<p>I think I must have met you and your D at NYC unifieds, supportive! (Or someone else from Fl whose brother was at Tisch and who had auditioned for NIU the day before!) Major congratulations, that is wonderful!! (And, if she doesn’t get her fill of snow in Chicago, she will certainly get it in Moscow!!) Such great news!</p>
<p>Hi Gwen! My daughter auditioned for NIU on Saturday at Unifieds. She auditioned for Rutgers on Sunday. Could we have met at the Ripley Studios on Sunday? My daughter’s audition was around 11:00 a.m. and we stayed to find out if she got a callback. Were you there with a daughter or son? You can send me a pm if you want or maybe I can figure it out with a description!</p>
<p>My mom said that she heard that from two separate people in the program while I was auditioning last weekend.</p>
<p>ssjjkk, I heard the same thing as your mom while my D was auditioning there last weekend. But what I’m confused about is that there was no Callback Weekend last year. So when they said half weren’t called back last year, can we compare that to this year, which is entirely different? I don’t know the answer to this.</p>
<p>When I was waiting to audition, I heard someone ask what the same-day callback would entail and I heard one of the BFAs say, “I have no idea, we didn’t have them last year.” Does that mean there WAS a callback weekend and not a same day callback? I have no clue. It’s so confusing!</p>
<p>ssjkk, I agree, it’s really confusing. I was under the impression that they didn’t even have instant callbacks last year. Can someone clarify this? Did Rutgers EVER have callbacks of any type and if so what were they???</p>
<p>I do not believe they had instant call backs last year.</p>
<p>So they didn’t have instant callbacks–But I thought they ALSO didn’t have the weekend callback; I thought that was new. So what callbacks DID they have last year? Anybody know?</p>
<p>I believe they just had the callback weekend last year. Half of the current class must not have gotten called back to that.</p>
<p>To all of you suffering through this callback confusion - my sympathies! I hope things clear up soon. Last year for us was hard enough without this extra stress.</p>
<p>To supportive: Congrats to your D! I am guessing that since you were at NY Unifieds you are not from the Midwest. I can tell you a little generally about NIU - my in-laws live near there and a couple of people have gone. It’s a very nice, mid-sized state school, and it should give your D the kind of “college” experience she wants. It is pretty close to Chicago - it probably takes an hour or so to get into the city, but Chicago is very sprawling and that’s a standard commute around there. I would be very confident that she’ll have lots of opportunities to enjoy the incredible theatre scene there. </p>
<p>Your D might find, as mine did, as an out-of-towner at a school mostly full of local kids, that the weekends seem a little quiet and lonely, at least at first. Make sure she’s aware of this; there are lots of ways to counteract it, and she might have to put some extra effort in to get acclimated. Once the transition is over, though, she’ll be plenty busy and connected, as the theatre program will become her whole life. I’m sure she will have a terrific experience!</p>
<p>Hey folks, try to remember the Serenity prayer. . .</p>
<p>Stressing about whether or not you got in to a given program is NOT going to change whether or not you get into that program. There is no point in putting your energy into stressing about something you have no control over. When you have finished a given audition, the next thing on your mind should be preparing for your NEXT audition–that’s where your energy should go. If you get a callback or an admission, that is a bonus, not something you have some sort of “right” to.</p>
<p>I did once hear about someone who auditioned for RADA and did not get a callback, only to eventually discover that her initial audition was so good that they put her straight into the program without any more fuss.</p>
<p>Your wisdom and experience is so helpful here, KEVP. Thanks again for another great post!</p>
<p>I also heard the same thing from the guy at the checkin desk in NYC that many of the kids in the program were not called back but I also think the Rutgers people had told me that this was the first year of on campus callbacks so who knows what is going on. I called MG last week to see what is going on and never heard back from them-wait and see i guess</p>
<p>Thanks Emmy! We are from Florida and we went to to the NY Unifieds because my son is a sophomore at NYU and it gave us a chance to visit with him. My daughter loves the people she has met at NIU and is actually looking forward to possibly going home with some of them on the weekends. She loves to shop and try international things and the theatre district is great in the Chicago area! She likes that she will be like the new kid at school too. NIU is big enough and small enough at the same time. They even have a gymnastics team! It’s definitely the college experience she is looking for!</p>
<p>So, it sounds like the didn’t have same-day callbacks last year, and they also did not have on-campus callbacks last year. Now I’m curious about the 50% of the current freshman class who apparently <em>did</em> get callbacks. ;)</p>
<p>TheRealKEVP, thanks for your concern about everyone’s state of mind. I think at this point the general state of mind is trending towards puzzlement/wry amusement.</p>
<p>glassharmonica, Totally agreed. It’s definitely puzzlement. And I haven’t been able to find out any indication that there were <em>any</em> callbacks last year, the day of, or weekend. Did they <em>really</em> make a big deal that they didn’t have callbacks last year when in fact <em>no one</em> had callbacks?!? Please correct me if I’m wrong! Anyway, yes, time to move on. Best of luck to all.</p>
<p>It sounds like there WAS a callback weekend last year. That’s what I’m picking up, at least. But, you said it. Time to move on and just try not to dwell on it!</p>
<p>@Supportive FYI " She wants to be like the Guylenhalls (sp?) lol "</p>
<p>It’s Gyllenhaal … I’m secretly hoping that my son makes it professionally some day and can do something with Jake…His dad Steven is my hubby’s cousin…</p>
<p>Thanks kcdunlap! I was too lazy (or just too excited) to look up how to spell the name but you all got my drift. At least you have a family connection! By the way- my daughter, husband, and I met with the Rutgers rep tonight at an admitted students dinner. She said that final Mason Gross decisions won’t be made until the end of March. We all knew that since my daughter didn’t get any callbacks, she wasn’t being considered. Like I said, she got into NIU’s BFA and that’s her #1 choice. Mason Gross is very subjective and the rep said some of the most talented students weren’t selected.</p>
<p>To clear things up, I’m pretty sure there weren’t callbacks or a callback weekend last year. I think that some of the students just didn’t know this, whereas so did, I heard the mixed up answers, and the ones who said there wasn’t were pretty confident. Mason Gross will probably start making calls in mid-March, then again one of the first years at the on-campus decisions she got her email on March 9th (she said she remembered distinctly). Mason Gross is a very nurturing program and really try to make very intimate companies, we really can’t predict what they are thinking, and they usually reveal statuses in mid-March like a lot of other colleges. We’ll just have to see so Keep Calm and Carry On.</p>