<p>My daughter is a senior in high school. She has really struggled with the BA vs BFA decision. NOTHING makes her happier than actiing and singing. She says she comes alive when rehearsing, performing, etc and can't imagine not being on a stage. She dances well but it is her area of least confidence. She is a true actor with mobile range funny to heartbreaking, physical to wordlessly expressive, petite blond body type and lovely true soprano with large range . We have tried to get honest opinions from voice coach and directors and seem to hear that she has great potential to succeed on stage. Though who knows?</p>
<p>She is a pretty strong though not perfect academic candidate, with 32 ACT, 5s on AP exams, and a 4.0 unweighted GPA (4.2 weighted) heading into senior year. She loves to write, read, think, explore, which she brings to her characters on stage. She is a pretty strong theatre candidate, with leading roles in high school and community and two in professional theatre. She interviews and auditions very well.</p>
<p>We have been on the site here at College Confidential for a year, and have gotten so much great advice. She had planned for to auditon for BFA programs at the Unified in Chicago, but just lately she is thinking that maybe she should apply for BA programs instead, to continue to liberal arts and well rounded education, and then go on to either MFA or try her hand on professional stage if possible from there. I am a little at a loss to switch gears right now and would love advice/support on some programs to consider. I am also a little worried she will switch gears again and miss some windows. She says she wants to major in Theatre, not MT, so I am also trying to figure out which is the better program at some of these places. And wonder if there are advantages to one major over the other. I am a non theatre person who only knows what I know from taking this journey with her.</p>
<p>The colleges/universities that she has lately been thinking of ( BA) are in no particular order. We live in the midwest but don't have a particular region in mind, though she is sort of against living in the South or Southern California as she likes seasons a lot. She realizes that many of the schools are reaches for all candidates. In general she is not wanting a huge university, though had been very excited about both U Minnesota- Guthrie and NYU when she was back in the BFA thought process. We also wonder about University of Indiana? Boston University? American University? Smaller schools we haven't thought of ?</p>
<p>Do any of you have advice for us? A bit of additional padding for her college list? Programs we should cross off as being too small or not strong enought? Programs we haven't thought of? thank you so much for your answers and all the thoughtful posts we have read this past year.</p>
<p>Indiana
American
James Madison (auditioned BA)
Connecticut College
Sarah Lawrence
Muhlenburg
Trinity College (CT)
UVA
William and Mary </p>
<p>may be worth her looking at to see if she likes the schools and programs. The schools already on her list all have strong theatre opportunities </p>
<p>Here are few quick random thoughts and questions:</p>
<p>Firstly, that’s a great BA list! - all those schools are strong for theatre - we visited three, and I wish we had had time to visit all the others on your daughter’s list.</p>
<p>Has your daughter visited any of these schools? </p>
<p>We liked BU and NYU because they have regional auditions - it’s likely they audition in Chicago or elsewhere in the midwest - this means less travel and expense for you. And, more importantly, both those BFA programs allow students to explore other academic disciplines.</p>
<p>U of Minn has a Theatre BA with rolling admissions. You could apply now (or real soon) for free and have an acceptance letter in hand in a few weeks. That’s comforting to have early.</p>
<p>Is your daughter considering applying ED to any of the schools on her list? Admissions is very competitive at many of the schools on her lists and ED, arguably, gives the applicant a small edge.</p>
<p>For what’s it’s worth, my daughter started out with a similar list. After visiting, meeting students and teachers and attending classes, she dropped Yale and NYU and added Williams, Barnard and Fordham Linclon Center. Her two favorites were Brown and Northwestern, though both are quite different from each other. It’s a very personal decision, what’s ideal for one kid may be less so for another. It really helps to visit.</p>
<p>Thank you, yes we did get to visit the east coast schools this spring. She absolutely loved Brown and Middlebury, . She liked Wesleyan a lot, as well as Vassar and Yale. Williams was not her favorite for some reason. We looked at Colby, Bates, Bowdoin, Skidmore too. The Maine schools are awesome, I think she liked Bowdoin the best of that lot and Skidmore as a less competitive option for admission. If she had to decide today I think she would ED at Middlebury or Brown, but things are still so up in the air…</p>
<p>We haven’t been to Northwestern or to Kenyon yet but are very much looking forward to , they sound great, and since both are within driving distance we can manage without too much cost. From my homework it looks like Northwestern is awesome but one of her directors said something negative about it so she is a little biased against it unfortunately.</p>
