- but I know they have some 5 week summer programs available. (You can find on the website- Google Stella Adler studio in NYC) which might give you a taste of whether the training interests you
Hi, is your daughter a student at Tisch? I was talking more along the lines of 2 year conservatory programs vs. 4-year bachelor/bfa degrees
Yes @marmot_sherpa, my D is a Tisch student. But many of her teachers also reach the 2 year conservatory classes, so the core of the training is similar- and she loves the training.
@marmot_sherpa, The actual classroom training you can get in the better NYC studios is as good or better than in all but the upper echelon of BFAs. Where they tend to fall short, however, is in giving you experience in using said training in quality productions in a safe, controlled environment like college. For the most part, you spend a couple of years getting the training and then it’s pretty much sink or swim in the real world sans a college degree. Not to mention that most cost as much or more per year as college without the possibility of financial aid compounded by the reality that most kids straight out of high school simply aren’t ready to be on their own in New York or LA.
Also, of the schools you mentioned, only Stella’s carries a good reputation at the moment. At any rate, I hijacked a thread a couple of years ago to give some info on studio training. The NYC places are at post #13 although as someone later pointed out, one of the newer schools I named has since apparently turned into something of a fail …
Ah, one of my links to an even older post apparently went dead, so here it is for whatever it’s still worth …
http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/discussion/comment/16240253#Comment_16240253