Audition/class size numbers

College Majors Musical Theater Major
41

<p>That's a good analysis, AlwaysAMom and I observe similar things. You're right that one factor could be that NYU auditions in many cities around the country and then also since many go to NYC Unifieds, they tack on an NYU audition to that trip. Add that to a month's worth of audition dates in Feb. on campus and a month's worth of audition dates on campus in Nov. for ED. Also, many of the other BFA programs do not offer ED and so the ED process alone may draw numbers. </p>

<p>I also agree that there are a lot of kids in the country who put NYU on their list. In my line of work, I can tell you that almost every kid (with a couple of exceptions) has NYU on their list that they first draw up. I have actually felt that NYU was NOT right for a few kids or that they absolutely had no chance there and it sometimes comes off the list but there are a lot of diehard students with "I want NYU!"...a LOT. Add to the fact that a lot want Tisch itself, that NYU as a university is extremely popular right now for all applicants (outside of BFA programs). There are a LOT of students I come across who also have "I want a NYC school!" I don't see this kind of trend with any other school. I don't have any other school that seems to appear on almost every kid's initial wish list. For instance, CCM, CMU or UMich do not appear on each kid's initial list presented to me and almost always, NYU does. So, there are a lot of kids out there who seem to want this school more than I see with almost any other MT program for whatever reason. Same with those seeking acting. </p>

<p>There are some kids, like my own daughter, who at an early age, heard of Tisch and no other schools (was not exactly looking into colleges at that age!) and has wanted to go there. Of course when the time came to look into colleges, she looked widely at others but already Tisch was planted in her brain from a young age having heard of it and having known older kids who went there. </p>

<p>I also agree that schools with the big or long term reputation tend to get more applicants. This is true for all of college admissions and not just for MT schools. Lots of kids who have no chance of getting into Harvard seem to apply anyway. </p>

<p>With NYU, I agree that the applicants come from around the country whereas for certain schools, they are more well known or draw kids more regionally while still drawing some nationally too. For instance, my D has theater pals from many states along the Eastern seaboard and not a single one applied to OCU and these kids all went onto well known MT programs. So, certain schools draw a LOT from the national pool and some schools draw some from a national pool but then a large number from a regional pool. </p>

<p>Also, on my original point, there are kids out there who are excellent academic students and ALSO artistically talented and that kind of student OFTEN (not always) wants a school that is selective and challenging academically, as well as has a great BFA program and there are not a LOT of BFA programs in very selective (academically) universities. So, there are some kids I know who apply to mostly highly selective BA schools and then the couple of BFA schools that also meet their needs academically such as NYU or UMich. Some of these students are not willing to attend a very fine BFA program if not in a challenging and academically selective university. I come across a large number of students in this category. </p>

<p>I also agree that with Tisch.....in essence, there are 8 different BFA programs at the one university and so you have kids attracted to a variety of programs there and not just one or two and that would increase the number of applicants.</p>

42

<p>Question... If schools have a set high yield (say they accept 100 to get a class of 20), why do they even have a waitlist? Is that something to be concerned about?</p>

43

<p>Liz....schools accept a certain amount of students to yield a certain number of slots based on predictions using data from the past few years and trends of how many accept their offer of admission. But it is not an exact science. So, they build in extras to get their yield but they almost always have a wait list just in case, even though they may never have to use it. Also, I can't think of too many programs that accept five times the number of slots like your example. Also, a common trend at the more renown programs is that their yield is fairly high. This is true for top MT Progams but also for schools like Harvard. But schools do establish a figure of how many to accept to get their yield based on years past. So, they have a pretty good idea. But they'd be foolish to have no wait list just in case. Often, a wait list is never utilized at all. If you look at the featured threads on the main CC discussion page, there is one right now that is active where people are posting which wait lists seem to be active this year. EVERY school maintains a wait list but many will never use them but people want to know which schools seem to be having to go to their wait lists THIS year. For instance, Duke is actively using their wait list this year but supposedly Stanford is not. Just an example.</p>

44

<p>Waitlists are a reality because more than ever, today's college applicants (in general—not just MT or Acting) are applying to longer lists of schools. Just handling the administrative portion of admissions has become incredibly taxing to colleges. </p>

<p>(A friend of my daughter's who was determined to get into an Ivy applied to 17 schools. He joked that his app fees were a Christmas gift from his parents. He did get into one or two Ivys, plus U Chicago and Rice, so it paid off with some great choices. He's going to Dartmouth.)</p>

