@HAHCx4 D is a freshman at The Theatre School at DePaul, a fantastic, caring and generous program. It got on our radar through folks here at CC (as she was focused on NYC area schools only). So always will be grateful for this forum and in case it helps someone else.
@HAHCx4 Is there a certain state or area of the country she prefers? Size of school? Urban vs rural? And how are her academic stats?
@NYDreammom Congrats! That is VERY good to hear! DePaul is high on the list for my D. She is going to be auditioning there.
@MommaCat i think she would prefer an urban school. The size of school does not matter. More about the right feel and their teaching methods. Academics are “average”. Not great but not bad.
I hope there are more responses. My D attended the Stage and Screen summer program at Oklahoma City University and really liked the professors and teaching there. She was also able to work with Dr. Herendeen for voice. She enjoyed the Shakespeare and Acting for the Camera classes. I realize that this won’t qualify as Urban by the standards of NY and Chicago, but this is the only program she has really had the chance to get to know. And congrats to your D on her prescreens!!
Whatever works best for your D for scheduling - go with that. It just happened that we could fit a few auditions in early and wouldn’t have been able to get those in later. And those early auditions are a great way to check out a program and gain experience if your schedule allows it. BAL to your D on the rest of her prescreens!!
BAL to your D this weekend! What you shared is awesome. No need to share anything that she doesn’t want shared. I totally get it. Congrats on the good news for her prescreens so far though! All of our kids, as you have said, have worked hard to get to this place. And yes, when you get to the audition part it really begins to feel real. This will be an exciting and memorable year!
BAL everyone!!!
@HAHCx4, what makes a “great program” varies a lot from student to student. Can you give us some info on what kind of program she’s looking for? For example:
- Does she want an intense acting program that’s almost all acting training, with very few gen eds? Or does she want challenging academics along with acting training?
- Does she want a big university with sports, clubs, fraternities and sororities? Or a small college? Does she want a traditional college campus, or an urban college in a city?
- Are there certain areas of the country she prefers? (Some people want to be in or near NYC or LA, some want to stay close to home, some can’t stand the cold and want a warm climate, etc.)
- Does she want to focus only on acting, or does she want a more “rounded” theater education with directing, stage management, playwriting, etc.? Does she want an intense curriculum with lots of required classes, or a flexible program with lots of electives and an individualized “build your own program” approach?
- Does she want a special focus on TV/film, or classical/Shakespeare acting, or devised theater? (You don’t have to choose - most programs cover a little of everything- but a few programs emphasize one of those things.)
Those are just a few questions to think about when narrowing down the search.
EDIT: oh, now I see you already said she’d prefer an urban school! Okay, off the top of my head, here are a few acting programs in cities:
NYC - NYU, Marymount Manhattan, Pace, Juilliard.
Philadelphia: University of the Arts, Temple.
Chicago: DePaul, Roosevelt CCPA.
@MommaCat , Not crazy. My S applied to 5 schools, 2 BA, 3 BFA. Luckily he got into his #1 & #2. If she knows what and where she wants to be, no sense spending money for somewhere she doesn’t want be.
For those who can’t choose between BA, BFA programs, PACE allows you to audition for both and others. My S is attending PACE now and LOVES it. He was selected for for International Performance Ensemble (IPE) BA Acting and will spend a Jr semester in Barcelona collaborating and performing with other international students. Classes are small and very selective. PACE gave him a generous merit scholarship which was a major deciding factor. NYU did not give a lot, so we had to make a hard financial decision. We are very happy with decision. The FiDi area is very safe. S is a tour guide now and is willing to any answers questions you may have.
Congrats to your son on the PACE acceptance!! The IPE BA Acting program sounds great with fabulous perks too. And thank you for the information on the safety of the area. As a parent, that is an important factor.
My D finally submitted her last prescreen. Whew! She still has one video audition to complete but thankfully we are done with the prescreens!!
After obsessively reviewing every thread last year when my DS was auditioning, I quit cold turkey after making our “final decision” post. I came back a few days ago to see how this year’s auditioners were doing and I was reminded of one thing. As nerve-wracking, terrifying, and anxiety riddled as this process is… at the end of the journey, my son and I are so close. He knows how much I support his journey and he turns to me with his thoughts, hopes, aspirations even now…as a freshman MT in an amazing BFA program. Best wishes to you all and let it draw you closer to your kids!!
Thank you for taking the time to post that. That is a beautiful outcome and a great reminder of what we can gain from this crazy journey. It is so easy to lose sight of the time we have to build and strengthen those relationships with our kids.
And congrats to you and your S! It’s wonderful to hear that he loves where he landed.
Hello, kind people. I’m a parent in Illinois. D is applying for MT and Acting BFAs. We’ve finally finished sending her pre-screens to the schools that require it. How should we expect to hear from the pre-screen schools? On GetAcceptd? Over email? I’m over-anxiously waiting, and I appreciate your help.
Welcome @tariqat68
Most schools that use GetAcceptd will communicate through GetAcceptd. My D gets an email notification from GetAcceptd each time an email comes in but it is always good to continue to check there for anything that the school might send. Also, some schools communicate through their school portal (user login and password are usually required to access them).
The waiting is the hardest part.
There is a thread, Pre-screen Results list for class of 2024, that you may be interested in reading. The link is below.
