<p>i'll try but he's pretty much made up his mind!! I mean yeah it's great that my dad's friend was on BWAY for 10 years but honestly he listens to anyone soo urrr!!</p>
<p>Nate, I don't know if your Dad has other reasons but the only reason you gave was that he didn't want you to apply if there is not a BFA degree program. IF that is the case and only reason, it is simple to resolve. Give him the website which makes it VERY clear what degrees they offer. Perhaps he has other reasons? If so, find out what they are and then articulate very specific reasons why you like this program and show him information you have gathered about it and even show him CC which talks well of the reputation of this program.</p>
<p>"I mean yeah it's great that my dad's friend was on BWAY for 10 years but honestly he listens to anyone soo urrr!!"</p>
<p>Good.... then he should listen to someone who actually knows something about the program. That is just silly.</p>
<p>well yeah!!! I told my mom and she is going to talk to him about it!</p>
<p>Yes, BoCo does offer a BFA as an undergraduate degree, So, you can hopefully pass that info onto you dad :)</p>
<p>On a seperate note... I thought that BoCo offered a MM (Masters of Music degree) rather than a MFA (Master of Fine Arts degree) in musical theatre on the graduate level. Has that changed in the past year or so? I know many people who have gone to the graduate program at BoCo and they all received an MM not and MFA... the degree distinction is important if anyone wants to teach at a university. A MFA is considered a "terminal degree" meaniing that in the college teaching world it is equivelant to a PhD. A MM is not a "terminal degree" for college teaching. At many universities a person with a MM would have to obtain a MFA, PhD or a DMA (Doctor of Musical Arts) before they could obtain a tenured track position or promotion. </p>
<p>Just curious. I have students who are interested in MFA in musical theatre opportunities.</p>
<p>Ah... My mistake. It is an MM. I just asked a BoCo grad student.</p>
<p>Sorry. :)</p>
<p>Forgive him, he is but a freshman. </p>
<p>Unfortunately the graduateMusical Theatre programs that exist are few and far between. There may be something like 4 in the entire country, including boco, and BoCo does not offer the MFA as we have previously stated.</p>
<p>My D is attempting to avoid auditioning at any schools which employ a cut system. I have heard that BOCO cuts a significant number of students in their sophomore year - as much as half so I am told. If a student is cutting classes and putting no effort in I can understand that the school would not be interested in keeping them. Other than that though, my feeling is that the process of being accepted is so difficult now that if a student is accepted, they should be retained. Can anyone speak to this or give me any numbers from the last several years of any students "cut"?</p>
<p>I appreciate any help anyone can give!</p>
<p>BoCo has a "cut" system, called sophomore promotional, but it is not a traditional cut system as you describe. </p>
<p>They do NOT cut a certain number of people. The rumor that they cut half the students is completely unsubstantiated. That does NOT happen.</p>
<p>The program is, however designed to get rid of the students who aren't attending classes regularly, and are not putting the effort in, and who are not growing as artists. THESE are the people who are not asked back.</p>
<p>As long as your D goes to class, gives and effort, and works to improve herself as an artist, then the sophomore promotional should not be something that she should be worried about.</p>
<p>Neil Donohoe (the program director) addressed this issue for the Freshman parents on Orientation weekend. He said, similar to what BreatheEasy stated, that it is a way to weed out those who are not serious about this path, or those who really aren't BFA material. It's difficult, when auditioning students, to see work ethic and how a person will progress. A person can be fantastic at auditioning, yet not really follow through afterwards, if you know what I mean...He specifically mentioned that if all the students were up to par, they would all stay in the program. There is not a fixed number that they try to whittle a class down to. This year's Freshman class is bigger than any they've had before. They have added groups for the lower level classes. He said if they all choose to stay and all pass the juries, then they will add as many upper level classes as they need to keep the groups small. Also, you are not immediately cut after the first attempt at juries. You would be warned and have one semester to work your tail off and give it another shot the end of the following semester.</p>
<p>I have my promotionals on Monday and Tuesday! Crazy huh? I'm a little bit stressed the hell out, but it's okay. They can be beaten. Only one girl last year was cut and she was a drunken layabout. And I am going to let you in on a secret that many people do not know about. If you fail your second round of promotionals and are asked to leave the program, you can appeal the decision and most people who do this are allowed to stay. I even know someone who didn't appeal, but just showed up for classes the next semester and they let him stay. I do not agree with this loophole and I hope it is changed, but it does exist.</p>
<p>Thanks for all the info on the "juries". My D and I feel better and it is onward and upward and on to Unifieds to audition for Boston Conservatory! As usual, CC'ers come through with the info you need to know!</p>
<p>Hoping someone can give me some current info on BoCo and what their impressions of the program are and any comparisons you may have to other programs. This is a school my daughter is very interested in because she worked with one of the teachers and a few recent graduates at a summer program. Apparently they thought she would be a great fit for BoCo. We never got to visit this summer. She will be auditioning on campus but not until after Unifieds in February. I know this is all subjective and would of course depend on her feel for the school. She likes the idea of being in the city as long as it isn't in NYC. She also likes the BFA conservatory type program. I guess what I really want to know is whether the program has a good reputation and do you hear of the graduates getting jobs. The two grads she met went to their senior showcase and were hired shortly after for tours. Any of your thoughts would be appreciated.</p>
