<p>Hi! </p>
<p>I’m a Senior at a performing arts high school. I’ve included my list of schools that I’m applying to…can anyone tell me if they think I need to add more safety schools?</p>
<p>I’m applying as a Musical Theatre major. I’ve sent in my prescreens and have received dates for both Pace & Penn State. Carnegie Mellon is my top choice, so is there anything else I can do to improve my chances??</p>
<p>GPA: 4.0
SAT: 1670</p>
<p>Extracurriculars:
–Senior Class President (Last year: Junior Class VP)
–CSF President
–School Site Council Student Member
–San Diego Unified District Advisory Council Member
–Community Outreach Chairman (La Jolla Playhouse Student Board)
–UCSD Extension Reading Program (One summer)
–Performed in around 20 musicals
–National Youth Arts Nomination
–Delta Sigma Theta Black History Essay Contest Winner
–Mock Trial President (10th & 11th grade yr)</p>
<p>My schools are:
- Carnegie Mellon
- Pace University
- Penn State
- Fordham (BFA Acting)
- USC (BFA Acting)
- UCLA
- University of Cincinnati: College Conservatory of Music
- UC Irvine
- NYU: Tisch
- University of Michigan</p>
<p>Regarding admission into their MT program, CMU doesn’t look at your transcript… It’s all about the audition. </p>
<p>Break a leg!</p>
<p>It sounds as if you are a strong student, and that will probably help you get good financial aid at some of those schools. However, as SU88BFA notes, what those programs care about is your audition. They are also going to be putting together a class with diversity in terms of “type,” but that’s something you absolutely cannot predict or control, so you just need to focus on your audition.</p>
<p>You’ve probably read threads in other forums on College Confidential where people post their stats and seek an opinion about their chances. But as a Musical Theatre applicant, you are traveling along a very different path. Carnegie Mellon University has very high GPA and SAT expectations for most of their student body. For the conservatory students, the standards are even higher, but in the artistic area. They probably don’t include the conservatory students’ GPAs and SATs in their aggregate statistics at all. </p>
<p>The students who are listing their APs and test scores and GPAs have it easy! They can take a look at their statistics and figure out if they have a reasonable shot at various colleges. With auditions, all bets are off.</p>
<p>Think about music students – the school cares about how they play the clarinet or whatever, not how many AP classes they took. And the school can’t accept a huge number of clarinet players, because they also need oboes and violins and tubas. So if you were that clarinet player, your “chances” would be based on how many clarinet players they are going to take, and how many clarinet players audition, and whether you are the type of clarinet player they are looking for, and if you are one of the best ones. All you can do is play your best. And not act like a jerk at the audition. Those are the two things you can control. The rest is out of your hands.</p>
<p>Break a leg at your auditions!</p>
<p>SU88BFA: Thank you! That’s basically what I was wondering.</p>
<p>prodesse: Thanks for your explanation! I’ve heard that most of the schools are more audition heavy based; however, because Carnegie Mellon is such a strong academic school I was curious as to whether it mattered. Thank you!</p>
<p>My daughter went to pre-college at CMU for MT and they told the students only 4 girls and 6 boys will be accepted. One of her vocal coaches, who is a vocal instructor at CMU, says that kids have a better chance of being struck by lightning than getting into CMU for MT this year. I think she was trying to have humor about the process but it’s still so discouraging knowing most kids won’t get in. She said they have more MT apps this year than any year prior too. The way I look at it, some of you kids have to be in the 10 chosen right?</p>
<p>I’ve noticed on some of these threads that admittance people from the schools comment, meaning, they are also reading your posts. Are you sure you want to tell them all the schools you are applying for?</p>
<p>Late to the game but replying as this is a conversation that may be searched by future students:
The auditors routinely ask kids what schools they are applying to in the interview section of an audition. It’s not generally a secret. </p>