@actingdreams that’s an amazing situation for your son. It must feel so good!! Finishing this crazy process very very strong!
Hi everyone! Thanks! Is this my Karma? I mean I’ve been railing against this school from the beginning!
All of it is surreal. It really is. So far I’ve learned from auditioning 6 times thus far.
These schools do not care how many productions you’ve been in but they do look closely at your training. I don’t think it all has to do with his performing arts school. I think it has to do with his training at the school. what they do every year is the exact program from freshman to senior year that most BFA colleges have. The exact same courses. When they leave, they have about a sophomore in college education (BFA) The founder of my S. School received training from a Conservative Training Arts University (UNCSA and he still has not told any student where he’s from to prevent influencing their college decision. The admission officer when scheduling our audition had to tell us that he’s an alumnus from there)
To get into my son’s school are the same exact steps that are taken to get into college. Everything from Callbacks, memorizing a monologue, singing a 16 bar song just to enter when the kids were in 8th grade. We had never heard of any of it …Like whats a Monologue?? There were workshops during callbacks exactly like the workshops we are witnessing at our college auditions. They accepted 12 Theatre Kids (what my S. is in) and 16 M/T kids and They are REALLY Amazing. like their performances are just as good as Broadway show!
I believe 800- 1000 students auditioned for his school (most of them not having had any training except music conservatory) they just showed potential and the teachers/ auditors could tell if they were practicing a lot at home before each callback. They accepted 112 for his class. 50 of them are Dance Conservatory and they train 4-6 hrs per day
Even when he was accepted, they called before other schools notified that they had been accepted into a top magnet or academic school in Chicago (The same calls that BFA students are getting when they are accepted .)
every single thing that we are all going through is what he’s been able to experience so he isn’t so nervous going out for these auditions (Juilliard had him shiver just a bit)
I just want you to know that he isn’t the best theatre kid out here and I don’t want to have any confusion about our journey (like why all of this crazy stuff is happening here even if it’s temporary).
There has been a journey. Someone said that Juilliard students don’t have much of a social life, the kids at his school don’t have much of a social life either. They are in school 9-14 hours per day 5-6 days per week. Summers they have to use attending intensive camps. They really don’t have time to enjoy things like “traditional hs” things. They have literally signed up for what they will do when they get a BFA in college. Not everyone goes for their BFA… several students have already been accepted into Cornell and I believe Harvard for Pre-Med 
Thanks again
@ginaf1102 I hope so. He still has his other Reach schools to audition for. I hope your D has been doing well during these crazy auditions. I’ve never seen so many gorgeous girls auditioning for M/T with fancy shoes or that extra something going on like this. Many of them look alike but some stood out because of their darker hair I could hear many of them sing and wow! they sounded amazing. I hope to hear good news about all of our kids <3
Quote from above: “Is this my Karma? I mean I’ve been railing against this school from the beginning!”
@actingdreams I smiled when I read this. It just may be! He could definitely do a lot worse than Pace and a full ride…wow! Congrats again. That is really something. It will definitely be worth exploring more about what they can offer him in terms of coursework, etc, that will enhance the training he has already received in HS.
Thanks for the info on his journey. I know some PA HS’s are very rigorous like that and it is interesting to hear about.
@Twoboysandadog lol aww thank you! I just hope and want to give hope and I try to be as transparent as I can be. I’m one of those Leave the Ladder Down type. If I can help, I will in anyway that I can and certainly prevent someone from making a mistake that I’ve already made.
I want all of our kids to make it. We work hard to get our kids here.
Hi! Does anyone know who the auditor is for PACE TV, Film, Voiceover, etc
We are going to Unifieds in LA later in the week. Can anyone tell me if Syracuse had any walk ins? My D sent in her application to Syracuse waiting for acceptance to sign up to audition, but when I double checked when she hadn’t heard back, they were a program that required prescreen acceptance first then apply to the college. If not no biggie, I just wanted to check.
Hey @actingdreams!!! Finally catching up after a long day and snowy drive home…so thrilling to read about your son’s amazing day! Sounds like he’ll have quite a few options. Bravo! Keep us posted!
@M2twins Haven’t ever heard of Syracuse doing walk-ins before. They do require a pre-screen.
@FourStars and @ginaf1102 Thanks for the CMU info! Coming down the home stretch. Good luck to all!
@artskids Maybe more schools are beginning to take a page from the Pace playbook?
