@momof2lefties what do you mean when you say she is doing a blind study of the school’s curriculum? Sounds interesting
Ugh. Just when we thought our roller coaster ride was on an upswing and almost done, we get a sudden dizzying drop. We got the Heart letter, and they’re only giving D a $9,000 Talent scholarship. As we all know, Hartt gives no other aid aside from that. No merit Aid and no financial need aid. Unfortunately, that makes it unaffordable for us. I’m willing to have D take out the maximum Federal Loan of $30,000, and I would be willing to take out a loan myself, but not a huge amount, because I don’t want D or us to be drowning in debt forever. Even with the scholarship, Hartt would mean $70,000 to $80,000 in loans, and it’s just too much.
So here’s where we stand. D is auditioning for Stella Adler on Monday. She also will be sitting in on classes at Marymount, UArts, and Hartt over the next two weeks. So the possibilities are:
- I talk to Hartt and try to convince them to give us more money. (Not likely but worth a try.)
- D ends up loving UArts or Marymount after all and is happy to go there. (Marymount wouldn’t require any loans; UArts would, but a manageable amount.)
- D goes to Stella Adler’s 3-year program, which would give her the intense conservatory training she wants at low cost, and then starts auditioning, working part time, and possibly also tries to get a college degree in the cheapest and most flexible way ahe can find (evening classes at community college, online college, etc.)
The saga continues…
It’s also good to compare what is required in terms of gen eds and other electives between the programs. My son’s program requires 10 gen ed classes, but at least one is satisfied by a theater elective.
@emf1959 - if it makes you feel any better, we got nothing from NYU.
@loism, blind study of curriculum means you print out each school’s curriculum but cut off the name of the school or blot it out with tape or a marker, so you only see the curriculum and not the name of the school. Then you show them to your kid, so they can compare and contrast the curriculums and classes without any unconscious bias of knowing the name of the school. It’s a really useful exercise! Sometimes they find that the curriculum that attracts them most is from a “lesser name” school, but they wouldn’t have realized it if they were blinded by the “prestigious” name of the other school.
@actingdreams regarding your S’s concern about NYU class size, as @theatreloverca pointed out, once the accepted students are divided among the studios they are then further divided into smaller groups within their studios of about 15 so they have the experience of small classes. As for having majority performance time, they technically have studio classes for 3 days a week but those days run from 9am to 6pm and that does not include any rehearsal time. So aside from fulfilling their gen ed requirements on the other 2 days of the week, my D typically had rehearsal 4 to 5 times a week and weekends depending on the projects she was working on – so certainly more than enough performance time for her! LOL
@emf1959 my D was lucky enough to get a substantial scholarship to NYU but didn’t get any money from some other schools – I never took that as insulting. Apparently, the credentials at those schools for receiving scholarships were different.
@MomofJ5 and @emf1959 my D didn’t get any $$ from NYU and then I clicked on all the links. In the list of things to do, there was a note saying call FA. My D didn’t put her SS# on the common app and they were not able to link the common app to her FAFSA. This morning I checked and there was $20K in scholarship and $53K in loans (which far exceeds our EFC). Maybe your children did the same thing as mine. I am not taking out $200K in loans, so we have to say no to NYU. My nephew is there, so my sister thinks I am crazy to say no. Her kid is finance major. 
I am not sure I am supposed to put actual dollar figures here - I see most don’t. I can delete if its a violation of CC rules.
@momof2lefties @loism YES, what is a blind study of curricula?
Meaning D is looking at the degree maps for each school?
How did you set that up for her?
@MomofJ5 I would rather see that you did get something!!!
I’m having a bit of a curriculum/finances dilemma. My S came into this being undecided between BA and BFA. Logically it would make sense (I think) for him to end up at the school with extensive training options (in case once in school he wants to train more), but with less mandatory training requirements. Unfortunately, the merit aid points to the opposite choice- the more requirements BFA programs gave him $ (Syracuse/Miami), and the somewhat more flexible BFA/BA programs (NYU/USC) didn’t. Plus, if he ultimately doesn’t want to pursue theater, the more flexible programs are more “prestigious” academically. I’m having a hard time thinking this through. We have plans to visit, but I’d love advice regarding unique ways to think about this… Like maybe save the money and take some liberal arts courses at our local state university in summer school?
