@“Jamieand Winthrop” thanks for explaining. I haven’t heard of them! I’m certain they are necessary (especially after hearing someone from CONN state the lack of arts at her daughters school and surrounding community) I just wasn’t aware that it was a big thing. It’s a one stop shop! Love it
@Atreuh thank you so much!!! definitely going to look into it
@actingdreams Yes, a lifesaver for us with no performing arts high school and no acting coaches in the area. Also, they know what colleges are looking for in terms of monologues, songs, etc. (we are MT, but lots of Acting majors use them). I learned about them through CC, and would have no clue otherwise. Nobody in our school has ever auditioned for college except for my daughter (except for some instrument majors a while back), so they helped us with college selection, navigating Unifieds, and just letting us know what to expect. My daughter picked most of her song choices, but helped us pick one that she needed,especially for her voice type, also provided us with the track cuts that we needed as we had nobody for that…they give you choices and you are under no obligation to pick anything they choose or use them for all parts of the puzzle. Everything was done by Skype!
@loribelle it sounds amazing. Using Skype and not having to drive around sounds even better 
Glad to see that your daughter received some great options All of this is such a gamble
@latinaMTmom A huge congratulations on your S acceptance to Acting at CMU!! That is beyond amazing!! I do believe there is a lot of crossover work in that program, so he will be in fabulous hands!!!
@frontrowmama so glad your son is okay!
@“Jamieand Winthrop” Did you use NACAC for acting coaches? I briefly looked at their website, but couldn’t reallyl
telll if they would be useful for college acting auditions prep/info. My rising senior will be attending BUSTI this summer and I was hopeful that he would get some help in the area of choosing good monologues for auditions while he is at BU. Is this a bad assumption and should we plan on hiring a coach to help with this?
@actingdreams Does that mean your S is taking his name off the waitlist so that someone else on it can move up the list?
@mtmaybe So excited for you! As a proud former Titan, you can’t go wrong there! You will love it!
@mtmaybe If you are definitely going to IWU, would you be interested in PM-ing me with your email so I can introduce my D to you (she is on the fence about IWU v. ELOn in BFA performance/acting but she is actually a very talented MT kid who wants to do cross over work)
@Noreplays2018 I am not 100% going to IWU-still waiting on that FA info (although they do give fantastic fantastic merit aid for both talent and academic), but it is, if money wasn’t a consideration, at the top of my list. However, I have a good friend who was a BFA acting major despite auditioning predominately for MT (although ended up becoming a BFA design and tech major!) who took a dance minor, is on one of the dance groups on campus, took voice lessons, and was in choir so I know a little bit about how acting majors can get their MT in.
@Noreplays2018 yes! He is removing himself off of the cmu waitlist. There was a previous post where I stated that he was considering withdrawing the application but since he had auditioned, he waited for the decision.
@frontrowmama Wow! So glad your son is ok! Yes, this is incredibly stressful and it is hard to keep things in perspective. I totally agree that they are all going to be fine wherever they land.
@collegeadmiss NACAC is for general admission counselors. I think I’ve read about where to find acting coaches here on CC …some organization … hmm, I’m trying to google something like “acting coach site:collegeconfidential.com” and … aha, coming up with MTCA, which is Musical Theater College Auditions. Someone else mentions ArtsBridge. And then there are lots of other discussions if you poke around on here – you can probably find other individual names in various regions.
We didn’t use any coaching services. D isn’t/wasn’t interested in it. I just happen to chat a LOT with people who are navigating college admissions, coming from all sorts of backgrounds and going in all sorts of directions; we just had a discussion on another forum about hiring coaches to get into Ivy League schools, so it was on my mind that this isn’t a phenomenon exclusive to theater kids. I think sometimes people forget that other majors have their own issues. (I’m just thrilled I’m not trying to navigate NCAA rules – I’d take theater auditions over that any day.)
We also received a Pace call today. Just general admissions, not BFA. Pace is pretty obnoxious about those. Probably the 4th call so far. “So when do you plan to place your deposit?” Ummmm. When it’s the theatre department calling?
D receives a Pace call from admissisons at least 3 times per week. She lets it go to voice mail now. It is really aggravating! She told them she wouldn’t be interested unless she is admitted artistically but it doesn’t seem to matter!
Congratulations to @latinaMTmom! As I understand it, there’s a lot of crossover between acting and MT at CMU, and many Acting students go on to MT careers. For example, Megan Hilty, Josh Gad, and Christian Borle were all BFA Acting at CMU.
For coaches, the MT college coaches do MT & Acting. D1 (MT) used a coach, D2 (Acting) didn’t want to. The big ones seem to be Mary Anna Denard, MTCA, Dave Clemmons, and I’ve also heard about Chelsea Diehl. I’m sure there are many others I don’t know about! The MT board has lots of discussions about coaches.
My D was straight acting but used a coach. In fact there are many on the MTCA Facebook page whose kids are applying to straight acting programs.
My S has worked with both Mary Anna Dennard and Dave Clemmons. We originally went with Mary Anna “Moo”, but we are in Houston and so is Dave. So he has worked with both. Both are very knowledgeable, but could not be more different in their styles. MT is the expertise for both of these, but they have been helpful for my Acting kid.
The best thing about working with either of these is that your S/D can audition at “Moonifieds” in Dallas in November. Moonifieds are like a mini-Unifieds. There are about 20 colleges, plus workshops for parents. It is a great opportunity to get a few auditions under your belt before audition season really ramps up.
My S auditioned for University of the Arts at Moonifieds. It was not really not on his radar until a few weeks prior to Moonifieds. But, I told him he needed to pick a few more schools to audition for in November, even if they were just for practice. Well - very shortly after Moonifieds he got an acceptance and a $22K scholarship from UArts. It was a huge confidence builder before heading in to Unifieds in February!!
Hope this helps.