Schools wanting them to plan for a half day this year include NYU and BU (each of which have run late at least once so far this week–NYU on. Saturday morning and BU on Monday morning–so be prepared to speak up if you’ve got somewhere to be soon afterward and are given a late slot within these longer time frames!) plus Syracuse, Emerson, Pace… and a few others I can’t recall at the moment. CMU, I think?
(Someone said UMich was at one point asking for a full day to be blocked out, which I thought sounded crazy.)
I wonder: As applicant numbers keep rising, will we see this trend (if it is one) continue? Especially for schools that don’t want to cut based on video prescreens, the longer slots could be a way to cull the herd a bit by forcing the students to prioritize. Also, the half-day format lets a school amass a big group with a chance to sell the program to teens and parents at a mini info session before the actual auditions start.
Hi @Atreuh yes thank you. Our sons had a tiny chat in passing yesterday. Hope he came home excited because the auditions went so well
I suppose. BU is a 3 hour block; Emerson a 4. Definitely a very tight fit to make the puzzle work.
BU had a long (really good) info session - a little over an hour, and then had 3 rooms going. D was first in her room so I don’t know how long the later people had to wait. U Mich had us originally block the whole day and then gave us a morning time. D was first again (either got her prescreen in early or our last name?). No info session. I think they said they had 6 per hour scheduled. So 9-5 turned into 9-9:15.
Did anyone notice how tight the floors for auditions were? you could barely squeeze into the hallways at The Palmer House. The conference rooms at the Hyatt for other auditions were better. Everyone singing their hearts out was pretty awesome to hear. I love how all of the MT’s there were just waiting their turn like all of this was no big deal. Also, I love how your MT girls wear a little something extra to stand out. One had on Red velvet boots, very petite and looked so Nice. I witnessed a lot of the cute/querky/ artsy Guys who were M/T. In All honesty, they reminded me of the DePaul theatre students, something my son is not BAL today if you’re auditioning (sons and daughters
If Unifieds is only for 4 days, I find it odd that some of these schools are keeping your kids for almost the entire half of the day. If you’re spending so much $$ to even get to the city, one would think that you would like to audition for as many as possible. 3-5 hours is extreme but I’m not in this field and no expert. The Unifieds is Big Business and Big $$
@actingdreams - I don’t know that schools are taking into account how MANY auditions kids seem to be doing these days. (at least cc kids) In 2014 my D had 5 auditions scheduled over 3 days at unifieds - 1/2 a day each, not particularly complicated to schedule… and she was doing MORE than several of her PA HS friends who were there with her. I was an avid CC reader at the time - and D seemed right in the pack with 7 audition schools. It continuously amazes me how things have changed - I say hats off to you all
I would be fascinated to hear what colleges themselves think of the idea of 20+ auditions… @KatMT? @VoiceTeacher … any thoughts you can share from your colleagues?
Most of the people I’ve spoken to here do not have kids doing 20+ auditions at Unifieds. 6-10 seems to be the average for MT or MT/Acting mixes (not counting walk ins) here. A number of her friends has already done NY Unifieds and some on campus interviews.
Unlike @MTmom2017, D has ended up near the end of the song/monologue calls so it presents a bit of a scheduling challenge. Pace let her move up her slot to accommodate Ithaca but she was at the very end of Ithaca so needed to reschedule CCPA. I walked down to the school - they are really awesome to work with and moved her into an open slot. D is making it work but it is causing a bit of anxiety.
BU had listed Monday as 9-12; D finished there at 12:30. I don’t know if she was last in her room or how long it went on from there. They spent 30 minutes with her so I assumed she was last and they no longer cared. OTOH, she can be chatty and get everyone in the room off the subject, so that’s a possibility.
Agreed @toowonderful I also think more kids are getting into the BFA/BA business and it’s certainly feels very competitive. If this is indeed a business (auditions), I’m wondering if they are banking on some students changing their mind when it comes to auditioning and not showing up (we certainly did yesterday).
@artskids my son has 11 although he’s having serious thoughts about going to Boston for school now. that would cut his auditions down to 9 but even at 9 over 4 days may not be enough if all of these schools want 1/2 days cut out for them. There are a lot of students and I’m glad that the schools are trying their best to accommodate schedule changes. They understand and don’t take it the wrong way that they have to get to other auditions. I do like this part about them