Class of 2022 (the journey); sharing, venting, discussing

@disneydaisy It varies! You just have to read what each school requires. I think that in general, your daughter should be able to submit applications with references and transcript to follow, submitted by school when they are ready. I don’t think all schools need the full package to schedule auditions - my son has a few scheduled with just submitting the app (I’m sure the references are not there yet). Some schools that require pre-screens let you wait to submit the application until after you know if you are auditioning (e.g., Elon). Some require the application to be submitted before the pre-screen (e.g., Pace). We haven’t submitted any prescreens yet either! Good luck!

@singoutlouise So on the MIchigan topic, what would be the minimum that would make it reasonable to apply? D would love to give it a go, but doesn’t want to waste money. She’s a very good student, not a GREAT student.

@disneydaisy - we were able to schedule all of D’s auditions once all HER stuff was submitted - common app, essays, arts suppliment (if required) - even if school had not submitted THEIR stuff. D only had one prescreen school her year (Ithaca) we submitted app and prescreen around the same time b/c we didn’t want one part to get lost. BTW - on prescreen uploads- in 2014 they took FOREVER (literally hours) and was incredibly stressful - Leave yourself a clear chunk of time!

@BassTheatreMom does your school use Naviance? If so, you can enter the school and see the stats the school will generally accept. For example, for U Mich, average (then lowest to highest) GPA 4.19 (3.21-454); average SAT 1402 (1140-1550); average ACT 31 (23-35).

Ithaca was similar to U Mich in that they divide up the prescreens between different professors, so one professor might go throught them quickly and another might not. We waited about 6 weeks to hear back from Ithaca on the prescreens whereas others heard back in two weeks. I was not happy with that procedure at all.

Speaking of Ithaca, I remember they had a specific dance for their prescreen. There was a video with instructors who demonstrated the dance so the student could learn it, and that was what they wanted recorded and uploaded for the dance audition.

I remember worrying alot about how confusing it was @disneydaisy . It definately gets easier as you move through the process. You should be able to schedule auditions for most of the schools as long as your student has their part complete. You can then log into the portal and it will be updated with the other pieces (recommenders, things submitted by guidance office at school, etc.) I remember my daughter getting email requests from schools about things not yet submitted by her H.S. She would stop into guidance, and most of the time it was already sent.

@artskids Yes, I’ve seen the common data sets for most of the schools. I was wondering more about what a reasonable range for MT specifically would be - if it is lower than the general numbers for the rest of the university. CMU breaks out ranges by the different colleges which I find very helpful.

@BassTheatreMom That WOULD be helpful. I have not seen it broken out by college. It was my understanding, at least for U Michigan, that requirements were University-wide but that could have changed. D is planning to apply this year so I guess we will see!

@disneydaisy That is actually a column on my spreadsheet. A few of D’s schools require that everything be in before we can schedule, but many don’t. It is very difficult to tell from school websites what has to be in & what doesn’t before submitting prescreens/scheduling auditions. We are doing Acting this time around, and I thought it would be so simple. Haha - silly me! And D is hoping to get her prescreens filmed by the end of this week. Fingers crossed!

@artskids We are trying to decide if D should add UM. It wasn’t originally on her list because her SAT was just not good enough. But on retake she made a tremendous jump, so I think it technically puts her in range. But I don’t know if that’s really going to cut it, you know. She has such a long list of schools, she really doesn’t want to add to it, so something would have to come off. It’s a crazy time! Good luck to your D!

@BassTheatreMom and @artskids Honestly I am not really sure how it works. I think in our case she had passed the prescreen but clearly was stuck in some kind of limbo pile because they hadn’t received her transcript. As soon as they got her transcript they contacted us that she had passed. My D went to a New England boarding school known for academics. She was an honor student and had very good ACT scores. But I also know that there are people in the program who do not have stellar ACT scores - I am not sure what the cut off number at Michigan would be but I think it may say it on the website or at least note some kind of average. My D. was also on the very small waitlist for Carnegie and I believe they are similar in that they do look at academics - but not in the same way that they would for someone applying for regular admission. They want good students - but what really matters is what you do in that audition room.
**Actually I just looked at the website - it is under FAQs - they have the numbers for the class of 2016

@disneydaisy you don’t have to send everything in at the same time for any school. Official GPA, SAT/ACT reports, references from guidance office, or teachers or whatever will be added to her file as they come in. Some schools will not open up an audition until everything is complete and paid for, some schools allow you to schedule an audition once the common app/MT app is complete. That is the part that differs from school to school. Some schools may even require you to do a two step application common app, then a MT specific app, before setting an audition date. But regardless, the schools create a file and just add to it as material come in.

@singoutlouise Thank you! A tad lower than I thought. I wouldn’t have poked around in the general UM FAQ section - I was digging all around the MT stuff. Appreciate the redirect!

Besides certain schools in which academics do play a large part in admission even for BFA MT majors, as @toowonderful mentioned, some schools will weigh essays when considering scholarship/grant money. In more than one case, D’s essays earned her more money from the colleges. In addition, department heads and adjudicators brought up my D’s essays during the audition process as talking points or just to compliment her on them, and MT department heads even mentioned D’s essays during accepted student visits, all indications to us that enough pay attention to the essays that it might be wise to spend quality time on them.

They may not affect admissions chances at many schools, but they can be a bonus financially or even as a way of connecting to faculty, the latter of which may affect admissions.

Question - is Roosevelt really just a 5 min audition at the Unified? Will they request a call-back on campus? Or how do they deal with such a short audition?

@MTmomSF Are you talking about Chicago Unifieds? Roosevelt does a dance call at a studio about a block from Palmer House which lasts about an hour. The audition is at the school not the hotel and 5 to10 minutes sounds about right. Remember the kids are just doing one or two 16-32 bar cuts and one or two one minute monologues. Most auditions for any of these programs don’t last too long - so that’s why it’s important to have good audition material and make the most of the short time you have with the auditors.

@sopranomtmom No, we will be at LA Unified. Most are 4 hours, but CCPA says 5 min.?

In our experience last year at both LA and Chicago there were a few schools that had time blocks of 3-4 hours but that doesn’t necessarily equate to a long audition time. It just means you need to plan to be available during that window. That time frame will generally include some kind of talk from the program directors, maybe a dance call and lots of waiting around for your turn which is likely 15 minutes at most. So don’t let those time blocks mislead you - the actual audition time in the room will still be relatively short. It may be that Roosevelt doesn’t do a dance call in LA - not all schools do. If they do it will be scheduled separately from the audition time.

If a school requests a 3-4 hour block, the block could also include a callback (Pace is a prime example) - and it sometimes exceeds the hours you block - so be careful when scheduling the next audition. Assume the school will use the entire block. We found most schools to be cooperative if you are upfront about your next audition time (so long as it isn’t within the block you were supposed to hold). For example, when D1 auditioned for Pace (Acting - so no dance call), she got a callback and the callback group ended up going beyond the 4 hour mark. She had an audition at another hotel an hour after the Pace audition block. She spoke with the auditors at the beginning of her callback and they allowed her to perform with the first group of students. It was still a rather close call to get to her second audition but she was not late!

CMU may be the one exception in that some
Kids get passed from Room to room and worked with a lot. Others just have their 5-10 min within that 4 hour block. Actually cal arts is similar. and the working with you just means they want to see more. If it worked with they have info they need to either accept or reject.