Hi all-
I have some questions about scheduling auditions and I’d love to hear from anyone with experience or ideas. Hopefully any responses will be helpful to others as well.
Questions @ Unified:
(I’m aware that the answer to all these is probably “it depends” so if you have an answer that is specific to a school I’d welcome any info/experience you have to share!)
If a school schedules us for a 10 minute audition slot how long should we reasonably allot for that audition if they don’t specifically say to leave time for callbacks?
How much time should we build into the schedule for schools running late?
How early should we arrive before the audition slot? Some places suggest 30 min to an hour. What’s a safe bet, if such a thing exists?
For an audition that is a 3-5 hour block, does your individual audition time get assigned based on the time you arrive and sign in, or does that matter?
Questions @ Specific Schools:
Hartt:
We’re currently scheduled for NYC unified. The form they sent lists an info session 8:30-9 am, then an audition time of 9:38 am. Does anyone have more info about what the kid should expect during the audition?
We are thinking about trying to come to campus to audition because everything we’ve read about Hartt indicates it’s a really good way to get a feel for the program. They list auditions for theatre as Dec 7-8. Does anyone know if the audition is 2 days, or if it’s either/or? If any current Hartt families have thoughts about the relative value of coming to campus I’d appreciate hearing about that.
UMichigan:
It seems like they will review your artistic submission only after every document for admission has been submitted- can anyone confirm that? Once they review they will reach out to extend an invite to audition, trying to assign you one of the two choices you indicated, yes? Is it possible they will not invite you to audition, even though the acting artistic submission isn’t technically a pre-screen?
UNCSA:
Also already scheduled for NYC, but thinking we might try to go to campus to audition since it seems that would be the best way for us and UNCSA to assess fit. Anyone have insight as to what the benefit of that would be, beyond us being able to get a feel for the campus/community?
I think that’s it for now, but I’ll probably be back with more. 
Thanks for your help!
We’re doing the UNCSA on Campus in Feb. Get to see the facilities, sit in on a class, etc. They scheduled 3 hours for D. Hard to do that for all of them. We chose that for this school because S is down the road so we’ll visit him too. Most of ours will be at Unifieds.
@TenaciousC hi! Every child is different. However, My personal experience has led me to not schedule so many on campus auditions this time around. My D went to a few schools that she absolutely fell in love with. Amazing campus, surrounding area, facilities, and the faculty. It really got her heart set on those schools. Bad news is she was not accepted to those particular ones. Good news is she ended up at a great program and was happy. This time around we are going to a smaller amount in person (just to fit into scheduling) and doing the rest at NY and Chicago unifieds. We will then do campus visits to the schools she has acceptances to do we can find one she falls in love with.
Great questions @TenaciousC . Thanks for asking them because we didn’t consider some of the scenarios you brought up.
I know we struggled with on campus vs Unifieds for UNCSA but decided to do Unifieds due to time and travel considerations and the fact that they state they don’t prefer one over the other. If fit is a concern then on campus would be a good way to check out the school. I think it comes down to personal preference. BAL though regardless of which you choose!
“If a school schedules us for a 10 minute audition slot how long should we reasonably allot for that audition if they don’t specifically say to leave time for callbacks?”
- In our experience (NYC Unified's) it truly was just the 10 mins, and referring to Montclair specifically. It was in and out.
- Schools running late: didn’t really experience this. We had max two schools scheduled per day (but we didn’t apply to too many).
- Arrival: 30-45 mins, depends how far you are from the location. If you are in the same hotel as the auditions (i.e. Chicago), prob not as much. Then you’d just be sitting and waiting and Pearl studios for example, was a zoo, packed and had to sit on the floor, we didn’t enjoy that. Ripley was much better. On campus great too. In NYC especially keep in mind that getting through building security (Pearl and Ripley) takes time (bring IDs) and so do the elevator lines, there is a crazy amount of auditioning people plus regular visitors. We made our Montclair audition in the nick of time because it was Sunday morning, we were staying far from midtown and the subway stop nearest us was closed that day. It was pouring rain, the first Lyft driver cancelled after waiting for him to drive around and unsuccessfully find us for 10 mins, and the second one managed to speed us through. But then it was a 10 min elevator waiting line. We had left an hour and 20 mins before the audition slot and made it there a few mins before they called D’s name. Stressful. But things happen.
-For block auditions: each school does it differently. From memory:
- Fordham kept the assigned order
- Rutgers had everyone sign in upon arrival and called in that order
- CalArts called by last name
- Juilliard had their own system, when you arrived they gave you an assigned time (the earlier, the less waiting; D had one of the first time slots and still we were there (on separate floors) for 2.5-3 hours). The lobby was comfy though, they had live music entertainment for the parents.
- DePaul’s audition has several components so it will take the full time (believe we were there from 1-5 but that included orientation meeting for parents).
- NYU took the kids in groups so not sure how they were assigned behind the scene.
Break legs!
Thanks to all of you- really good info!
@NYDreammom Thank you, thank you, thank you! This is really helpful!
@rickle1 See, that’s the kind of experience that would be really useful, I imagine. I also see @HAHCx4 's point- visiting could possibly lead to some attachment/disappointment. I’m going to have to think this one through.
@anastasiasmom Thanks- BAL to you + your D, too! I’m torn between the desire to minimize disruption and the desire to have time, space and rest. Also, being on campus seems really important in figuring out fit for this kid.