<p>Hi everyone. So I know that college MT auditions are very competitive and that any training that you can possibly get will do you good. But what exactly are the auditors for these schools looking for? I mean, college is the time where you will be taught how to perform better, so why would they expect you to already be perfect? Or are they just simply looking for potential? For example, I can just feel that I have lots of potential as a dancer, but I will just be starting with formal dance training this upcoming year. Any and all of your thoughts on this matter are welcome. Thanks</p>
<p>In theory, colleges are looking for potential, and they certainly don’t expect you to be perfect. But in reality, this field is extremely competitive; there are students auditioning for colleges who have already worked professionally, even on Broadway. They will be competing for the same schools as those who have much less experience; and college theater programs typically are fairly small, so the number of students they can accept is limited. It is definitely to your advantage to get as much formal training as possible in preparation for your auditions.</p>
<p>First, some general propositions. Colleges are looking for high levels of talent and for the potential to benefit from training and experience. The ability to demonstrate your talent and potential are usually related to the skill levels you have developed through prior training and experience. While schools are not looking for “perfection”, that is why getting as much training and experience as you can is so important. You can have huge amounts of raw talent but you need to have some tools to communicate that. The more developed your tools, the better you are able to convey the talent and potential you have.</p>
<p>That being said, it is critically important to really investigate each school’s expectations. All schools are not the same. They have different criteria for evaluating students, different balances given to acting, voice and dance, different focuses on what is looked for in an audition, different audition requirements. Take the time to ask questions of each school in which you are interested. Part of preparing for college auditions is making sure there is a congruence between what the schools on your list are looking for at auditions and what you bring to the process. To maximize the likelihood of success, auditioning for colleges should be a very individualized process, not a broadly brushed approach.</p>
<p>It is an interesting question and one that cannot really be answered. I agree with MichaelNKat and would add that they also look at how much training and experience you have listed on your resume and how that is shown in your audition. </p>
<p>My daughter is in the MT program at Northwestern and her voice teacher said he specifically chose her to be his student because at the auditions he saw clearly that she has an untapped potential versus some of the other girls who are close to their “peak” if you will. A character actress, like my daughter, peaks much later than an ingenue.</p>
<p>Onstage, what makes you think that those that worked professionally are more talented and have more potential than those that have not? Maybe they just happened to have been at the right place at the right time, or their parents were particularly on the ball. I’m really not intimidated by others that claim to have more talent just because they have worked professionally before. I could have just as much potential as they do. But you do make a good point on how competitive the field is, so training is very important.</p>
<p>Yoshi2: Please re-read my post. I never said that those who worked professionally are more talented or have more potential. What I did say is that they are more experienced; and from that, it could be assumed that they are already working successfully in a very competitive profession, and perhaps, will be successful in the future and therefore a future good advertisement for the school. Your audition is certainly the most important factor in being accepted to a college; a panel of college instructors will be able to tell if you have talent and potential. However, they will also look at your resume to see what kind of training and experience you have – and that can be a good indicator of how serious you are about pursuing this very difficult career.</p>
<p>The only program my D was intimidated by was Penn State. They basically stated in the info session that they were looking for students who were ready to perform on a Broadway stage immediately. That was eye opening!</p>
<p>I remember my D’s audition at PSU – the first thing they told the kids was “Please don’t be nervous about this audition. Your chances of getting in are so small that you might as well just relax and enjoy yourselves!”</p>
<p>The more I read about musical theatre in college and how difficult it is to “make it,” the more and more scared I am. Theatre is my passion, but I guess I could be happy doing other things… I’ll be a junior next year, and I’ve been taking basic ballet for about a year, will hopefully be starting jazz/tap soon, been singing in choir for 9 years, probably start taking private voice again this fall, been in school productions and done a lot of tech work as well… do I still have time to catch up to all these students who have been dancing since they were 3?</p>
