<p>Which would you say is the top school for musical theater in NYC? Until now my top choice is Pace. Would you say it is a good respectable program?</p>
<p>If you have to ask whether it’s respectable why in the world is it your top choice?</p>
<p>@NameInLights: Pace has a very good musical theatre program. Worrying about which program is the “Top” may not be as important as carefully considering which program or programs are the best fit for you. Focusing on a school just because someone told you it was the “best” may not be a very effective way to choose an MT program. There are several BA and BFA MT programs in the immediate NYC area that you could evaluate for alignment with your interests, goals, talents, and skills, including (but not limited to):</p>
<p>Hofstra Univ.
Long Island University-C.W. Post
Marymount Manhattan
Montclair
New York University: Steinhardt School of Education
New York University: Tisch School of the Arts
Pace University
Wagner College</p>
<p>Some typical questions that you may want to consider include:</p>
<p>How competitive is the program?</p>
<p>Do I have the talents and skills to have a realistic possibility of being admitted?</p>
<p>If I get in, is the program structured so that I will get the training and general coursework that I want?</p>
<p>Will I fit into the way the program works?</p>
<p>Am I satisfied with the kinds of production opportunities that are available?</p>
<p>Is the campus environment somewhere where I would like to spend the next four years?</p>
<p>And so on and so forth…everyone will have a different list of things that are important to them. Being admitted to a program, entering, and then finding out that this is not the right place for you would be something to avoid. Sadly, this happens fairly frequently. I am not an expert, but worrying about going to the “best” school seems to be a recurrent problem in the dropout/transfer cases that I am familiar with.</p>
<p>You can get some specific information on each of these programs by looking at the sub-forums at the top of the main CC MT page for individual schools.</p>
<p>It’s my top choice because of all that I have read about it, because of its many performance and networking opportunities, and mainly because I’t’s in NYC. That being said, since there are no rankings for MT schools it’s hard to know where it stands in terms of prestige. Emssdad I get what you’re saying about finding the right school for me, and how iportant it is that I like the school so I don’t end up dropping out. So far Pace checks that box for me. My other 2 top choices would be Ithaca and Carnegie Mellon.</p>
<p>Why bother coming up with a top choice at this stage in the game? You should feel very strongly that you could imagine attending all the schools you are applying to and see how it all turns out. Although my daughter has some preferences, she understands that the level of competition for all the audition programs is so high that she is not putting her energy towards one over another. And then there is the money factor. What if you do have the luxury of choice? Does cost (after any scholarship offers) come into play? There are some schools on our list that consistently audition over 500 students for 5 girl slots! We have heard on CC frequently that a student fell in love with an unlikely school because of the people they met and the experience they had at their audition. Remain open and there may be pleasant surprises where you least expect them.</p>
<p>Those are 3 fine schools and they are all on my list, too along with many others, I’m sure. As for prestige ranking there are plenty of lists and they’re all pretty much the same in terms of the top ten programs. If being in NYC is a priority that pretty much eliminates the top 3. But everyone is right. Top choice is kind of irrelevant until there actually are choices where you’re accepted.</p>
<p>Most of the vocal coaches, casting directors, and agents I know in NYC send their students outside of NYC for school. Its too tempting to get distracted from really learning your craft and many of the schools in NYC live off of adjunct faculty which can often mean a lack of consistency. That being said, I have heard very good things about Pace.</p>
<p>^huh? Not huh about Pace (likely a fantastic school), huh about the rest of it your post. </p>
<p>As the parent of a kid who is studying MT in NYC, becoming distracted from really learning your craft is absolutely not true and whatever adjunct faculty is being used to supplement various programs… they are more than equal to the task and mindblowing wonderful. It is NYC, home of Broadway. Pick of the litter. Come on…</p>
<p>I know there are equally fantastic programs outside of NYC and you should indeed look at them too. That is excellent advice. But a generalization that suggests you can’t learn your craft in NYC because of distractions or adjunct faculty I take exception to or at least want to say, not in my pretty much first hand opinion at all. In a game of whisper down the lane a generalization that is quite a few degrees of separation away from the front line isn’t necessarily fair nor accurate. Sorry but huh?</p>
<p>I agree 100% with everything halflokum posted above in #8. While I strongly encourage students to apply to schools outside of NYC, as well as in NYC, and don’t believe you have to be in NYC for college (though it has many benefits), my reasons are not nearly what VoiceTeacher posted. </p>
<p>Every kid is different but my kid who got her BFA in NYC was not distracted by being in the city, nor did I notice that among her dedicated peers in her program. The program was very intense like any BFA program tends to be and there was very little free time. The city was not a distraction. If anything, the city offered some plusses. I realize it may not work for all kids but this was not the “problem” it is being made out to be for most motivated BFA students. </p>