@emf1959 - thanks! That’s sweet. I really love this board.
@ginaf1102 - we don’t qualify for financial aid, so we didn’t apply (but I had 5 kids in under 5 years, so the cash flow now that we’ll have three in college for the next four years isn’t manageable). I wish you could give us your unused aid!
@MomofJ5 - That’s a huge dilemma and I don’t think there’s any one right answer. If it were me I think I’d start with a process of elimination - are any of his options going to result in a truly unacceptable amount of debt? Take them off the table. The take the remaining ones and evaluate “options” if your S doesn’t want to pursue the BFA - can he transfer in-school and does he lose the merit money if so? Also look how much leeway the BFA schools give you to take other courses. I would focus on the most likely “what if” scenarios and look for the school that is most “affordable” (in quotes, because it’s all obscene amounts of $) that also doesn’t tie him to only one outcome. Not sure if that helps at all!
BTW - my parents had 7 kids and they only got financial aid when several of them were in school - you might want to rethink the application for FA. Too late for this year but next year, maybe check it out. The schools do make allowances for parents suffering under multiple tuition payments.
@MomofJ5 My daughter had the opposite problem and ended up at a BA that offered her amazing money and will come out debt free. But the program wasn’t as intense as she wanted. We took the savings and enrolled in courses over the summer. Acting intensives, stage combat etc. <3
BU didn’t offer my S or D2 very much. We are in the process of appealing D2’s award. I didn’t see it as an insult - our EFC is not realistic (certainly not with D2 being our third college student). We will be paying for college for a very long time!
@loism @#booknerdmom see @actorparent1 's post #3084 on this thread. She describes it perfectly–find the year-by-year course outline for your particular major on the school website (including any gen ed requirements) and print it out. Then go through with a black Sharpie and block out all references to the school. I also printed out the course descriptions (which can be buried online, but if you do a search for course catalog you can find them) and again, went through and eliminated all school references, stapled them to the course outline, and labeled each packet with a letter of the alphabet. Only I know which letter represents which school. D has read through each several times and highlighted interesting bits and taken notes on each. We have a block of time scheduled this afternoon to go over them. We also sat down and came up with a list of about 15 criteria she thinks are important for her college experience and evaluated each school with a 1-5 score for meeting each of those items on a spreadsheet. She tried to be very honest in those scores and that should also give her an objective rank for each school. Putting these two elements, plus her “feel” for the school should give her a fair way to pare her choices down to two schools, giving her time to mull them over for a couple more weeks if necessary. (I am also hopeful that this will eliminate a couple of pricey final trips to visit some of the schools that come out on the bottom.) Of course, her only waitlist is at one of her favorites, so that could throw a wrench into everything.
@momof2lefties – would you mind sharing your 15 criteria?
We used the following criteria – simple checkboxes instead of a 1-5 scale.
urban or college town
in favorite group A (schools in the highest group got weighted higher than those in the lower group, group C)
in favorite group A
in favorite group A
in favorite group B
in favorite group B
in favorite group C
no FL required
decent tech facilities
not a conservatory
ease of changing major to non-arts
is there Info Systems? (possible minor or 2nd major)
ease of travel home
strong theatre network
GPA match
financial match
mid-range size
@momof2lefties thanks for the explanation. That makes sense and sounds like a very good exercise!
@OrangeFish turns out we had more than 15:
-how far/ease of travel (weekends, family seeing work, etc)
-study abroad options
-communication/organization/professionalism (as you might imagine, this one is big for us)
-coursework (%gen ed:theatre)
-minor options
-learning opportunities in the city/town
-access to non-school theatre experiences
-faculty theatre connections
-cultural institutions within city/town
-dorm life
-political/social climate on campus and city/town
-campus size
-how into you are they (scholarships, recruitment, communication)
-off-campus environment
-general rank of school (prestige in theatre community)
-internships and post-graduate placements
-MFA offered (competition) in dept
-upkeep/investment/current tech in facilities
Very helpful @momof2lefties – thank you!