Happy New Year Class of 2023! You are at an exciting time in your child’s life!! This board is such a wonderful place to connect, gather information, and support one another. Over the next couple of months, many journeys will unfold! For each of your kids some will be thrilling and some down right frustrating if not momentarily devastating. Hang in there! No matter what path your child ends up on, they will get on a path. It might the “dream” or a “dream” not yet imagined, but by May they will be on a path.
Some things we learned along the audition way:
Expect the unexpected
DO NOT read into an audition!! Even if an acceptance is hinted(slightly or boldly) Cannot stress this enough!!
Try not to get attached to a school until you have an acceptance in hand!
Keep an open mind
Relish every little moment with your child, even the sad ones. Life is about to change!
Pack an audition bag the way you used to pack a diaper bag:D Snacks, drinks, tissues, and a change of clothes.
Celebrate every single audition! Walking into a “neutral” room without a nod or smile from the auditor is tough! Some schools are tougher than others. Your child is strong! Extra hugs are great!
Try to distract yourself after the auditions are finally done. Easier said than done. Wine helps!
The highs will be high and lows are low. There will be rejections. They hurt. Let them hurt and move on quick. There will be euphoric moments of an acceptance whether via email or the much anticipated phone invitation. All acceptances are awesome and can come at anytime- my son was pumping gas when got his first over-the-phone offer!
When weighing your acceptance(s): really look at the faculty. Faculty can have a lot of connections! Look at where the kids are getting work. Look at the location because many students will be getting work locally too. Talk with current students! VISIT the school! Some schools in the mid section of the country have great alumni networks in LA and NYC.
Most of all, enjoy this time. Next year, you will be looking back at these days and you will realize the magnitude of what your child and family have done! Following dreams is an amazing thing!
@frontrowmama - excellent advice!!! I particularly like "pack an audition bag the way you used to pack a diaper bag! if you are a mom who has managed to convert back to a “small” purse - be prepared for returning to the state of pack animal/sherpa that you may remember from toddler years - I routinely go away for the weekend with less than my D needed me to carry to every audition
@socalpops Thank you for the sage advice. My D is in her junior year and has started monologue and vocal technique coaching with MTCA (which by the way, they do help with BFA Acting even though their name says Musical Theater).
And a big thank you to everyone posting on here. I hope to be as helpful when I’m posting next year. BAL to everyone!
Anyone get a formal BFA acceptance from LIU? My D received formal academic acceptance and scholarship offer, and an informal artistic acceptance by email back in late October. But we still haven’t received a formal BFA letter though. Thought we’d have it by now…
Thank you for the inspiring words @frontrowmama! How sweet the diaper bag analogy… @SoCalPops - we also got academic acceptance with scholarship offer from LIU Brooklyn but my D is auditioning in Jan for the BFA. We got surprise two acting t-shirts in the mail though!
Happy New Year everyone! It is one month away from the day we travel to Unifieds (Chicago) - this is getting very real.
I thought SoCalPops thoughts for parents of Juniors were very helpful but I just had to post a bit of a different perspective. We got a later start. Didn’t pick monologues until the fall, took too long writing Common App essay, sent prescreens in on deadline dates, etc. (I didn’t find CC until August and it took forever to get through all of last years’ pages!) DD is doing fine, passed all prescreens and even has one BFA acceptance (The New School). Yes, it could have been less stressful if things were done earlier, however, I just wanted those who do not get that early jump on things to know that they still have a chance as long as their kid puts the work into it. More than anything, I am so impresssed with all the work these kids put in to the process.
@SoCalPops love your timeline! It is almost exactly the timeline I worked on. You are absolutely correct - getting started early is essential if you want any peace of mind during the process. And prescreens have been a game-changer and have pushed the schedule even further back into summer.
We do know some kids who do not prepare early but manage to get in - one boy D1’s year flew to Chicago and only did walk-ins and ended up with offers - not an approach I would advocate! AND I wonder how the kids who procrastinate until the last minute will fare in these programs. Getting in is just the first step!
Well as one of the ones who didn’t prepare two years in advance for applications… my D is doing fine as a freshman BFA! Coming from an academic Catholic high school which rarely had kids apply to BFA programs we had no truly knowledgeable admissions help until we started with MTCA - and we started with them way too late (August of Senior year). It was a scramble and the roller coaster of prescreens was rough on us… but it all worked out for the best! There is no one way to succeed, you just need to do what works best for you.
