I started the thread in MT as well. My D has MT and Acting schools on her list - although at this point she is leaning MT. She will be heading off to Carnegie for the Drama pre-college program in a few weeks. Her preliminary list is nearly complete - although I suspect that will change once she starts talking to people at CMU. Our preliminary plan of attack is to do some on-campus auditions (the less than 4 hour drives), the balance, if possible at Chicago Unifieds. My current acting major (Purchase) was able to do all but 1 audition while at Chicago Unifieds.
BAL to all of our students and to the parents who support them!
Son out of steam after his Jr. year. Skipping the summer programs this year and taking an acting class, he was accepted at the Ragdale Foundation High School Program for a week, and we’ll be scheduling some college visits this summer, for both kids. The list really needed to be refined once I got real about finances, daughter is 1 year behind son, and I started calculating loan payments while factoring in retirement. i don’t know why it took me so long to run the net price calculators at the schools, but it was sobering for some schools we really liked. Meeting with the college counselor at high school pretty much blew up the list - we have been looking at the stats of a college in general (thinking about merit $) when we should have been looking at the stats from our competitive high school (we have a ton of academic rock stars). Live and learn! Seriously considering a gap year up front so that senior year isn’t so stressful balancing auditions, grades, and performances. Also, then 2 kids will be going to college at once. Should son decide to go for this year, we will be at Chicago Unifieds.
Thanks for starting this thread!
My daughter was in a school play at age 8 and decided that this was what she wanted to do with her life. I thought it was just a phase, but she never wavered, and here we are! She was lucky enough to get an agent as a child and did a bit of professional work and is Equity. She’s taken acting classes since childhood, and now goes to a performing arts high school with an excellent acting program. We’ve been doing tons of research over the past two years, so she has her list all ready, and has been working on monologues.
Looking forward to getting to know all of you and supporting each other on our kids’ journey’s!
@DoinResearch If your S decides to take a gap year, there are many helpful discussions on this board and on the MT board! @actorparent1 - welcome - is your D AEA? After quite a bit of discussion, my S just took his card (he is a college senior). It concerned me that he could be limiting himself right out of the gate but he decided to go for it!
@artskids, yes, when she was 8 years old and just starting out, she had “beginner’s luck” and got cast as an understudy for a child role in a Broadway play. It was a tiny role, only a couple of lines, and she never actually got to perform it because she was only the understudy, but it was exciting! She was offered her Equity card from that, so we took it (not knowing the pros and cons, because we were new to it all!)
Thanks for starting the thread @artskids! I have a friend of a friend who got in touch with me the other day as her daughter will be pursing acting. I will pass the link on to her now!
Hello all! I love to research and started stalking this board several years ago. My son is a rising senior at a PA high school. He is looking at mostly BA programs that offer flexibility and allow for writing/directing/production classes, but there are a couple BFA acting programs on the list too. I would say that probably 5 out of the 12 or so schools he’s looking at will require an audition. We’d like to do all the auditions at Los Angeles Unifieds, but he might apply for directing at Carnegie and it looks like they don’t audition for directing in LA. In that case, we would go to Chicago Unifieds. We also weren’t sure whether we were going to use an audition coach, but we ultimately decided to work with Mary Anna Dennard. And, I have to say, this was our best decision yet because she has been invaluable with respect to figuring out his type and helping choose monologues. He leaves in just two weeks for NHSI Cherubs at Northwestern for the acting on camera emphasis. BAL to everyone!
@Twoboysandadog My daughter auditioned for Carnegie Mellon in Los Angeles for MT, but in her group there were some auditioning for acting only and a small handful of directing and technical applicants so be sure to talk directly with admissions at CM to double check. Sometimes the info on the web site doesn’t tell the whole story. Best of luck!!
@sopranomtmom Oh, is that right? That’s great info. Thanks!
Hi! I have also peeped at these threads for years, but have never posted. I have often had to figure out what all the abbreviations meant. For a while I was stunned by how many people posted how their kids went to school in Pennsylvania - then I realized what PA stood for. LOL. I have also been so inspired by the kindness and support I read.
My D has been a “theatre kid” since she was 10 and is now a rising senior. We live in the Berkshires of Mass and theatre opportunities are vast. She has been in Equity productions and is an Equity candidate. She is in a production of Bye Bye Birdie this summer at Barrington Stage Co.