<p>I hadn’t considered UVA or William and Mary, and James Madison I hadn’t ever heard of , but their web sites looks very interesting. I know UVA is very tough to get into but it is an amazing place. My husband and I did our residencies there and loved it. I’ll read about Fordham too. Boston University is indeed a BFA, which I hadn’t realized. I thought that U Minnesota was BFA. Do they also have a BA ( and I guess, do the BA kids get to perform enough if there are BFA kids as well?). I"ll have to look into that unless you know the answers. And I’ll check out Barnard. Thanks</p>
<p>I understand that the U Minn BA and BFA programs are completely separate, but there are plenty of stage oppourtunities for the BA students.</p>
<p>It’s too bad about the Northwestern comment. Sorry to hear that. What did the director say? My daughter really loved that school. She attended a student production of Ave Q and said it was standing room only and the audience was very rowdy - which my daughter loved. She also really liked the intensity level of the one acting class she attended. </p>
<p>arwarw, he said that Northwestern was really a cold unfeeling school and theatre community. I have heard nothing at all like that on these forums, only positives, and so hopefully when we visit she will love it. I think it sounds like a great fit if so.</p>
<p>wow, arwarw, what a great thread. Interesting that there are so many overlaps in your daughter’s list and mine. We loved Brown so much in March! How has her experience been there so far?</p>
<p>I already replied on the MT forum to your thread there.</p>
<p>I’ll just add that while my MT kid went to NYU/Tisch, my other daughter went to Brown, but not for theater. However, I’ve been there many times and have seen productions and personally know a few kids who attended for theater who are now Equity actors. There is a very good theater scene at Brown, as well as an a cappella scene. My D LOVED Brown soooooo much. </p>
<p>I think your D should keep Skidmore on the list as an “easier” option, but not a 100% sure bet and so still try to find that sure bet school and again, Muhlenberg might figure in for that spot. </p>
<p>I had forgotten about Connecticut College and am glad that KatMT brought that option up. </p>
<p>I think it’s good to go very hard for primarily one or the other (BA or BFA) - not both. In the midst of a very busy senior year with school and theatre and other stuff, it’s hard to mount a serious BFA campaign and prepare application packages of the quality required to get accepted to schools like Middlebury, Yale and others.</p>
<p>With regard to my D’s BA college list, I thought it was critical to make a thoughtful choice among her reach schools and apply ED. Brown for example admits about 40% of their class in the ED round amongst one-tenth of the number of applications they will be reviewing in the RD round. Many of the talented thespians who were rejected early by Yale, Northwestern, Harvard, Princeton et al will be competing in the Brown RD pool.</p>
<p>I told my daughter that by applying ED to Brown she was likely forgoing the chance to attend Northwestern and Williams, so really put a lot of thought in to that decision.</p>
<p>@arwarw- You have very valid points. The “packages” needed to compete at the top BFA programs, and the top academics (Ivy, LACs etc) are very different. This was a BIG point of conversation at our house 2nd semester of junior year as we decided whether or not to go “all in” on the BFAs. Ultimately we decided to apply for both- but put our big focus on BFAs- that was where the battle was being fought My D applied to 3 of the schools on @sscncadams original post: Brown, Northwestern and Kenyon. I am a Kenyon alum, so we considered that more of a “safety” for her (and she had grades/scores to back it up) I brought up the idea of ED at either Northwestern or Brown MULTIPLE times- for exactly the admissions logic you describe so well. In the end, D felt she needed to “take her shot” with BFAs. The good news is that the story ends well, she was accepted to several really remarkable BFAs (NYU, Syracuse, Boston) as well as great BAs (Kenyon and Northwestern) I will freely admit I was surprised by Northwestern- I didn’t think we had the “package” as tight as it needed to be, but her alumni interview happened to be with a theater grad, and you never know what makes the difference. So I agree that you may want to FOCUS in one direction, but don’t think it has to be entirely either/or…the muses sometimes smile :)</p>
<p>"he said that Northwestern was really a cold unfeeling school and theatre community. I have heard nothing at all like that on these forums, only positives, and so hopefully when we visit she will love it. "</p>
<p>OP, do you know why the director feels it’s a cold unfeeling school and community? Did he have personal experience there? What specifically was he referring to that he felt was cold and unfeeling?</p>
<p>My D loves Northwestern and is a rising Junior there. She is not MT; she is straight theatre. It hasn’t been cold or unfeeling at all to her, but it’s possible that the director had a bad experience there - as you would for any school - and perhaps fell into the wrong crowd or chose an acting teacher he didn’t like? I’m wondering if you could clarify what he’s basing his comment on. She hasn’t been a star there either, at least yet. She just loves the training, academic, opportunities and her fellow students.</p>
<p>Wow, @toowonderful, your daughter had some great choices. Congratulations!</p>
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<p>Agreed. The BFA focused kid, of course, should apply to some BA schools, and the BA focused kid can schedule auditions for after January 1st so that audition prep and travel doesn’t interfere too much with writing strong BA applications. </p>
