Living in rural CA attending large Title 1 high school (Aiming to attend east coast colleges)
Type of high school (current college for transfers):
White Female*:
Low-Income, LGBTQ+, divorced parents, has a special needs sibling*:
Intended Major(s)
Theatre/Musical Theatre
GPA, Rank, and Test Scores
GPA: 3.9 unweighted, 4.25 weighted
Class Rank: 12/514
**NOT submitting SAT score (1130)
Coursework
Took 8 Dual enrollment classes, but zero APs. (was supposed to do 2 but both had scheduling conflicts)
Awards
Selected out of 100k+ to compete on a game show on national television (it was wheel of fortune for their special teen week)
Hosted online event during pandemic to promote community theatre
Tennis Academic Team Regional Champions (team had highest avg gpa)
Best Abstract Film in School Film Festival
National Honor Thespian (International Thespian Society)
Fantasy Photo Festival (District-wide makeup/visual arts contest)
Extracurriculars
*Founding Member of Valley Council of Youth Artists
Youth Entertainment Stage Ambassadors (year-long volunteering/performing at local events and fundraisers, provide arts exposure)
Youth Entertainment Stage Company (Summer program)
Did shows with Gallo Center Repertory Company
High School Choir Secretary, Public Relations Director, Co-Section Leader
Broadway Dreams Foundation Summer Intensive x2
Dance (Tap and Jazz)
Varsity Tennis 2yrs
JV Cheerleading 1yr
JV Track and Field 1yr
Drama Club 4yrs
TikTok Video Editing: gained over 100k views on videos
Essays/LORs/Other
*I think my essays are good, they answer the prompts well but I need to work on a bit smoother transitions and making it flow a little better
Cost Constraints / Budget
*Will need financial aid and scholarships
Schools (List of colleges by your initial chance estimate; designate if applying ED/EA/RD; if a scholarship is necessary for affordability, indicate that you are aiming for a scholarship and use the scholarship chance to estimate it into the appropriate group below)
Safety UC Irvine/CSU Fullerton
Match Pace, Point Park, Emerson, Boston, Cornish Ithaca, Rider
I am very aware that the BFA audition process is a whole other thing and ultimately is what affects your admission, but I want to make sure I can increase my chances of even getting into the school because if you don’t meet their standard, you won’t even make it to the BFA audition.
You may want to increase your UC and CSU application list. E.g. add UCSC and UCR for some more likely campuses than UCI, and add a non-impacted CSU campus where your major is not impacted (Fullerton is campus-impacted, and the theater major is impacted and uses an audition). According to https://www.calstate.edu/attend/impaction-at-the-csu/Documents/ImpactedProgramsMatrix.pdf , CSU campuses other than Fullerton, Long Beach, Los Angeles, San Diego, San Jose, and San Luis Obispo are not impacted for theater or performing arts (however, Pomona is campus impacted).
Use the net price calculator on each college’s web site to get an idea of whether its financial aid is likely to be affordable. Please note that many of the private schools on your list require both parents’ financials (Boston College, Boston University, NYU, CMU, USC, Yale at least), so be sure to include both of their financials when using their net price calculators.
Yes, while I think the OP has an excellent chance at UCI, I’m not sure you can really consider it a safety. It’s probably closer to target. I would add in another true safety or two from among the UCs and CSUs. Just in case.
I think you really need to back up and use financial viability as the first filter.
Some schools on your list will most likely work with need-based financial aid if you can get into the program you want. (Carnegie Mellon is one example - insanely competitive for musical theater, but they do meet need. Assemble your family’s financial aid information and run the Net Price Calculator to see whether you could actually afford CMU: https://www.cmu.edu/admission/costs-aid/net-price-calculator Same with BU, NYU, USC, and Yale - if you search “net price calculator” plus the name of the school, every school has an NPC. Results will vary from school to school, so see what your costs would look like at each.) The other non-CA schools on your list don’t meet full need, so you’d need merit scholarships to make them work. Whether big enough merit is available at each, I do not know, and you will have to investigate.
I 100% agree with ucbalumnus that you need a better in-state safety net. Your situation is further complicated by your desire for a competitive auditioned BFA program - no matter how well-qualified you are for a given school, you can’t know whether you’ll get a spot in an auditioned program. You need safeties that don’t have this barrier.
Another factor with regard to schools outside of California is that you’re not as likely to get credit for all of your DE classes, whereas they’ll transfer seamlessly if you’re in-state.
