As we our ending our “gap year” I can tell you my D is more committed than ever. I will go into more detail on the final decision thread soon. At this time last year I was in tears each time someone asked me about where she was going. This year taught us so much. Don’t let your pride get in the way of considering a gap year…mine almost did.
@mtmhopeful2 yes trading cards!
“I’ll trade you our U arts acceptance for your Point park one etc!” Lol
@mtmhopeful2 Hi, just curious…were you speaking hypothetically about an Elon waitlist? I was under the impression they didn’t use one this year. Thanks. 
@FourFoxes the only Elon wailist I am aware of is academic not MT
It is so nice to have a place to talk with people who really get how difficult this process is. I can’t even really explain it to family. We were at a family function this weekend and one well meaning relative asked my D what her ultimate dream school would be. I literally froze in horror - I looked at her and could see her eyes welling up. But I couldn’t have been more pleased than when she answered with the name of her top accepted option and all the reasons why it is her dream school. Definitely a proud Mom moment!
All said and done, there are some things that these schools could do to make the process a little easier on the kids. First off, they could make the monologues and song times standard across the board! With some schools wanting 30-45 second monologues and other schools wanting 2 minutes… it really adds to the pressure when you are trying to remember which cut you are performing rather than focusing on the acting. Secondly, I feel all schools should audition the monologues privately–or that they should all do group auditions. One way or the other. I honestly feel most students are more comfortable in a private audition situation and if these schools are truly wanting to see their best work, then why not take the extra anxiety of performing for peers (and afterwards comparing themselves to others) out of the equation. I also wish that all schools would require the main faculty to be at all the auditions off campus and/or during major campus tours/accepted student days and to speak to the students individually or as a group. It’s so important to get a feel for the directors you will be working with. Some schools do a great job of this–other schools I don’t feel my S ever met the directors he would have been working with. Not to mention that some schools do a great job with faculty bios on their websites while others only list the names. Comments? Don’t you think there should be some standard–at least with the audition requirements?
@FourFoxes Yes hypothetically! Not that I would be adverse trading a few other waitlists…
I agree 1000% @remartin67. It seems almost deliberately convoluted! Prescreens of varying length-with or without slates, dance that has to be filmed at yet another remote location. Overnight trips for two minutes of face time and hope they have coffee for the parents for the inevitable 4 hour wait. I guess if we don’t like it we don’t have to audition but it would save thousands of families a lot of time and money if certain aspects were standardized. It would also be kind of nice if they picked a way to notify and stuck with it.
I agree with @remartin67 - it should be a standardized process - perhaps a standardized website … it was a crazy process. My friend gave me a hard time when I mentioned I was helping my daughter with the process - She has no idea what goes into this.
To play devil’s advocate (because I do agree that the process is very convoluted and stressful!), maybe the programs don’t care that our kids are stressed or uncomfortable because that’s what this business is and if our kids are determined to make it they might as well start to learn now how to deal with the craziness of it all (especially, things like not getting to choose the environment of where they audition, being told to prepare one thing for an audition and then getting to the audition and being told to read something else entirely, getting to an audition expecting to meet a casting director and instead get an intern, and the list goes on…). I do agree @japbmom that kids who choose this path need all of the support they can get from their parents and I had no qualms helping my daughter with the process – the amount of pressure these kids put themselves under to be in this business is a constant amazement to me so I will do whatever I can to help!
While I completely agree about the stress and craziness of the process- in reality - colleges have no reason to make it easier on the kids/parents. They have hundreds, and or thousands of applicants to choose from - they can fill their classes 100x over - where would they find an incentive to change the process? If kid A doesn’t want to jump through all the hoops - you can be DARN sure that there is a kid B who will be more than happy to… If anything, it seems to me schools WANT to have a slightly different process than everyone else… (I have zero facts to back that up- just feels that way from observing the process)
I don’t think they’re trying to torture the kids or get them used to the uncertainties of life…they probably just never even think about what the other schools are doing. My experience is that people (and institutions) think about us a lot less than we suppose…and that’s not just limited to BFA auditions.
I also think that it’s a way to screen out who really wants their school or not - if it was easy to audition to all the schools - everyone would and the numbers of applicants would increase making it harder on the school. My daughter sent in a video application to OCU and they require them to learn choreography from a youtube video and then film themselves and submit that as part of the video audition. That made sense to me as if you were really not interested in that school, why bother to learn the choreo. Still - they could be more consistent with the prescreens - type/length of monologues, length of songs etc…
I do wish that they would be more selective during the prescreen process though. I know they cut a lot of students - but when you show up to the FSU audition and there are at least 100+ students still in the process for 8 spots - it’s a bit ridiculous … just an example.
@jkellynh17 - I totally agree - and therefore it goes with my point - why should “they” (insert school of choice) care what other schools are doing - they are doing their thing, and have no reason to change it
I agree with @Jkellynh17! I don’t think it’s personal. Application process seemed to be tied to what resources were available to each department through their own administration. Secondly, every director will have their own preference for how they like to receive material. I imagine that had much more to do with difference in how material was requested. Additionally, some schools value having more time per applicant, while others valued having more applicants, so also causing variance in what was required. I’m imagining available resources (staff, use of facilities, etc) is the biggest factor. It is really one of those things that is bigger than us and all our angst.
I agree about keeping things a bit more simplistic and I also agree that the colleges probably care a lot less about our kids and their experience/process than we would like to think. We used a spreadsheet (PARENTS GOING THROUGH THIS NEXT YEAR - USE A SPREADSHEET!!) - every school had different application deadlines, audition deadlines, fees, and requirements for auditions, dance call, no dance call - MAYBE a dance call! Crazy. GLAD IT IS OVER!!
@bfahopeful Thanks for your message. This has been so much more difficult than I EVER imagined. Today my D called me from school begging to be picked up. But I said no. I’m trying to get her to pull herself together and get through it. Honestly, she’s usually good at rejection on the casting level. But trying to get into college for this - she sees all these rejections as a measure of her ability. She’s feeling defeated. But we do have a yes to LIU BFA MT. This is our blessing in disguise and I’m working on getting her to see it. I think she needs a little time to process it. In that process, it’s just ruining me. So sad to see your child so sad.
Although it would be great to have a streamlined process i really don’t think it’s a great idea. How schools run their audition process reflects how each school views themselves. If they were all looking for the same qualities in each individual it wouldn’t really matter where anyone ended up.
Obviously the schools want different things but no one is saying have everyone do the same monologue. Just standardize the monologue times. I get that the real world is tough in this business but I also don’t think these kids are going to put in a situation where they are using 10 different versions of the same monologues for 13 different people over the span of a few days. And in the end, I think the schools want to see the best talent and I think the best way to see that is to minimize extra stress. Just my opinion.
@remartin67 I’m with you on some level of standardizing because the slight degrees of variation for monologues and song cuts create unnecessary stress. I think it’s partially schools not paying attention to what each is doing and partially schools feeling that their schools specific needs involve this slight degree of variation. A degree of justification is that the kids need to know that this is how auditions are, so they better get used to it. But with students have to apply to so many more schools than they used to and the stakes for them are so much higher than any one individual show audition would be.