<p>It helped us to make a spreadsheet early with all the submission requirements and possible audition dates. Also, look at the supplemental essay prompts as they become available. Some are surprisingly light and some are a bear, so your kid should schedule their time accordingly.</p>
<p>Our D applied to some safety-ish schools early and some audition schools early so she could get the auditions schedlued; then focused on her ED school application heavily up until Nov. 1st, then started working on other reachy BA applications with the intent of polishing those apps until Jan 1, than using Jan to prep for a couple Feb auditions. </p>
<p>After lots of research, I personally found Northwestern to be the benchmark. It’s got a unique combination of conservatory-level structure and Ivy League level academics all set on a beautiful traditional college campus in a college town next to a great city. Also, it has great job placement with a strong alumni network and a world class communications college - which has a lot of great preprofessional crossover opportunities for theater students - and the NU alumni and professors make great art! I thought some of the other schools we looked at like NYU, Brown, Yale, CMU et. el. had perhaps some stronger elements than NU, but not as complete and balanced a package. </p>
<p>If nothing else, I think an extensive visit to NU forces the high-stats, BAish inclined theatre kid to more closely examine why their top choice school (if not NU) is their top choice.</p>
<p>I spoke with my son, a rising senior at Northwestern who is majoring in theatre, about the atmosphere at the school and in the theatre community. He said he experiences the students as extremely welcoming and warm and the faculty as warm and open. He has made some of his closest friends there. He is impressed with how much time the faculty give to students and said NU has provided everything he was looking for in a school. Personally, I have found faculty, students and their parents to be very open and engaging and administrators very responsive to my questions and concerns.</p>
<p>At the same time, it’s not the school for everyone. The students are very smart, passionate, ambitious, and, especially with the quarter system, busy. They throw themselves at opportunities, work hard, and produce a lot of theatre. The atmosphere as a result is intense. If a student isn’t comfortable with this way of being and hasn’t joined one of the many groups on campus (e.g. theatre boards, a Capella groups, Greek organizations), I can imagine that they may feel socially adrift and have a different experience. I would encourage your daughter to visit and size it up for herself. </p>
<p>Thank you for all the positive feedback about Northwestern. It is so true that one or two misguided pieces of advice can steer a person way in the wrong direction. I can’t wait to visit Northwestern now. We will get it on the calendar straight away.</p>
<p>After talking to everyone and doing more online research, it is looking like this is an updated set of schools (obviously still a bit too long of a list). No order of choices yet. I would love the possibility of Early Action or Early Decision if she is able to make a first choice. One of our sons didn’t ( now happily a senior at Tufts) and waiting till March was a long haul. Our other son was so lucky to get his first choice (now a junior at Yale) , and had a very relaxing senior year! The end result will be the same but it sure made for a different November-March!</p>
<p>Highly selective academic and theatre BA programs</p>
<p>Northwestern
Yale
Brown</p>
<p>followed by
Kenyon
Middlebury
Wesleyan</p>
<p>We still need to investigate UVA and William and Mary which were suggested on the MT board</p>
<p>Audition BAs we will look into ( haven’t visited any, but sound very interesting, thanks for the ideas!)</p>
<p>Fordham
American
James Madison
Emerson</p>
<p>Auditon BFAs</p>
<p>Minnesota-Guthrie
NYU
BU</p>
<p>She will prepare her monologues, but isn’t as stressed as I would be about choosing/memorizing, as she has just finished two roles with great monologues ( Jessie in 'night Mother, and Carol in Black Comedy, as well as one in the Tempest, and feels that much of the heavy lifting of monologue preparation is behind her. She is working on essays and done with testing. I agree it will be hard to press full steam ahead on applying to a large range of schools in both the BFA and BA degrees, but I guess since she is leaning towards BA this seems reasonable.</p>
<p>I’ve heard Tufts is also strong for theatre, but we didn’t visit. Any thoughts on Tufts, given your son is there?</p>
<p>We visited W&M two years ago and the theatre department seemed in need of capital. The facilities seemed old and tired. One staffer told us that the department had suffered deep budget cuts. I hope that has changed.</p>
<p>We also visited UVA two years ago and met with a theatre prof for a couple of hours. He said he was surprised that the admissions office knew where the theater department was. I’ve also heard from older alumni that theater was not heavily supported by the students - I hope that has changed. Also, it worried my daughter a little bit that the professor she met with was heavily pushing tech theatre.</p>
<p>In that geographic region, My D really like UNC Chapel hill. First class facilities, and the productions seemed to have a lot of student and local community support, but after her visits to other schools her enthusiasm for UNC did diminish just a little bit.</p>
<p>I hope others will chime in and give you more current and BETTER information on these schools’ theater departments. I don’t mean to trash any of them, but I do want to share my honest impressions </p>
My D applied to 3 of the schools on