It sounds like you’re already a senior, which means time is very short if you want auditioned programs.
SDSU seems to me like one you should look at very closely. It’s in a great city, and it has a BA musical theater major. You do need to audition if you want the Performance emphasis, but this is done remotely: Programs - School of Theatre, Television, and Film This seems like a very obvious program to have on your list.
Also look at CSU East Bay, Chico, and San Bernadino. These may not be your desired locations, but they do have MT programs.
I think the issue is that the UCs can be very competitive and, from the outside, it’s not always easy to see the rationale for why some students are accepted and not others. Additionally, although you may be amongst the top students at your high school, when you realize that there are more than 23k high schools in the U.S., that’s a lot of top students, and the competition can be fierce to get into competitive programs. That is not to say that the people who don’t get in to the programs are necessarily “lacking,” but when the admissions folks were forming a class, those individuals weren’t the pieces that the team was looking for.
I know you’ve indicated that you will need merit and financial aid, but what is your budget? How much is your family willing and able to spend per year, before any loans are included? You are only able to take $5500 in loans your freshman year, and only small increases/year after that.
I don’t see implication from ucbalumnus that your stats are lacking. Your grades are great, and your class rank is top 5%. Coming from an under-represented area of the state, I think it’s pretty likely you’ll get into Irvine, but the acceptance rate just isn’t high enough to call it a safety. The problem is that there’s a ceiling effect in terms of GPA’s - there are far more applicants with 4+ weighted GPA’s than these schools can accept, so how do they choose? It can be unpredictable. It helps a lot that you’re not coming from an over-represented area, though.
Have you run the numbers in terms of affording Irvine and Fullerton? Depending on an in-state student’s financial situation, sometimes the CSU’s are the more affordable choice, but sometimes it goes the other way.
I’m applying to over two hundred scholarships, and it is very likely I can afford in state. However, I would greatly prefer to be on the east coast and plan to use FAFSA and Scholarship money to afford it.
FAFSA does not dispense money. It’s just a tool that gives colleges information about your level of financial need. It’s up to the colleges to meet that need, or not (other than Pell Grant, which is Federal money if you qualify, but only covers a small portion); and even then, they recalculate your need according to their own formulae. Many of your colleges do not even promise to meet your full need as they calculate it.
This is why you need to run the Net Price Calculator for every school on your list, and see what your projected costs would look like.
How are you classifying match and reach? Just for academics? For BFA? Academically Marymount Manhattan is a safety as would be Pace but obviously they are reached for BFA. Does Emerson meet need? My S21 was accepted there for BFA acting and had slightly better stats and got a tiny merit award. It is very expensive.
Do you know your EFC?
Have you run the NPC on Pace, Point Park, USC, Yale? All of these have very different policies. Usc and Yale meet need but the others may expect loans, whixh you DO NOT want if you want to work in performing arts.
What would matter most to you: a college in a city or a college with a BFA?
The money from filing the FAFSA is limited to the Direct Loan plus whatever portion of the Pell Grant you are eligible to receive. That is about $13,000 which won’t pay for your east cost colleges. Outside scholarships are a crapshoot…and in addition, you receiving those will likely reduce any need based aid you receive from your colleges. You need to check this.
For a BFA auditioned spot, all of these colleges are reaches. The strength of your audition compared to others who are doing an audition will be what determine whether or not you get accepted. There is no way to predict the strength of those auditioning from year to year. Having higher stats won’t increase your chances of acceptance to a BFA auditioned program.
In addition, many of the colleges on your list don’t guarantee to meet full need for all accepted students.
I agree…you need to look realistically at what you can afford.
I will add…I would move Emerson and Boston (Do you mean Boston University, Boston College, Boston Conservatory…or what) to the reach category.
I am really trying to focus on BFA as opposed to BA. UCI is the only UC with a BFA in theatre, although I might do UCLA as well. CSU Chico has a BFA, but i’d rather take a gap year than live in Chico.
Just throwing in my two cents, having seen someone else’s kid struggle financially after attending a top school for this type of major. In the big picture, bear in mind that work in this field is not known for being lucrative after graduation and may not ultimately vault you out of being low income. Accordingly, to maximize flexibility after college graduation, be especially mindful of the financial considerations and be careful about borrowing, both in making your list and in choosing among your options in the spring.
