what programs tend to accept more actor-singer’s? I’m asking because I am definitely a stronger actor/singer than I am a dancer. I’m a pretty good dancer but I’m just stronger at acting and singing.
@musicalkid98, they say you need to be strong in 2 of the 3 threats. So you should be ok, especially if you are a boy. But even if you are a girl, the fact that you are a “pretty good dancer” should be fine if your acting and singing are strong.
Do you guys know if there’s a way to link Naviance and Acceptd in the same way as Naviance is with the Common App. I ask this because sending artistic rec letters sound too tedious to do from every schools Acceptd page. Naviance distributes my academic letters to schools via the common app I am curious if there’s an efficient way with the artistic too. Perhaps send to the theatre departments admissions and they can check it off the Acceptd to do list.
Soooo many details! Heads are spinning here! and @ParachuteBoy I don’t think you can link through Acceptd, but wish you could.
That’s unfortunate. I see on most Acceptd pages for my schools I have to give them the email of my recommenders so I’m trying to avoid being annoying and sending my director several emails for many schools. As opposed to how my academic teacher just wrote one and I sent it to many schools. Oh well:)
Hi, everyone! I have a quick question and I’m not sure how many of you have dealt with this prior.
Last year I attempted to transfer and I am trying one more time this year. The transfer would be from a BFA program to another BFA program and moving back to freshman year. I have two interviews and a voice lesson at a few of these universities lined up to aid in any sort of selection from the offices of admission.
If anyone has any tips or aid they can offer regarding transferring, that would be majorly appreciated!
@Blayce - you might try to PM @GSOMTMom. Her D just went through the transfer process last year. She might also have some posts about the experience around here somewhere.
We just shot our son’s dance pre-screen and songs (16 bar cuts, 32 bar cuts and full song) yesterday, one monologue (2 more to go) and all the intro’s today (and some yesterday) with the rest to shoot in the next few days. He’s still writing essays, gathering letters, submitting applications all the while in rehearsal for 3 different shows (and just wrapped one tonight.) I’m very nervous that it’s getting late, but hoping everything’s done by 11/15! He’s applying to 16 school’s and has an audition coach. I would love to know how many schools your hild is applying to for the BFA in MT…?
Wow @Dankadon kudos to you all for having the organizational skills to apply to 16 schools! That’s a lot of auditions if you pass even most of the prescreens. That makes me stressed just thinking about it lol!
@Dankadon - We shot our daughter’s prescreens about a month ago, and she spent the latter part of the summer writing her ApplyTexas and Common App essays so all she had to worry about were the individual essays required by specific schools/programs, gathering letters of recommendation & polishing her audition materials. She’s auditioning for 12 schools at Moonifieds, but only 3 of the ones she chose to pursue required her to apply to the university first, and 2-3 required her to go ahead and submit video prescreens via acceptd ahead of time. She has about 4-6 more schools she will be submitting prescreens/hoping to schedule auditions at Chicago Unifieds and is keeping an open mind about walk-ins while she is there. She also has 2-3 schools in her back pocket which require on-campus auditions, but she can audition for them relatively late + rolling admissions. Her goal was to have 20 schools on the radar, but some have fallen off as she has done more research & decided they just weren’t for her. She doesn’t have any non-audition programs on her list, but some are not very competitive audition schools but good regional programs. She’s been academically accepted to her first choice school so at least that’s one less thing to worry about… Thankfully, she’s only in production for one show this semester, but she is also heavy into area/state choir auditions & that has been extremely time consuming (and stressful b/c her choir director and one of her voice instructors are putting significant pressure on her to make it to state, even though that isn’t her passion or priority). She has 2 other friends in school who plan to pursue BFA-MT programs; neither really seems to have much concern for this process even though DD has tried to talk to them about it and encourage them to get started.
@Dankadon we are in a very similar position. Started the prescreen video process last Friday. She has most of the essay work done and we need to film more. I was hoping for earlier, but I think the 15th is a likely date for us to have everything in as well. D is applying to 14 schools for BFA in MT and to 2 of those schools for VP as well. She may also do some auditions in January at our State Theatre fest and will also consider walk-ins at Chicago Unifieds.
Last year my S applied to 18 programs.
My kid applied to 12 programs 2 years ago. We spent an awful long time on that list (and had to fight D’s counselor b/c she thought that was an excessive # of schools- but that is not an unusual fight to have. Those of you up this year- be prepared). With hindsight - I can see that there were a “couple” schools that shouldn’t have been there (and I don’t mean b/c schools rejected her. I required her to have 3 safeties- I wanted her to have choices there. She jumped on the bandwagon of a school that would not have been at ALL right for her b/c “all” her friends were applying there too) So let’s subtract 3. I really believe she could have been happy at any of those other 9 schools. In the end, she had a nice number of acceptances and we picked from there.
So here is my question- and I do mean it as a genuine question. For those of you going with really large numbers of schools (20? Wow!) Are those programs all equal in your eyes? Do you have tiers? It seems hard for me to believe that a kid could be really invested in that many- but I don’t know where the tipping point between my kid’s 9 and another kid’s 20 would be
@toowonderful I think A LOT of our kids apply to many, many schools because of the uncertainty of getting in to any of the audition schools. Some have reviewed profiles of schools on this site, the school’s website, and Naviance, in addition to knowing which schools are the most buzzed about on Broadway and aren’t visiting any of the colleges until after they see where they’ve been accepted. So, other than reputation, they might not know if the school is even a good fit for them when applying. If the family has enough money to afford all of the application fees and enough time to audition at all of them, they figure ‘why not?’