We have visited many schools already and the task ahead is daunting. We have begun working with MTCA (I’ll assume you all know all about them). She wants to study acting - not MT - which makes me sad bc she has a beautiful voice. But it is her life and not mine. I was wondering if anyone had thoughts about visiting schools in the summer? We have some new schools on our list (U of Minn/Guthrie, Michigan) and not sure if visiting in the summer will be helpful while school is not in session. Any help would be great.
BAL (assuming Best of Luck - I don’t get that one) to all the brave kids and their families.
Wow, Barrington Stage, that’s awesome. (We are just up 91 a bit in NH, so hi!)
BAL is break a leg, BTW. (By the way)
@ginaf1102 My opinion is that you skip the summer college visits. You’ve already visited many schools and should have a sense as to what kind of campus she likes by now (small, urban, traditional, etc.), and you won’t get an adequate feel for the school anyway since school is out. Focus on monologues and essays this summer and then go to the accepted students day once she gets in.
I actually think summer visits can be very helpful in getting an idea of the overall culture of the school. True you may not be able to sit in on actual classes etc, but we found that most schools had opportunities to tour theater departments etc. many schools also had summer shows happening, so we were able to get a glimpse at that type of thing. I would agree that traveling all the way to Minneapolis to visit Minn Guthrie is not necessarily as necessary, because of their callback weekend. That was the only school my daughter was interested in that we made no attempt to visit before hand, knowing that if she got to the final round she would have A chance to spend time there.
BTW, majoring in acting rather than MT does not mean your daughter will never be in a musical again 
We did some summer visits and I definitely don’t regret it. My D wanted to go to college in CA (we live in NJ) so I planned a vacation to SoCal in August before she started junior year and we visited quite a few schools. We toured three and drove through some others and I felt it was very helpful. It was still a vacation though mainly. If you find you’re going somewhere over the summer and happen to be passing by a school of interest stop and take a look. Once school starts it is very difficult to visit. That being said MTCA discouraged college visits during senior year. They said it’s not a good idea to fall in love with a school and get your hopes up when they are all so tough to get into. I would say the majority of schools she applied to we did not visit though. What is tough though is come March/April when those (hopefully) acceptances roll in it’s very hard to fit the accepted students’ days in, especially if your kid is in their spring show.
We are planning a few summer visits. We took a Monday Jr. year to visit a school 3 hours away, and went to a play on Sunday. The “during the school year” visits were more revealing. I think every school has a slightly different vibe created by the students. However, the reality of visiting during Jr school year - its difficult because out kids are always cast in plays, which for us means 23 hours of theater on top of schoolwork. I decided to focus our visits this summer on the financial and artistic safeties - those schools have been the hardest to determine. Its super easy to determine the reaches, but having a couple of good safeties that S would really like to attend Has been harder. Still discussing the value of a “growth” year- the ability to be able to focus on auditions without concurrent schoolwork is compelling, along with enjoying Sr. year, and actually be able to be in the spring productions that final year.
Regarding visits what I regret was not doing a bunch of visits during Easter break of junior year. I had planned a vacation for that week so far ahead and wasn’t thinking along those lines at the time. Although our trip was to Sedona and we did drive through the campus of Arizona State so I guess that counts!
@Twoboysandadog after 23 applications and around 14 in person auditions with five BFA offers my D ended up at a BA. Is Loyola Marymount on his list? Their film school is one of the top in the country and the theatre program is very flexible. And being on top of a bluff in LA near Venice Beach doesn’t suck either!
I agree @DoinResearch! We are also planning a few summer visits - generally in or near cities we are visiting for other reasons. We visited all of my S campuses the year he applied; we visited only 2 of my D’s (although she had been to a few others when my S was applying). We then visited schools for my D that she had not seen if she was either admitted or placed on a waitlist. It made for a REALLY crazy late March and April. It makes being in the last spring shows tough depending on your school’s schedule. I will say my D viewed schools and programs with a much more critical eye post-admittance/waitlist than she had during general or audition visits. She really honed her questions and paid close attention to the feel of the program, the students and the teachers.
@marg928 Yes, Loyola Marymount is on his list, and he’s planning to do early action for either theatre or screenwriting. I’m sure your daughter will love it there!