<p>Also, at my D’s university (NYU/Tisch), there is a plethora of permanent faculty of the highest caliber. My D was not taught mostly by adjuncts. Many of the faculty are professionals in the field, which is a plus when you go to school in NYC with the type of faculty that are available to work there. The generalization given in VoiceTeacher’s post is not true of Tisch and in fact, my D is on the faculty at Pace’s MT program and it is not true there either. </p>
<p>Just posting to offer a balanced view that is based on experience and not a generalization. </p>
<p>That said, I encourage the OP and any student to cast a wide net for college MT theater programs. NYC is not a must for the college years. I will say now that my D has finished college, I see many benefits of her having attended a BFA program in the Big Apple, but I won’t use this post to list them as it has been discussed elsewhere.</p>
<p>Juilliard is in NYC. Need I say more?</p>
<p>Also, to NameinLights, as others have so well articulated, I would not get too concerned as to what program is the “best” at this point as you have to see where you can get in. Keep finding programs both in and out of NYC that meet your selection criteria and see what happens next spring. </p>
<p>That said, Pace is a great program (my D is teaching there now!), but it is hard to compare it in terms of prestige with some well known programs because Pace’s program is “younger,” and hasn’t been around as long as some of the so called “top programs.” But many of Pace’s graduates are working professionally in the field and you will get great training there if you should attend.</p>
<p>PS…to Mommy5…:D</p>
<p>Juilliard is, of course, a fantastic school. But it does not have a Musical Theater program.</p>
<p>My son got “distracted” the other night with free tickets to “Nice Work if You Can Get It” that also included a back stage tour. He comes home from school every year with a stack of Playbills- the perks of going to NYU. He is constantly distracted and yet he has made straight “A’s” and has been on the Dean’s List- which at NYU is a 3.7 and is extremely hard to do in Tisch. He is a straight actor and he has learned which “distractions” are important to him. The good thing is- he has so many choices and he is disciplined enough to know which ones to take advantage of! His professors are wonderful and they have connections all over the country. So- yeah, I went there!</p>
<p>I don’t think distractions are unique to NYC, but I do think a lot of eager students who realistically are not anywhere near ready for professional auditions and have no real need to be located in the city put this on their priority list. From what we saw at PACE, they do seem to like students who are already working or very close to being ready to work.</p>
<p>We are from north Florida and there were not many audition opportunities for either of my kids. School always came first so neither of them did community theatre during the school year. My son chose NYU so he can learn as much about his craft as he possibly could and so that he can be surrounded by the arts. This was especially important to him because of where he grew up. Of course, it’s different with a boy. My daughter, on the other hand, is constantly distracted with football games and other sports and Greek life. So, yes, distractions can be found outside of NY. It all depends on how you handle yourself- but that would be with ANY major!</p>
<p>Yes, Pace allows students to work and audition professionally while still in school, but by NO MEANS do we ONLY “seem to like students who are already working or very close to being ready to work”. We actually LOVE raw, inspired, off- kilter artists who want to be trained in NYC 
</p>
<p>True, some (a very small number, maybe 15 out of 100), of our students have agents and are auditioning/ booking projects while in school, but a MUCH MUCH larger number are spending their “college years” studying like mad for Ryan Scott Oliver’s extremely challenging music theory classes, learning new music for a reading of Adam Guettel’s new musical at Pace, taking dance and acting classes like all other MT’s, exploring the city and mostly learning about who they are as people, so as to better inform their art. </p>
<p>So, YES, we “like students who are already working or very close to being ready to work”, MOST schools do, but more so we LOVE students who are passionate, creative, skilled and hungry for a higher education. </p>
<p>And I FULLY agree with Emsdad about choosing the school that is RIGHT for you! I remember getting SO intensely caught up with the “prestige” aspect of college auditions and by the end of my first year at Pace realizing that none of that “prestige” actually matters when it comes to college. It can help, sure, of course, but ultimately what does matter is that you can weave yourself into the fabric of the school you choose to attend, that the faculty understands who you are/ what you want to become, and that regardless of where you go you’re going to WORK YOUR ASS OFF because at the end of the day you are the one who will be getting up every morning to go to those auditions and hustle in the big bad city ;)</p>
<p>So, NameInLights, stop wasting your time worrying and wondering about which schools are “ranked” best and spend more time perusing curriculums, emailing a teacher or theatre admissions rep from the schools to which you’re applying, contacting current students or alums (if you ask the theatre dept at the schools, I’m sure they’ll give you a name and email), and watch videos (there’s controversy about this aspect, but it was some of the most informative research I did). You want to get a FEEL of the school, because on paper they all seem pretty great, but learning in the ARTS is not something you can learn from paper, it’s something that is transcendental and can only be achieved by being in the right place where you feel comfortable to open yourself to the education. </p>
<p>Best of luck in your college audition journey :)</p>
<p>warmth and serenity</p>
<p>Nicely said, BRbway! Thanks for that!</p>
<p>And I completely forgot Ryan Scott Oliver was adjunct faculty at Pace! Fantastic :)</p>