Class of 2022 (sharing, discussing, application and audition season)

@momof2lefties UNCSA has an AMAZING production and design department for costume designers. Best of luck!

@bfahopeful Thank you. Yes, definitely. We visited UNCSA in March during their open house and she fell in love with it at first sight. (Oh dear–it is not a good idea when the admissions are so competitive.) It is her top choice right now. She has great grades, recs and test scores, but I know they don’t count for much. We don’t have any way to really evaluate her portfolio. She did take it with her to Evansville and Otterbein for their open houses and some of the faculty were kind enough to review it for her and offer some suggestions. Overall, they told her it was quite good and that they would be surprised if it did not generate quite a bit of interest, but who really knows? I do not look forward to the long wait until spring. I wish more of these schools did rolling admissions, but I understand why they don’t.

@FourStars for the Pace wildcard we submitted a speech my D made to our Board of Ed fighting to save her teacher’s job. She did pass.

Moms, I have to share this with you!

Last night I was high-fiving my D and congratulating her on getting almost all the applications and prescreens in. (We just have one more application to get in, and the only reason we haven’t done it yet is because I’m broke! All those application fees wiped me out! So we have to wait til next payday to get that last one in. But all the rest are done!) I said to her, “I’m SO proud of you! You survived that stressful summer and all my annoying nagging, and you did it!!!”

To my amazement, D replied: “THANK YOU for nagging me! I know I complained a lot about it and kept telling you to leave me alone. But honestly, if you hadn’t nagged me, I would have just kept procrastinating, and right now I’d be totally freaking out because nothing would be done! But instead, it’s all done and I can relax!”

Can you believe it? I never dreamed my child would end up THANKING me for nagging her! Sometimes miracles do happen, LOL!

Great story @actorparent1, that had to feel very good.

Has anyone submitted or heard anything about prescreen results? I know it’s new at Carnegie Mellon this year, so no one has a clue how it will work.

@FourStars, we got results ftom both Carnegie and Pace less than a week after submitting the prescreen.

I am trying to remain calm in this process (already been through it once for MT, hence my CC name!), but D is just recording her prescreens this weekend. UGH!!! She recorded with her sister (the “MT”) the other day, but when I saw the videos, I didn’t think they were good enough - they were good, but I I am really worried that she didn’t follow the instructions specifically. So many details on the monologues! D1 just recorded a monologue, her songs & some intros and she was done. D2 has different slates/intros/statements (TX State!!!), filming requirements
 So she’s going to re-record this weekend with her Acting coach. In my mind we were going to have prescreens done by 10/10. Just venting - I know MT, but Acting is so different, and I am a planner, so really wanted the auditions scheduled asap. Thanks for “listening” - it’s hard being the mom who plans with these artistic kids!

@MTmom2017 I SO feel your pain. We’ve gotten some of the recording done - D hates them and wants to re-shoot. She needs to record her slates. Her show opens in 2 weeks so she is focused on school and show prep. We booked out some times for her to re-shoot some of her things, and to record her slates, but it is WAY later than I had anticipated. She will meet the deadlines but will not have her pick of audition times (assuming there are slots available at some of the more well-known programs). S (MT 2018) and D1 (Acting 2020) were not super early getting their prescreens done and did get slots everywhere they wanted slots. It feels more compressed this time. I’m just venting, too. I try not to telegraph my anxiety to D but I do “gently push!”

S still doing essay and application, haven’t even started the video. Show runs this weekend and next, hoping to pick up steam at the end of the show. I know it will get done, really looking forward to completion and just looking at auditions.

Feeling better today - her school (not understanding of our process, like so many) finally sent her grades and teacher recs - hooray!!! And very glad she chose not to do a show this semester. Now if we could just hear back from the schools where we’ve requested dates


@artskids, D1 was later filming and managed to get all of her auditions scheduled. I think I didn’t worry as much with her because we used an audition coach. D2 didn’t want to use one, but it sure made it less stressful (for me, anyway, haha!). We did end up using the monologue concierge service & she likes the monologues they gave her.

@actorparent1 Wow, that is exciting and terrifying! I hope you got the answer you wanted!

Pre-Screening today! Please, for a girl, does she have to wear an “audition dress” for pre-screens? She feels more comfortable in jeans (tidy nice jeans, not low), and a classic tank (blue or navy blue). I sorta feel she should wear what she feels confident in. We have a few back up dresses, but she doesn’t love them, we didn’t go shopping yet this year for that kind of stuff. FYI for Pre-Screen, We are using someone in NYC, we probably could have done it ourselves, but this does have the advantage of a hard deadline. I’ll let you know how it goes?

@FourStars, I think she should wear whatever she’s most comfortable in. Good luck!

(And to answer your earlier question, yes, my d passed prescreens for Pace and CMU. Thanks!)

@actorparent1 Congrats to your D, you both must be thrilled. To all - we did switch back to wearing a more classic audition dress, albeit a really old one, and it all went well. Can’t wait to see them and SUBMIT. I will let you know how it goes!

Dance pre-screen question for those who have done them: my daughter is not a dancer. She takes dance in school and has taken several classes over the years, but this is her weakest area. She has no dance routine for her pre-screens and no place to film something like that unless she asks the school if she can use their studio. For some reason she’s very reluctant to bother her dance teacher with this request. So my question is, has anyone done a dance pre-screen in their living room and how fancy does this need to be? She is probably just going to recreate a dance number from one of the shows she was in previously, but it is not going to be particularly impressive.

I think it depends on the school she is applying to. Some put a lot of weight on dance, others don’t. My S has similar exposure to dance and he did a series of ballet technique. Not so much to show off his technique, but to show he is light on his feet and has good lines, and the interest in training. I will let others talk about which schools are big on dance. Maybe add a few that aren’t as critical. As for where you film, again that probably depends on the school, but I don’t think it is as important as the content. Fingers crossed.

@collegemom2000 I can totally relate. My daughter’s was not fancy either- we are submitting them hopefully next week- (still finishing up filming the monolgues) fingers crossed on positive results!! Our big question is - if the school says dance optional, should we omit them?? Or just send them even though it is her weaker link.That is one thing I keep going back and forth about. On the one side- it shows her body lines/ some musicality and personality- but it is just definitely not an advanced dancer type of submission- it is also not as polished as I am sure many submissions are!!!

@collegemom2000 we omitted them if they weren’t required. He left on his resume his dance history/classes, but felt like he couldn’t compete so if they didn’t need it, then why show off his weaknesses. He did one song full length with lots of movement, so he could show off his body lines and fluidity. Just my opinion though. :-/

Unfortunately I think most of daughter’s prescreens require a dance combination (Pace, Rider, Otterbein, Michigan.) I don’t believe those are optional. @savedrama4momma and @MTmomSF I also have the same concerns about showing weakness. I would rather she do the dance call to show her abilities to move/pick-up routines than have to figure out something on her own and tape it under less than ideal conditions.