<p>My daughter, who is a Junior, would like to go to the Carnegie-Mellon pre-college program next summer. The program is over $7000. My daughter tells me that if she attends the program, she will have an advantage in the auditioning process for the Carnegie-Mellon college program.</p>
<p>She has already attended the Mason-Gross pre-college program, and had an excellent experience there.</p>
<p>I am not adverse to spending a lot of money to help her, if attending the pre-college program is truly a significant advantage toward getting accepted into the Carnegie-Mellon acting program (not MT).</p>
<p>Does anyone know if my daughter's information is accurate? Otherwise, that seems a lot of money to spend.</p>
<p>I have heard nothing but good things about CMU’s summer program and know a couple of people who did it last year and the year before; but I’m pretty sure no-one would say that doing the program will give you an advantage at auditions. Well, not beyond the extra training, of course. None of the students I know who did it ended up getting into the school.<br>
Summer programs are worth doing but not for a boost with the auditors.</p>
<p>My son attended CMU Pre-College for MT this summer. The program director, Don Wadsworth stressed that attending the summer program does not increase the chances that you would be admitted into CMU. I have never read any information in the MT forum that would support your daughter’s information. As I told my son, they will get to know you, for better or worse, so make a good impression. That being said, the program was a wonderful experience for my son, and he has grown as a performer.</p>
<p>I have heard here on CC, that no, attending the program does not help a student get in. It should definitely help them improve their skills, however. I’ve heard a lot of positive comments. The summer program faculty is not the same as the undergrad faculty although there is a slight overlap.
If you are in the New Jersey New York area, look into the Teen Shakespeare Intensive at the Actors Movement Conservatory in NYC. My D did it for three summers. It is a three week program. Janice and Katie and Elke are great teachers and it is very solid and useful training.</p>
<p>Have heard the same thing as everyone else has said. The only school that I have heard that the summer program has helped is the OCU MT program. If you are cast as a lead in their summer program the summer before your senior year you are accepted into their MT program.</p>
<p>I have a whole bunch of friends who did the CMU program. They loved it. While it won’t help her get into the school as summer programs have no weight in admissions, the whole program is geared towards college auditions so they will help her work out how to approach the process of applying and auditioning to the schools. How to choose material and such. It could also give her a sense of the atmosphere the school has and weather she would like to spend four years there.</p>
<p>It sounds like it would be beneficial, but it has no weight on weather she will get into that particular school. The price tag though, is a bit ridiculous! I opted to do a much less costly program in London that I was VERY happy with this summer. And last summer I did BUSTI at Boston University which I also highly recommend! Although, both of the programs I did didn’t focus on auditioning, if that is what she is looking for.</p>
<p>dramamom0804 - I too had read that many of the CMU pre-college staff were not faculty at the School of Drama. I was pleasantly surprised when 5 of the 7 instructors my son had were faculty members. He thought all his instructors were wonderful.</p>
<p>Just echoing the other remarks that pre-college programs are very much worth it and helpful for auditions UNLESS you are thinking that you’ll have an admissions advantage simply because you attended the summer program. Go for the experience, for the growth, for the understanding you’ll gain of how you might fare in an intensive round-the-clock BFA program. I will say that, unlike Josh703 above, my son got a lot of audition prep help at BUSTI; perhaps the kids who were rising seniors focused more on monologues etc. that summer (Josh, I think you were a rising junior, right?). But more than that, he learned a lot about his craft, about how to think about theater, about himself as an actor, and about the kinds of programs that might be a good fit for him.</p>
<p>There is an inherent issue about falling in love with your summer program…it has been known to cause heart break among the kids when they do not get accepted to the college programs. Go in knowing this and try to protect your hearts.</p>
<p>My daughter attended CMU pre-college last year. She absolutely loved the program. Was a fabulous experience. Do not go thinking it will help you get in. It doesn’t. Barbara is pretty much the authority there on candidate selection and, as far as I know, has never been involved in the summer program. </p>
<p>Last year there were about 30 kids in the acting summer. Not one got into CMU. My daughter and a classmate of hers from CMU last summer got into UNCSA. Another kid got into Rutgers. The point being there were some pretty competent kids at the program and going there didn’t provide anything extra to get admitted into the college BFA program.</p>
<p>Just to reiterate what others have said – I went the the CMU pre-college program a few years ago, and absolutely LOVED it. It was a fantastic experience, with incredible training that definitely helped me get into many of the programs I was accepted to (which I may not have been if I didn’t receive the training I had at CMU). But yes, they blatantly tell you that attending the summer program does not mean you will have any more of a chance of getting accepted than anyone else.</p>
<p>At the end of the program, they do have “mock” auditions though. VERY rarely, a student will be accepted early through that process. But they stress again that it is very rare for that to happen. A student who was about to attend CMU as a freshman while I was there (sort of like a TA, but not really…he was just there because he could be) had done the pre-college program, and wasn’t admitted from the early audition. But he was admitted “easily” at his normal audition. I say easily, because from what he, and the teacher of the class we were in said, it sounded like they wanted him very badly.</p>
<p>Long story short, I highly recommend the pre-college program.</p>
<p>FYI - at the end of BUSTI, you can do a mock audition for strictly feedback from the panel, or you can actually do a real audition for the BU BFA program. Rising seniors. Or of course you can choose not to do any kind of audition at all.</p>
<p>From my information, 1 MT was accepted from the 2012 CMU summer program based on the end of summer audition. A male MT who I understand also had an acceptance to Juilliard for voice. If you heard him sing (I did), it wasn’t hard to understand. So unless you are male and have a voice good enough that would get you accepted to Juilliard for your voice, don’t think about it. (I’m not trying to say that maybe there isn’t some other theoretical possiblity – but just putting some real world info to think about)</p>
<p>Yes, it’s not like ED, where CMU is looking to its summer program to yield X number of students for its BFA and fill slots early. I would imagine that anyone who gets an offer from the summer program would be just as likely to get accepted through the regular auditions. Go to CMU for the program itself, not to expect any better track to admissions. My D attended a few years ago and loved it, too. It is a great preparation for the audition season and for understanding the sheer quality of the competition. Despite not having auditions for its program, the talent pool is incredible. Also, the program is not solely focused on auditions; that’s just one aspect of it. The training is broader than that.</p>
<p>It also is a great way for kids to experience college and conservatory life – the demands of the acting training, plus some freedom to live in a dorm and explore a town on your own. When not in class or back for evening curfew, the students have alot of freedom (which is one reason I’m glad my D did it before her senior year and not when she was younger!).</p>
<p>It can help you, but it can also hurt you. A girl I know was the star “pre-college” student that the faculty ADORED. They paid for her trip to CMU in the fall to come visit and they kept her all day at her audition. She ultimately got rejected.</p>
<p>I’ve done pre-college for the past two summers. However, I live in Pittsburgh and have commuted. The cost was cut in extremes (less than $1000 for lessons, orchestra, choir, chamber, and string clinic for 6 weeks). I also have been the youngest in the program for the past two years as I attended before my freshman and sophomore year of high school. I am a musician and by no means an actress. However, this program is excellent. I know some people who have relatives in Pittsburgh but live elsewhere ( ie a girl I met from Seattle) and commuted by staying with them. While you can’t get the 24/7 experience unless you literally are staying a few blocks away, I can say that after each summer with CMU pre-college, I come out a better player and with new friends.'if I am not accepted to study abroad this summer, I will be returning, and my older brother who is in college elsewhere will he partaking in an internship.</p>