45

<p>I would like to encourage those with data from schools not mentioned yet to chime in. I would love to see schools like OCU, Miami, PPU, Webster, Millikin, Roosevelt, Pace and Emerson-as well as any other MT or acting BFA numbers that you might have. Just a quick statistical analysis-Of the schools already posted, the highest acceptance rates were at Steinhardt for VP/MT at 18% and Tisch with 15% when including all studios(CAP 21 for MT was a more restrictive 6%). The BA program at JMU had a 20% acceptance rate and Hartt was the highest MT only BFA at 15%. The stingiest schools in making offers were CMU, Otterbein, NCSA and Penn State with less than 3.6% acceptances. All of the other schools mentioned were between 5-7% acceptance rates.</p>

46

<p>University of Oklahoma - Acting program only (these are the numbers shared with parents by the Director during his Q&A session with parents during on-campus auditions):</p>

<p>Number of applications reviewed annually is 2,400. Number selected for audition is roughly 240 (10%).</p>

<p>Number of students accepted as incoming freshmen each year for their School of Drama is 44, of which 24 are for acting slots (12 boys, 12 girls). The other 20 of the 44 slots are for: Stage Management, Technical Theatre, and Dramaturgs.</p>

47

<p>Great info-would love to hear the MT numbers for OU as well.</p>

48

<p>Has anyone posted Purchase numbers? Several years ago when my D auditioned it was about 1000 for 22 spots-I don't see more recent numbers here.</p>

49

<p>Remember for Tisch, if overall it is 15%, that includes acting and MT (as Jacksdad did note) and for CAP it is more like 6%. For many of these other programs, the rates being noted are for MT and so make sure you compare rates for MT between schools as opposed to overall rates for all programs at a particular college with those for MT programs. I venture to say that at many BFA schools that offer BOTH MT and Acting, the acceptance rate for acting is usually higher than for MT. I also venture to say that the toughest/lowest acceptance rates are for girls pursuing MT vs. boys pursuing MT and vs. all those applying for MOST acting programs (with a few exceptions of the very tippy top acting programs).</p>

50

<p>Baldwin-Wallace 300/12-14 (accept 20)
BOCO 1000/40 (accept 57)
CCM 750/24 (accept 30)
CMU 1000/28 (Acting: 16, MT: 12)
Elon 400/20 (accept 24)
FSU 240/12
Hartt 400/25 (accept 60)
Indiana 315/10 (accept 12-15)
Ithaca 500/12 (accept 32)
JMU 100/9 freshman; 2 transfers (accepted 18 freshman; 2 transfers) (BA stats)
Michigan 450/22 (650 applicants-450 academically eligible)
North Carolina School of the Arts 900/20 male 10 female
NYU Steinhardt (BM in VP) 275/25--accept 50 to yield 25 (approx. 15 are MT, 10 classical)
NYU Tisch 2300/350 (all studios); approx. 1000+/64 (accept 75) for CAP21
OU(BFA Acting) 240/24
Otterbein 340/8 (accept 10?)
Penn State 500/12 (18 accepted to yield 12)
Syracuse 800/30 (accept 60)
UArts 600/24
UCLA (BA Acting, MT, Theater Studies, Directing) 1500/65, has no wait list
USC (BFA) 500 (accept 26 to 30 to yield 20 - as of 4/24 spots were committed for 9 male and 10 female), has no wait list</p>

<p>I have included the percentages of students accepted-schools are MT unless otherwise noted. I did not include UCLA until we get an idea of how many kids auditioned for the MT program.
BW 6.7%
BoCo 5.7%
CCM 4%
CMU(acting and MT) 2.8%
Elon 6.0%
FSU 5%
Hartt 15%
Indiana 4.8%
Ithaca 6.4%
JMU 20%
NCSA 3.3%
OU (acting) 10%
Steinhardt 18%
Tisch CAP 21 6%
Tisch All Studios(Acting and CAP21) 15%
Otterbein 2.9%
PSU 3.6%
Syracuse 7.5%
USC (acting) 6%</p>

51

<p>My D heard that Indiana made 14 offers for musical theatre this year and all of them accepted.</p>

52

<p>That's amazing for a young program. I know that one of the girls struggled between IU and Penn State and chose IU at the last. Bloomington is such agreat town and the University Setting is one of the most beautiful campuses that I have ever seen. I know that they are positioning themselves to be one of the big dogs! BTW-I used 15/315 to get my percent accepted. I'll adjust the next time around-should be 4.4%</p>

53

<p>My son auditioned for UCLA for MT. We were told that approximately 300 students auditioned for MT. You need to apply through the UC system first. There was one audition date in Chicago--at the same time as Unifieds. The other date was in L.A.</p>

54

<p>Jacksdad,
Is your computation based on how many are accepted or how many slots available? Just checking as often I have seen other posters confuse these and tend to use number in the class in figuring out acceptance rate when it truly is how many are accepted (which at many programs is more than slots in the class). If you could clarify that for members, that would be great. </p>

