Hi @frontrowmama - these schools that were at the non-Unifieds hotel… how does one find out about them during Unifieds to do a walk-in? I know about schools we are targeting ahead of time that will be doing auditions at “offsite” hotels. For example we are going to Chicago Unifieds at the Palmer, and we have two auditions for Rutgers and Michigan over at the Hyatt. But beyond that, I don’t what other hotels might have schools hosting auditions, and I don’t know what other schools might be at the Hyatt. So is figuring out these walkins just word of mouth once you get there?
@SoCalPops Last year at the Palmer someone posted a list of schools that was taking walk-ins. Not sure it will be exactly the same but here it is: University of Utah, Royal Scotland, Royal Welsh, Long Island University, Fordham, Ball State, Drake, Dean, Cornish, Oklahoma (Acting), Otterbein, Valdosta State, Arcadia, UAB, Ohio Northern, Wisconsin-Stevens Point, Viterbo, Texas State (Acting only), Five Towns College, University of Illinois-Urbana-Champaign, Institute of the Arts-Barcelona. I also have the very long list of who was at the Palmer if you’re interested. These are just the ones that advertised walk-ins.
At the Hyatt, I only remember Rutgers and SUNY Purchase taking walk-ins. Boston U and Minnesota-Guthrie were also at the Hyatt. Roosevelt-CCPA was on site, as was DePaul. NYU, Juilliard, Manhattan School of Music and USC were at other locations. I’m sure you can check their websites to find out which hotels.
I know that at NYC Unifieds, Webster and Hartt were taking walk-ins but not in Chicago.
@SoCalPops @type1mom Pretty much summed up above! Yes, the hotels were covered with these advertisements. Also, our coach provided a list that she had a heads up on as well. If you are in proximity to LAX it might be worth a quick trip to see if anything is of interest! Even at our CalArts audition in SF there were schools like the New School with walk in auditions possible. It is a little overwhelming as you will see. The schools are in conference rooms and the smaller schools are actually in standard hotel rooms, it is really something. Also, you will start seeing the same parents and kids over and over again and we were able to connect and share anything that might be of interest. Unifieds was one of the more notable experiences in all my years as a parent.
@type1mom @frontrowmama Thanks so much! Really good info to know!
Does anyone know how long you will need to a lot for Florida State University at Unifieds? My child has 11am audition and looking to book another after this audition.
The audition slot for FSU is an hour.
Has anyone heard back from USC regarding an audition? Thanks!
@222mom still waiting hear on USC.
@222mom Last year, my son received a confirmation of his USC audition on December 19th. If that helps …
How many schools have your children visited before applying? We have visited perhaps 6 out of the 12 she is applying to. After her visit with 4 of the 6 colleges she visited, each of them became her number one choice. I guess its good to have so many favorites! She realized one of the colleges she toured during her audition did not feel like the right fit for her, so we really have just 11 schools in the mix. Unfortunately, I think they are all ‘reach’ schools. Did anyone else forget the safeties too? Her academics are pretty good, and I suppose some of those schools have non-audition BAs, so that will be our safety.
@SwizzleSticks - My D only had (BFA/BA) reaches and BA safeties, lol. She ended up with 11 schools total (6 BFA audition and 5 BA non-audition) after a couple of prescreen rejections. We just couldn’t see her accepting a place at most the schools that were offered up as “less competitive” BFA programs and her BA likelies were actually great fits so she had a fall-back plan. We had visited only 4 of the 11 schools on her final list. Our school visits really taught us what she did and didn’t want so we narrowed down her list based on that.
@SwizzleSticks - We visited 6 schools. Applying to some 20+. 12 reach schools. 7 Middles. 2 Non-audition BA Safeties. Of the schools we visited, 4 were close (SoCal), and 2 were NY and Boston near where my wife has family. We didn’t “go out of our way” so to speak. We did it to educate ourselves about this whole process as much as to learn about the specific schools. My D pretty is pretty certain about her top schools. So far the visits and early auditions have not changed her desires. The early auditions we did (2) were very helpful, and she has a few early acceptances now too!
Got an email from Pace. They’re increasing tuition by $5,000 per year for all performing arts students. “In order to ensure that Pace can continue to provide and improve upon this celebrated program, we are instituting a fee of $5,000 per year for students entering the program beginning in fall 2019. This fee will be added to the tuition and fees that are assessed each year to incoming undergraduate students.”
@nyermom Congrats to your daughter on her prescreen passes and acceptance at Loyola! That’s fantastic! @Jazzycats I’m glad to find this board so we can support each other through this process 
@CaMom13 How awesome that your D is at NYU! Are you going through this process with another child?
@SoCalPops, congrats on your D’s early acceptances! Keep us posted on how everything goes. We have 3 more applications that are just waiting to be submitted as soon as D writes those essays!
Lol @SwizzleSticks - no, TG! I am just lurking as an old-timer. :D. Folks who had been through the process before were great resources for me last year so if I can “give back”, I try to. Thank you - my D definitely found her “fit” at NYU. I know it’s hard to see from the applicants’ perspective but once all the dust has settled most kids really do end up where they are meant to be. It’s annoying to hear that now, when it all seems so chaotic, I know!!!
My S has acting auditions scheduled for this weekend at Hartt and UConn. It will be our first time to CT, traveling from IL. Any insight on these schools, auditions, or Hartford area in general would be greatly appreciated! Thanks!
About visiting schools, we visited 4 schools in Southern CA(from SF) and that was it. My S applied to 13 highly competitive BFA programs with NO safeties/ BA options. Not sure what we were thinking. He was accepted at 6 and waitlisted at 1. Of the 4 CA schools, he applied to 3 and was accepted at 1. He is attending that school. I guess knowing the competitive nature of these BFA programs, I could not justify visiting far off schools without an acceptance and this worked out fine. Yes, there are certain programs that strongly recommend an on-campus audition, but we did none of that and still received acceptances. We did spend the first week of April on a whilrlwind trip around the US visiting programs he had been accepted to and this actually was so helpful because he was truly able to get a feel of the “fit” and whether he could see himself there. Plus, the individualized attention he was given during the visits was so amazing. Such as, private meetings with the department heads, staying in the dorms, going out to dinner with instructors and students and even seeing a performance. It made the decision extremely hard, but in the end he knew the location he wanted most of all and went for it. I guess there is not a clear cut path on this journey. There are many ways to get through it and I just wanted to share what our family did. Good luck to all! Try to breathe and enjoy the ride!!
@Swizzlesticks - My D has applied to 14 schools at the moment. Planning to add a couple of true safety schools to the list. We toured 8 of the schools before applying and covered a couple during recent auditions. She has approx. 5 BA and 9 BFA audition programs!
@love2share about the Pace extra $5000 for Performing Arts Students… I haven’t seen the email yet. But I found this on their website “Announcement: Starting in fall 2019, all Pace Performing Arts programs will be subject to a $2,500 per semester program fee for new students. Additional information regarding fall 2019/spring 2020 tuition will be posted at a later date.” https://www.pace.edu/admissions-aid/undergraduate-admissions/freshman/cost-attendance So is this in addition to the $43.6K annual tuition? It appears to be so…
This is correct about Pace. My D is an MT major there. And the tuition this year with room and board was $64K :((