<p>kimoki, I am sure that some current BoCo students will likely post here, but I wanted to chime in that I have heard that those who stick in the program and go through all four years do come out and find they can get work. Like every program, it has its share of kids who are accepted, enroll and find it is not for them. (As has been discussed here and elsewhere previously, the realities of BFA programs are not for everyone.)</p>
<p>Hi - a student who just graduated BOCO, I know, was called back for the role of Laurie (sp?) in the Little Women Nat'l tour; I only know this since he has the same voice teacher (PRE college!) as my daughter. A fellow student from CAP21 actually got the part, but at least they narrowed it down to the BOCO student and the CAP21 student. Not sure if the BOCO grad got a part since then; he is very talented and also plays the piano very well.</p>
<p>I was interested in applying to boco for transfer, BUT I didn't realize the app deadline is the SAME as it is for freshman. Is there any hope that I can still apply? I realize that I would have to audition at whatever time they have available, if any. I just want to apply, and I don't mind starting over as a freshman. Any help with this matter would be much appreciated.</p>
<p>sadness :(</p>
<p>I pmd kimoki privately, but wanted to post that a BoCo grad from last year is the understudy for Ariel in Disney's The Little Mermaid now on Broadway. Just making a broad generalization, if you look at the Playbills when you go see a show, it seems like there's very often a BoCo, NYU, and/or UMichigan grad listed. I'm truly not trying to start "controversy". There's no statistical data I have to back this up, it's just what I tend to notice. Perhaps it's because I'm looking for those names.</p>
<p>Funny you should mention the Playbill bios as a listing of colleges attended by working MT actors. My D’s music teacher suggested this very approach last summer as a technique for helping my D begin her college search. </p>
<p>He pointed out that there is no correlation between a prestigious university and a top MT program. We checked this out and he was right. Of the top 30 or so universities in the overall national US News rankings I count only five with well regarded MT programs -- NYU, Carnegie Mellon, University of Michigan, Northwestern and UCLA. The data was even more striking among the national liberal arts colleges. Only one – Muhlenberg College – is in the US News top 50. Clearly traditional rankings and reputations of the overall institution were not that helpful to a student with her heart set on pursuing MT. </p>
<p>As her teacher pointed out, many of the best MT programs are at otherwise unheard of or unheralded colleges and universities – Baldwin-Wallace College, Oklahoma City University, Otterbein College and University of Cincinnati to name a few. Scanning the Playbill bios was one way to identify some of successful programs, particularly those we were unfamiliar with in other states and regions. </p>
<p>In addition to surveying all the playbills of the touring shows that come through our area, we took a systematic, if not scientific approach to the search of all the shows currently on Broadway. We accomplished this through the playbill website which contains actor bios for current shows. </p>
<p>Before I share our general thoughts, let me say there are some limitations to our technique. Only about a third of the actors on Broadway list their undergraduate training in their bios. It appeared that the longer an actor had been working and the more numerous their credits the less likely they were to list their college or conservatory. Also, it is not clear that the five or six touring shows that come to our town are necessarily representative of the many touring productions and regional theaters. There are many actors working in other venues from other schools. In addition, we did not take into account class size – you would expect an NYU to have a much larger representation than Otterbein if for no other reason than NYU graduates many more students.</p>
<p>With that said, here’s a summary of what we found. There are indeed a few schools that produce a relatively large number of working actors – NYU, Michigan, CMU, BoCo, OCU and CCM were among the most frequently listed. More striking was the shear number of schools we saw listed, more than forty in all, almost all of them listed in the links above.</p>
<p>One thing that made us feel good about this exercise is that it confirmed much of what we had learned here at College Confidential and what our D had learned at her summer program -- MPulse at Michigan. The collective wisdom of these two sources was confirmed by our little empirical effort. This gave us confidence in helping our D choose the schools she applied to. I recommend this approach to juniors who are starting their college searches.</p>
<p>Sorry this was more long winded than I intended. Good luck to all those who are embarking on their auditions.</p>
<p>Thanks for all the info especially Ken6038. That's alot of work. It' funny that you came up with Mpulse. A few years back my D went to a class in NY that was run by a casting agent. That was the advice she gave and she just happened to be a graduate from U Mich. I had U Mich on my list but my D thinks it's too far. BoCo & CCM are on the list of favorites. Thanks again.</p>
<p>OK, so I'm not crazy! My daughter and I looked through ALL of our Playbills from Broadway (dozens of them!) when she was deciding where to audition for MT, and by a large margin, the NYU graduates outnumbered all other schools. Of course, that doesn't take into account that NYU has far more graduates than most other schools (i.e. 60 in this year's class vs. maybe 10 at CCM). Also, as Ken mentioned, at least half of all bios did NOT include undergrad school. So it was NOT scientific by any means. But statistically, 80% of CAP21 graduates are able to obtain a job in MT; don't know if that means ONE job, a few, or a series!</p>