<p>Please help me figure out if my D has applied to the right schools. When we began this journey she was interested in straight acting and no BFAs. She has done a 180 and is now looking at MT as a major and BFAs are just fine (since most MTs are BFAs it needs to be!). I am concerned not so much about her getting into the Colleges listed (Boston is a long shot I know!) but, what her chances could be of getting into the MT or Acting Program probably not a completely fair question since the auditions will determine but any insights would be appreciated and suggestions on other schools too!</p>
<p>Schools she has applied to:</p>
<p> Boston University
Florida State University
Indiana University - Bloomington
Ithaca College
Syracuse University
University of Iowa (acting only no audition)
University of Minnesota - Twin Cities
Wright State University</p>
<p>Relevant Scores</p>
<p> Weighted GPA 3.33 (end of Jr. year)
Unweighted GPA 3.44
SAT 24 (Math was the killer)
Her school does not calculate class rank</p>
<p>Extracurriculars (holds a board position in all clubs listed)</p>
<p> In every school play for past 3 years.
Theatre Club
Ladies Show Choir
Stage Crew Club
Gay-Straight Alliance
Music Nat'l Honor Society</p>
<p>Awards/Merits</p>
<p> 2008 Cherub NHSI Theatre Division Northwestern University
Nat'l Music Honor Society member (2008-2009)
2005-2006 Personal All Sectional Award - Group Interpretation (competitive ensemble acting).
Nat'l Anthem Singer at Sporting events (2008-2009)
Outstanding newcomer theatre (2006-2007)
Outstanding Choir Member (2006-2007)
Ladies show choir member (2008-2009)</p>
<p>Your daughter has a very impressive list of achievements. That being said, it really doesn't have much bearing on programs that require an audition. The BFA schools you have chosen all have a less than 10% acceptance rate. For example, I seem to remember that Syracuse auditions nearly 800 students and ends up with a class of about 25 - 30. They accept more than that, though, so I think their percentage is about 7%. (My D is a junior there in the BFA MT program. If you have any specific questions about that program, feel free to PM me.) Somewhere on this discussion forum is a specific thread that lists the correct acceptance percentages.</p>
<p>I'm not familiar with University of Minnesota -- but other than that your only safety school appears to be University of Iowa. Any school that requires an audition cannot be considered a safety. </p>
<p>I see that you are a new member of this forum --there is a great deal of information here, and it would be worth your while to take a day (or three!) and read through as much as you can stand. Many parents underestimate the difficulty of this whole process at first -- it's much more complicated than you might imagine! But there are lots of very helpful people on this forum who have already been through it and who have some great advice to offer.</p>
<p>When it comes to an audition based BFA program, the most important factor that you bring to the admissions process is the audition itself. Academics are relevent only to the extent that a particular school considers academics as part of the admissions process and there is a great deal of variability in the weight given to academics depending on the school. It can range from an equal weighting to only a 10-20% weighting or even less. Even where academics are weighted "equally" with the audition, in reality, the audition is the tougher nut to crack because there is no objective standard by which to guage how you will do in an audition and even if your academics pass muster, you can be denied admission to the MT program based on the audition.</p>
<p>Academic qualifications are easy to evaluate. Most schools post the academic profile for their current freshman class so it's easy to tell whetjer your academics are a good fit for a school or make the school a reach. At some schools, the academics for Theater students are relaxed compared to the academics required for other programs while at others, you must meet the same academic standards as any other applicant.</p>
<p>History of performing, awards etc are gingerbread as far as admissions criteria are concerned and the presence or lack thereof will rarely if ever be determinative of the admissions outcome. The real value of performing experience is the training and experience that occurs which will make a student a more developed and therefore competitive auditioner. </p>
<p>The key to success in applying to audition based BFA programs is to come to the process as well prepared as possible which means as much prior training and performance experience as possible, thorough preparation for the audition and putting together a well diversified list of schools that match the student's strengths. A good place to start to get a wealth of info is the thread "Class of 2009 and 2010 - Preparing to Apply" which is pegged as a "featured thread".</p>
<p>ANJALU, make sure you are fully aware of the academic requirements needed for acceptance to the schools. I'll share with you my D's experience with FSU. She applied to the school in November, and set her audition appt for a date in Feb. They have a set number of auditions that they schedule, so she made sure to do that early. Her stats were fully within required guidelines, though on the low side concerning test scores. FSU's standards are fairly high, and I think many people are unaware of that.