Another question I’d also have for the kids already in college who have applied to so many would be–if you (or your student) prioritized all the schools he/she applied to, what number on the list is the school your child ultimately attended? If not his/her #1 school, why did you student choose the college that he/she chose? Did he/she choose the highest school on the list that he/she was accepted to? Or were there other factors (money, distance, type of program/campus)?
“So here is my question- and I do mean it as a genuine question. For those of you going with really large numbers of schools (20? Wow!) Are those programs all equal in your eyes? Do you have tiers? It seems hard for me to believe that a kid could be really invested in that many- but I don’t know where the tipping point between my kid’s 9 and another kid’s 20 would be”
Answering for us, no, they are not equal - yes there are tiers. Part of the reason her list is so long is that in addition to the comment about uncertainty of getting into any of the schools, she has to consider her “type” and how hard it will be to set herself apart (she’s a conventionally pretty brunette soprano). Consequently, she has a longer list than some might consider strictly necessary (we didn’t even talk to her counselor about this, other than to make sure she had the basic elements on her transcript that would make her academically acceptable to most of the schools she might apply to in the first place). Her top 4-5 are made up of reach schools - her next 5-8 are schools that she should be a fit for, but we have no idea what they are already working with and how that will impact their consideration of her. The tipping point is probably that her top 9-12 are schools she absolutely, positively knows she would like to attend based on her criteria…the remainder are schools she thinks she could learn to love but may be missing some key piece that she considers important (including, possibly, geographic location)… Personally, I find it annoying that we are padding the coffers of so many schools (especially considering some require both college application fees and program application/audition fees) where I think it is unlikely she will end up, but we also don’t want to end up in March with no options at all…
I feel like my daughter is very different in a lot of ways. A conservatory wasn’t high on her list because she wanted other experiences yet she still wanted a BFA. So BFA with a liberal arts program was more appealing. Even still when I look at her list it’s a hodge podge of various things. She has a few schools which would be looked at as highly competitive MT schools. She has one MT school that I would consider a fit school. She has a liberal arts safety and then a few Ivies. So her list really isn’t typical of many of her MT friends. Her top choice is her fit school and you know what we did visit. In fact we visited a couple of the schools that were close to us and actually spoke with the people in the departments she was interested in. I know this is not recommended but I just could not see my child making these choices without some personal knowledge to pull from. And you know what, we really enjoyed taking these trips together. 
Her fit school really is that. I asked her if she didn’t get into the MT program would she still want to go (it’s one of those schools where you get an academic acceptance first) and she said yes. She loves it that much and I could really see her going there and doing well too. So we will see.
2 years ago - my D started with 16 schools - that crept up to 19 schools during audition season (add ons/walkins) and then crept back down to 18 when she cancelled the last audition. Like @WTXMom - my D is a common type - and she and I both hoped we had put enough diversity on the list so that she would have choices. In the end - she did have many choices - and she’s attending the 2nd school she auditioned for, after coming off the waitlist approximately 10 days before the decision deadline - but we didn’t have a crystal ball in September/October. Casting the net as wide as fiscally possible was the best hedge we knew against the crazy odds in this crazy process. I would say she definitely had tiers - but one thing I don’t think either of us really understood going in was how much her priorities would change over the course of the year. Another reason that, in the end, she was glad to have cast the net wide. (Oh, and @mtjones1 - we definitely visited programs before her audition year.)
@lovetoact - I am a firm believer in the idea that this process is very personal- and people need to take their own path. To ME - it seems difficult to imagine a kid could “really” be interested in 20 different schools- but that is my just my perspective. I was actually just chatting with my D- and brought up this concept. She agrees in “hindsight” our list of 12 was too big- there were certain schools that she just couldn’t connect to- because they were lower on her “tiers”. And again - it really doesn’t relate to whether or not she was accepted- here’s an example. She said that if she was doing it all over again she wouldn’t apply to Northwestern or Brown (she was accepted at 1st, denied at 2nd) because she knew all along that she really wanted the BFA. I fell victim to the “we need choices” mentality (with 3 safeties though NU and Brown were both academic reaches as they would be for 99% of humanity) and personally I think too many schools muddy the water. But that’s me
I seems to me that the number of schools people apply to is increasing - and not just for BFA. People can/should do WHATEVER they want - I am just interested in the thought process behind it.
Yeah. My daughter is at 11 and she doesn’t intend to add any others. I’m the one that says “Maybe you should add just in case…” but she is very firm. Her thought process is “What’s the point? Especially if they don’t really interest me. I would never go to those schools.”
We knew the odds were tough with BFA admissions, so from the very beginning, D agreed to not have any favorites. Less chances to get her heart broken.
Opinions will vary for sure, but our thought was not to get hung up on the school - or even it’s location - the part that mattered was the program itself. So she applied to state schools, privates, big schools, small schools, east coast, midwest and southern - urban, rural and suburban too.
We figured if she ended up with a few acceptances, we would cross that bridge in the spring and visit then (if she hadn’t have auditioned on campus.) As it turned out, she had two acceptances and for both she had visited in person. (Though we did make a trek back to one just to make sure she was making the right decision.)