<p>CaptainBoe, yes, dance is an important part of MT training and yes, the ability to dance (after 4 years of college training) is a very important element of being competitive after college, but just because you only have a couple of years of dance training doesn’t mean you can’t be competitive in college auditions. There is great variance in the evaluation and weight given by schools to the dance portion of auditions. At some schools, like Penn State and Syracuse, the dance portion is advanced and extensive training and technique will give a student a distinct advantage over someone with little dance training. At other schools, like Ithaca, there is no dance portion to the audition at all. Some schools, like Emerson, the dance portion is very simplistic and easy. And in the middle, there are many schools that are looking more for whether you can move well and pick up short routines quickly than than whether you have advanced technique. Then, different schools weight the components of the audition differently. At some, you must be viewed as a potential “triple threat” and at others if you get high scores in 2 out of the 3 components (often voice and one other) and an acceptable score in the third, you will be competitive.</p>
<p>So keep doing what you are doing, follow through and take the private voice lessons, continue with ballet and add jazz, continue with school productions. And spend your junior year researching schools like crazy to get as much info as you can about what individual schools look for in auditions and how their individual audition process works. Then choose schools for your list not only that you would like to attend because they meet your desires but also for which your talents and skills are a good match for the school’s audition criteria.</p>
<p>I agree w/ MNK- just keep doing what you are doing. Of course those who have years of training are going to be more comfortable during the dance portion of college auditions, but that does not mean those with less dance training cannot be competitive. My D will be a junior at Penn State and she did not have a huge amount of dance before college. What she did have I think is a lot of dance “attitude” that got her thru. She always had a hard time fitting in dance classes when doing shows, so most of her training came from a very few formal classes, high school dance team (our high school did have an AP dance program which was very good) and a couple of summers taking dance classes at the comm. college. She knew the terminology and had the basics down. She was able to pick up choreography easily, but mostly when she did her college auditions, she got up and showed a lot of confidence, and very importantly, that she was enjoying herself and loving it. While she felt that Penn State’ dance audition was one of the more difficult, she felt very confident coming out of it. No matter what happens, keep smiling. Another audition that she felt was one of the more difficult was for the UCLA MT program. She loved the choreography and said she was really getting into it. About 1/2 way thru, she went up for a kick and landed on her rear end. She said she figured she might as well make the best of it, so jumped up and just kept going while smiling. They had a 30-sec. “make up your own stuff” so she really went all out for that. After the audition, the auditor commented to the group that all dancers will fall down at some point in their professional careers, no matter how good they are. The trick is how they handle it and do they let it affect their performance. BTW, she was admitted to the UCLA program as the only transfer accepted to their program that year. It just goes to show that most auditors are not interested in you being perfect but a lot in your stage presence and your teachability. You will be fine!</p>
<p>And in how you handle a mistake! Good job to your D, Takeitallin!</p>
<p>Thank you, I’m so glad I found this site :)</p>
<p>Here’s another story about performing attitude. I recently attended a summer musical theatre program where dance classes were part of the schedule. The dance teacher taught us many good tips about how to “fake” having years of dance experience if you don’t. On the first day, we learned a jazz routine and had to do in a line of four at a time across the floor. After the four people in the line went, the dance teacher would separate them into groups based on how they did. One of the groups were the people that she thought would have stood out to the choreographer as being well trained in dance. The other group were the people that she thought would not particularly interest the choreographer of a show (because of hesistating when messing up or other things like that). She then put me in a totally separate group all by myself. She said that although I did get a few steps wrong, my face had a smile on thoughout and I kept my alignment and kept going. She said that a director or choreographer would probably be willing to work with me just because of my attitude. Your attitude when you are in the dance audition will be noticed by the auditors, so make it good.</p>
<p>Great tip Yoshi2.</p>
<p>Yes, Yoshi2. My D’s dance teacher at CMU’s precollege program told her the same thing. And smile she did through every dance audition last year no matter how hard it was!</p>