We had just checked into our hotel on the audition trip, and my husband called, saying my D had received a letter in the mail that day. It was a letter informing us that due to over-enrollment, our D needed to submit any new test scores that might make her more competitive for acceptance. She had not done any additional testing, so her scores remained as they were. She had a 3.88 gpa, and a 26 on the act. A couple of weeks later, my D received another letter saying she was denied acceptance to the university. Add to the information, the fact that we are in-state residents.
All of that really does not matter that much, except from a $$ perspective. This was a very expensive trip, and it sure would have been nice to know a little sooner that she was not academically accepted, especially since she had the application in by mid-November.<br>
From the audition standpoint, my D was not accepted into their program anyway. I believe last year they may have accepted 8? And that number included both BFA MT, and the BM MT acceptances.
The bottom line is that FSU is HIGHLY selective. Research your school's requirements carefully.</p>
<p>Thank all of you very much for your comments. Yes Iowa is the safety school in more ways than just the non-audition part. Thanks to MichaelnKat for the featured thread recommendation. We too will not hear from FSU prior to her first audition in early December and the tickets and hotel room have been booked (we are out of state which could be against us). Where two majors are offered (acting and MT), she is auditioning for both - I had no idea that the acceptance rates were so low across the board!. There are some other no audition components to some of these schools but we haven't looked at them too closely yet as we have been focusing on getting accepted and preparing for auditions. Does anyone have any additional information on the following programs and how much acting is available to those in these majors: FSU's BA in Theater, Ithaca's BA in drama (requires an interview), Minnesota's BA in Theatre Arts, Indiana's BA in Theatre and Drama or Wright State's BA in Theatre Arts?</p>
<p>BTW - Minnesota doesn't offer MT but has partnered with the Guthrie Theater to offer the BFA in acting and also has a BA in theatre arts that is not part of the Guthrie partnership. the Guthrie program is reportedly an excellent one.</p>
<p>Onstage - You mentioned that the school's we had chosen have a less than 10% acceptance rate - are there other schools you would recommend?</p>
<p>Most BFA audition based MT programs will have acceptance rates of below 10%, some as low as 2-3% and many hovering in the 6-8% range. There is another featured thread that reports anecdotally the application/acceptance/class size numbers for many schools which you may find to offer some interesting perspectives.</p>
<p>There's much more to the process than the "numbers" though. Coming up with a well diversified list of schools that offers a broad spectrum of national/regional talent pools, large/smaller numbers of applicants, small/larger class size, weight given to academics and including a couple of non-audition BA programs that are a strong academic match is important to significantly increasing the likelihood of success.</p>
<p>Of the schools on your list, I am personally familiar only with Ithaca and Syracuse and I think the 2 of them are a good contrasting complement to each other because of the differences in freshman class size and related acceptance ratios. Just to illustrate the type of diversity I am talking about, my daughter applied to 5 BFA programs CMU, University of the Arts, Syracuse, Ithaca, Emerson and 1 BA program Muhlenberg. If you plug them in on the the matrix of criteria I've described above, it's a small but decent cross section. My daughter was a very strong academic match for all of them which enabled us to focus on the diversity of the audition related factors. You might find it helpful to go through the same evaluative process for the schools on your list.</p>
<p>At a few of the school -- Syracuse (I know), Ithaca (I think), you can indicate on your MT audition form that you would also like to be considered for BFA Acting. The MT and the Acting programs are both competitive, but since your D is interested in both MT and Acting programs, it could expand her admissions chances. I do believe that more generally audition for musical theatre than acting at these schools. </p>
<p>Indiana's BA is supposed to be very good! I know that before they started a BFA MT program many BA students were creating their own individualized studies major combining acting, music, dance. Now that there is the BFA program I do not believe that students may do this officially, but I believe hat they still can take voice lessons (I do not think with the MT faculty -- but through the SOM [which is one of the best in the country]). From things I have read posted on CC and from kids I know at Indiana -- it does sound as if it is less and less likely for the non-BFA MT kids to be cast in mainstage musicals. This would be a good question to ask of current students.</p>
<p>I think there is someone who used to post on the Theatre/ Drama board who has a D in the BA at Guthrie. From what I understand the BFA is HIGHLY selective. BA students do not take acting classes with the BFA students. You may want to post your question over there. </p>