Hi @workinggirl25 - Chapman’s admission process is very non-transparent. They say that their review process is “rolling”. I take that to mean that they can give you an approval and audition invite at any time during the decision time window. My D and a number of other people here did the EA/ED process during the Fall. There were 5 of us who never got an audition invitation (and 1 or 2 that did get audition invites). They did not tell us “you did not pass the prescreen”. Instead they waited until December 14th, the EA notification date to tell us all that we had been denied admission. I had called them a couple of times prior to the Fall audition, inquiring as to why we hadn’t heard anything, and all I could get them to tell me was your application is in review, the process is rolling, and the department may make a decision without an audition. Now since their auditions are still a few weeks away, I would say its still possible that you could get an audition invitation. But I doubt you’ll get a “you didn’t pass prescreen” email if they decide not to invite you. More likely, if you don’t hear anything by early February (at the latest), you’ll get a notice after all the audition dates have passed, sometime in February or March, that you are denied admission.
Thanks for the feedback. So it sounds like not getting an in person audition means you are out. I wish they were clearer about their process. Would probably save them from getting numerous follow up calls and emails. Time will tell for us in the next couple of weeks.
@artskids Yes, getting started early definitely gives you peace of mind. Prescreen video reviews are going to become more and more common as each year passes in my guestimation. It pushes back the timeline of when you need to be ready by 6 mos. Some of the bigger schools name are not doing it yet, but I think its only a matter of time before they do it too. Personally I hate that our kids have to specialize so young. I think it takes away from opportunities to explore your likes and desires while growing up. But it is what it is.
There are two big benefits of early preparation as we’ve experienced it…
You can apply for Early Action at one or more schools. This gives you a chance to warmup to the audition process, possibly get into one or more schools early, and change any audition material if needed based on your early audition experience. My D has 3 admits right now, 2 of which are schools she could see herself attending. That takes huge pressure off the remaining 9 auditions she has coming up here in January and February. And it takes the sting out of the 4 prescreen No’s she got during the fall.
You are able to apply to more schools because you get your prescreens done early, and get started on the applications and essays early. As I said earlier D did at least 50 essay and question prompt written answers. It seemed like it went on forever. She finally finished around Thanksgiving. And here now during Christmas break, she is working on an additional scholarship applications.
You certainly can succeed in this process without starting mid-Junior year. I don’t mean to say you cannot. But if your reading this around winter or spring of your Junior year, you can and should get started right away. Waiting till beginning of Senior year will give you fewer options, will make applying Early Action more difficult (because you will be scrambling to get the material ready on short timeline), and will likely put all of your acceptances and denials into March and April of your Senior year.
This process seems like something one should be doing during their senior year. Most of us parents didn’t really think about college applications and SATs until our Senior year. But due to how many students are now applying (one parent here on CC PM’d me that BFA MT applications increased 34% last year), and the prescreen review process that opens up end of Summer during Senior year, one can best prepare by getting started Winter of their Junior year.
@workinggirl25 If you call Chapman’s COPA department admin, you might be able to find out if they have completed reviewing and sending out invites. But she will not give you any specific info your own application, so say you are not asking for that. And central admissions is pretty obtuse, non-helpful on this. In the Fall they sent out audition invites up to as close as 10 days before the Fall Audition date I know from talking with a couple of coaches who had multiple kids applying.
Elon Audition trip tips. If you are going onsite to audition at Elon, be sure to schedule time for the General Campus tour. I took my D out for an early audition back in October. When we got the audition invite email it said that during that morning we would get a tour. It wasn’t specific so I assumed we’d get a campus school tour since there was so much time available in the schedule. Unfortunately all that they had planned for us was a department tour of the theatre facilities. That was nice, but I wanted to see more. So I scrambled and jumped onto a general campus tour while my D was auditioning. The campus is beautiful, and most of the dorms are very new and very nice. Only doubles, no triples, from what they told us. Also, check their show schedule. You might be able to see a production while you are there. We saw Sweeney Todd that night after my D’s audition. It was very good, and gave us that much more of a sense of the school and the program.
I’m so happy to see so much good information sharing here! This board was invaluable to me. Although my D did sometimes tease me about it, I felt it helped me to discuss stuff here and then remain calm and steady with her, in order for her to walk confidently into every audition. Meaning, if I had a doubt, or weird question, I would research it on my own, and/or ask it here, rather than rattle her. THERE IS NO SINGULAR PATH to acceptance at these programs. My daughter is at UNCSA and I can tell you that there is an assortment of backgrounds accepted into her program. At least half are from performing arts high schools, but a good amount are also from small town local high schools. Folks auditioned on campus AND at Unifieds. Some started early, some started late. It’s all about helping your son or daughter get the right auditions and audition schedule (to some extent) and then being prepared and ready. Share what worked well, but also feel free to share your fears and doubts and questions. Don’t be afraid to Private Message people here and there if you want to get more information without it being public on the boards. I did so, to great benefit. Folks from the previous year were helpful and I made friends with some from my year. Many of us are here to Pay it Forward.