<p>When viewing this list, I want to mention something that should be considered by those who are selecting schools to apply to. Acceptance rates do not tell the entire story. Some schools with a very low acceptance rate may be "easier" but NOT EASY to get into than others that also have a very low acceptance rate. The acceptance rate doesn't tell the entire picture. Certain schools draw from a more national pool of talent or a different pool of talent than some other schools. When creating a college list with a BFA applicant, I don't go simply by acceptance rate in helping to balance the list. Some of the BFA programs are harder to get into than others GENERALLY SPEAKING (but as we can see in some members' results, there are exceptions to that). I always worry about offending someone but CCM and CMU would be considered harder to get into, for example, than Point Park or Indiana even though they all have low admit rates. Of course there ARE exceptions as we have someone on this thread who was admitted to what tend to be known as harder schools to get into than Point Park and someone on this forum who got into CCM but not Indiana this year and so this is not a hard and fast rule of thumb. But my point is that admit rate alone is not the only factor in determining selectivity of a program and university because its talent pool will differ (some attract top national talent) and then of course there are factors like the academic selectivity of each program which varies widelly as well. </p>

<p>Lastly, on a different point, there is not a whole lot of difference between a 4% admit rate and an 8% admit rate as both are very very low and hard to get in! Most MUSICAL THEATER BFAs have acceptance rates in the single digits which suffice it to say, makes getting into almost all of them very very difficult and chancy!</p>

55

<p>Hi SVT-I used acceptances offered as I figured that was the important number. The yield numbers are up to them-for instance when Michigan ended up with 30 in their freshman class and I believe a similar situation occurred last year at Pace. Your other points are well taken-there is very little statistical difference between the 4% of CCM and the 7.5 % at Syracuse and there are so many factors at play. Now the >15% rate at Hartt, JMU, Tisch and Steinhardt is interesting.</p>

56

<p>And again, while CMU is considered to be among the toughest admits, they do go to a waitlist, so they accept more students by the time they've built their class than those they originally accept. This, I think, makes their percentage of admits higher than the number you have. It is not a precise science. My kid was admitted to a school listed here which has a much lower admit rate than the admit rate of the school he chose to attend, which is also on this list. This is compelling information for those of us who have lived through it, I agree, but all of the caveats cited so far are worth paying attention to. These are very different schools which provide very different experiences and if one is fortunate enough to have choices, fit is as important with a BFA as it is when considering BA programs. Also, Doctorjohn had an interesting post once where he figured out the percentage of students who could be expected to be accepted somewhere, anywhere, based on the numbers!</p>

57

<p>JMU is a BA program, so it may be a bit of comparing apples with oranges in terms of admissions stats -- I think that many students who really want a BFA choose not to apply to JMU because it is a BA. </p>

<p>I agree with babar -- "these are very different schools which provide very different experiences... fit is as important when considering BFA programs as it is when considering BA programs."</p>

<p>All of the stats can be a very helpful starting point, but they (of course) do not tell the whole story. </p>

<p>:)</p>

58

<p>jacksdad, the admit rate at Tisch of 15% is for all of acting and MT and for many programs on this list, the figures given are JUST for MT and so it is not comparable. For instance, get the admit rate for acting at Elon and add it to the total like for Tisch and that would be something to compare. But right now the admit rate for Tisch is not comparable to admit rates for BFA programs listed with just their data for MT. The comparable figures would be for CAP21. Again, the admit rate to most acting programs is HIGHER than for MT (except some tippy top schools like Juilliard, etc.). So, say Syracuse or CCM, I am sure the admit rate for acting is higher than for MT and the total combined is higher than the number cited on this chart.</p>

59

<p>Yeah I got that but I decided to leave it because I didnt have any other info and when you audition for NYU they ask you if you would be interested in the other studios if you dont get CAP21. Do you think we should delete it or just use a disclaimer?</p>

60

<p>No, I think you should leave it. I was ONLY commenting on your comment about how it was interesting that a few schools, including Tisch, had admit rates over 15% and so I was saying that that figure is not comparable to other programs' MT admit rates which are the main stats on the list at present. For that, you'd have to compare with CAP21's admit rate. Still, I think the overall admit rate at Tisch is worth leaving up! The other programs listed appear to MOSTLY be listing only their BFA in MT rates/data. The overall Tisch rate could be compared to the other schools' overall combined MT and Acting rates but those simply are not all listed. It totally does not matter. I was only responding to the comment about the schools you gave as examples of accepting more than 15% because I think that would be applicable to many schools that have BFA in Acting as well as in MT because generally speaking, most schools have a higher acceptance rate for acting than for MT. Again, the longest odds seem to be for girls in MT. Acting isn't easy to get into by any means but the odds often are not quite as long at most schools as they are for MT.</p>