<p>At schools that have both a BFA and a BA you may find that the performance opportunities are not as available to the BA students. This is important to find out. The policy may be that only BFA students can audition for certain productions. The policy could be that productions are open to all students, but that in practice BFA students are generally the ones cast. This is why it is a good idea to get both the "official" answer and the student perspective. </p>
<p>As far as suggestions of schools -- is there a certain part of the country she is interested in attending school? It sounds as if she is open to both BA and BFA and to acting and mt... this really opens up the options.</p>
<p>Is the OP's D auditioning for the Minnesota/Guthrie BFA in ACTING program, or just the university? I ask because the Minnesota/Guthrie acting program is far from a safety for anyone. And please note that it is a straight acting school: no musical theater.</p>
<p>I have now gone down nearly every path all of you have pointed me towards (with a few interesting detours) and have happily discovered University of New Hampshire to add to our list. I had neglected to mention two "must-haves" on my D's list of college criteria both of which excluded many of the options given; </p>
<p>i)UG enrollment much larger than her high school of 2200 and </p>
<p>ii)American Sign Language offerings. </p>
<p>New Hampshire has both of these. They offer a no audition BA in Theatre and Dance with various emphasis offerings. Unfortunately the GPA and ACT scores of students currently being accepted to UNH from her Midwest HS are higher than my Ds but of 9 apps so far, none have been rejected and one with her same scores has been accepted! Over the past five years they have accepted 67% of our school's applicants with the average GPA being the same as my D's and with the lowest ACT score being the same as well - hopefully her writing skills and extracurriculars will make a difference here. </p>
<p>Anjalu,
I will be happy to look at your daughter's stats for academic acceptance into FSU prior to her audition. FSU is more competitive to get into academically then people anticipate, but there is a little leeway for students who successfully audition for a BFA program on a case-by-case basis.</p>
<p>Our freshman class this year has 10 students in MT and 12 students in Acting. I believe we accepted about 14-16 in each program last year to yield those numbers. (I am out of town right now and I don't have the exact numbers for each program.)</p>
<p>I can also discuss the BA program in depth with you if you like. I will be back in my office on December 1st and my number is (850) 644-7234, or you can e-mail me you phone number and I will call you earlier then December 1st.</p>
<p>If you are looking at UNH, you may also want to look at Plymouth State University -- also in NH. Approximately 4300 undergraduate students. A strong Department of Music, Theatre, and Dance. Interestingly enough the Theatre area head also teaches American Sign Language.... her first masters degree is in that area and her second in Theatre... She recently won a distinguished teaching award a the university. Here is a link to the article: Elizabeth</a> Cox, Distinguished Teaching Award<br>
Your D is well within the academic range for admitted students at Plymouth State. </p>
<p>Before moving to JMU I taught at Plymouth State, and was very impressed with the students, facilities, and faculty. I have also hired Plymouth students and alums to work for me at the summer theatre in NH where I am artistic director. It is a very good program for MT. It is a BA by audition program. (PS. I grew up in Plymouth, were Plymouth State is located, so I can fill you in on the town too!)</p>
<p>I now teach at James Madison University in VA... We are a BA by audition for Musical Theatre. Students who want to declare the Theatre Concentration are encouraged to audition, but it is not required for that concentration. JMU is approximately 16,000 undergraduate students. American Sign Language courses are offered through the Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders (a minor through this department is possible as well as majors). I believe there is also a sign language club on campus. The average admitted student GPA at JMU is a 3.7, so your D would be in range. In Musical Theatre we aim for a freshman class of 8 - 10 and usually accept 16 - 18 to yield that number. We make recommendations to the admissions office. </p>
<p>Feel free to contact me via PM or email if you have questions about either program. :)</p>
<p>I go to Plymouth and it is a wonderful program!! I absolutely love it, and consider the level of training to be right up there with well- known BFA programs. Definitely look into it!!</p>
<p>If you are considering Wright State I would also check out Kent State's BFA program. D has a friend who is at Wright State in MT and they do cut kids in their program. Kent State does not cut</p>
<p>All4FSU if you have any questions about Wright State's MT program i'd be more than happy to help! I'm currently a Theatre Studies major at Wright State and all my friends are Acting and MT majors...i've a done a show here already and know alot of the faculty. Granted I don't know all about the program...but enough to help if you would like!</p>