Does anyone know how many CMU audition every year? Ballpark?
Sorry double posted lol
I have read 2000 on this site
Aargh yikes!! Wonder if that’s accurate? We’re not going there but someone we know wants to … Just wondered for them…
Yes around 2000 is my understanding. One of the parents whose child made it into CMU this year said 3500- so not sure which is quite right but it’s a huge number.
We’ve often heard that everyone, no matter who they are, should approach applying to CMU as if they are buying a lottery ticket. Somebody’s going to win, it might as well be you. There certainly should be no surprise and no shame if not accepted. The odds for acceptance are definitely not in anyone’s favor. But oh how exciting if your number is drawn!
Having said that, there are lots of really talented people who just don’t feel the school is the right fit for them for a variety of reasons. And that’s ok too. It is a great program. But you can get great training lots of places.
2000-2500 audition, 24 are accepted for acting/music theatre. These numbers are directly from the women in charge of the auditions.
These numbers will also include auditions held at PA HS feeder programs they reach out to as well as any private group auditions they attend as well as the open to anyone Unifides and on campus auditions. I have no doubt the number is large as it is the hot school but I guess I’d want to ask myself what that number really means not only in terms of the wow factor of “wow… they audition that many and take 24” but also the math of “how the heck can such a small program do this and still actually have the time teach my student if they are one of the 24?”
24 students per class total means a pretty small department because no university could afford to staff an army for that few students. Think about the math of processing 2000 - 3500 auditions or whatever the real number actually is. Assume what? 5-15 minutes/audition (it’s likely longer from what people say here) and also think about how many faculty members are taken out of teaching to to process those numbers.I started to play around with a spreadsheet but realized I am not the person to create it as my daughter did not apply to CMU. I have no idea how many auditions dates they offer nor how many faculty members they send. Not that the real math matters. Probably it’s safe to assume whether it is 1000 for 24 or 3500 for 24… it’s really competitive. Probably also safe to assume the core department members spend a lot of time on admissions.
Also not sure if for any of the schools (this is not just about CMU… no beef with CMU which is a fantastic program) do they mean individual auditioners or individual auditions? If a school that tests singing, dance and acting. Is that 3 auditions or 1 in the count? (I know CMU does not test dance. I’m speaking in general). In a past life I did market studies and surveys. I know that the way you ask the question matters and can change the answer and the data.
It’s an election year and everything is apparently YUGE. Pardon my skepticism but really I don’t get the math on half of the claims about these schools but in particular if they are associated with a really small and select program, who the heck is teaching the students at hand while they are processing 2000 - 3500 auditions?
Yeah it seems crazy . I don’t have a stake in the whole CMU thing since it’s not on our list but it is for a friend. I can tell you when anyone asks me about where my D is applying they ALWAYS ask about CMU…then they make me feel guilty for it not being an option lol, just this week three people brought it up. It’s annoying. One lady made out like I didn’t think my D was talented enough to get in or I didn’t have enough “faith in her” to “reach for the stars” WTH ? Anyway…not sure why everyone’s so obsessed w/ it but I guess it’s because it’s so well known.
I will say I know their audition process seems to be positive for everyone who’s done it but I just question their decision not to prescreen when they have SO many apply. Not every school prescreens I know, BUT a lot of those schools don’t process that large number of apps either. I mean that’s a lot of people who to be honest shouldn’t be anywhere near there & we all know it. Plus it does suck up an audition you have to schedule in when you might be better served using that time elsewhere…
Just my 2 cents…
I would look at the number of days they spend on auditions, not the number of individual auditions themselves, if you are trying to figure out how much time the administrators/faculty spend on auditions. I believe most of their auditions happen on weekends although certainly they do miss some school days to audition. They have done this for a very long time and I have not heard of students there complaining about not getting enough instruction or attention. But it could be something to look into further. I do not think they spend any more time auditioning than any of the other major programs.
I can say, although she was not accepted there, it was one of my D’s favorite auditions - they never seemed rushed even though they were dealing with large numbers of people. They spent lots of time working with her and re-working her pieces. And back then, they still did a dance call as well. Applicants were asked to allow 4 hours for the audition (she auditioned for them at Unifieds in Chicago). They had their process down to a science. Very warm and welcoming people. It was a great experience. In Chicago, I believe there were about 100 kids auditioning per 4 hour session. They were broken down into 4 groups of about 25 each and they rotated between dance, voice and 2 different acting auditions. CMU had 2 four hour blocks you could sign up for each day. So - doing the math - if they did 4 days of auditions, 2 sessions per day, 100 students per session that means they auditioned 800 just at Chicago Unifieds. They do the same thing in NY and in LA. And they have their on campus auditions. So I do think 2000+ could be accurate.
I’m not sure if you are referring to Interlochen when speaking of a PA school, but Ds year the Interlochen kids auditioned for CMU at Chicago unifieds. CMU did not audition on the Interlochen campus. CMU also did not attend Moonifieds my Ds year. I’m not aware of them auditioning at an individual school or for private groups, but they may.
They are known to do master classes around the the country, especially throughout the summer. But these are not audition opportunities. Those students who participate in master classes still have to audition for them either on campus or at one of the Unified locations.
@vvnstar doesn’t CMU audition at Pebblebrook performing arts high school in Atlanta?
@notmath1 - I have no idea all of the places they audition. It’s possible I guess. I just know the Interlochen kids, my Ds year auditioning, auditioned in Chicago.
Here are CMUs audition dates from last year. As you will see, out of all the days the MT/Acting programs auditioned, they auditioned on 8 school/week days - so probably didn’t miss too much class time. At least on this schedule, no private school or group auditions are indicated.
http://drama.cmu.edu/media/assets/2015-2016AuditionTourDates_WEB.pdf
All I know is 2000 kids is a lot! Like it’s sorta ridiculous to let them ALL audition without some sort of prescreen process. Seems like the auditors would go brain dead after awhile . I know they do it every year but really anyone would start zoning out …
That’s just it though @theaterwork … I’m not sure how they do it, but D found them to be MORE engaged and interested than many of her other auditions. Their complete audition experience, the amount of time they spent, and the quality of feedback they gave was some of the best of any school D auditioned for. CMU is not for everyone, and you shouldn’t audition if you know it’s not the right place for your kid, but it is a super audition experience.
I think it’s great that they allow as many as possible to audition. For some kids, just the chance to meet the faculty and get their feedback firsthand is a great opportunity in and of itself. Knowing they don’t have a prescreen process, students need to be realistic about their chances of getting in before deciding to audition for them. There is no secret about how hard it is to get in. It’s a longshot for all applicants no matter how talented.
For those willing and wanting to give it a try, it is a great experience whether you get in or not.
CMU’s numbers actually seem believable to me. I know when my S auditioned for RADA, they said they had 4200 people audition!–this was from all over the world. LAMDA says they have 3500 (I think around that), and it also auditions across America, plus all of UK, plus other EU countries. I don’t know how CMU does it, but the UK schools have their head come to all the auditions; that’s part of their job. During callbacks, if there are any, a lot of faculty see the students.
There is something freeing when the numbers are ridiculously low. You can just go in and enjoy yourself. 
I remain skeptical of what the numbers actually mean.
There are only just over 2,000 official business hours in year and some of this stuff only happens on weekends but let’s ignore that and assume the 5 days of a business week are all dedicated to auditions. One full time dedicated faculty member giving say 15 minutes of their time per audition could I guess see what, 8,000 students a year?
Let’s also ignore that the processing of an audition that includes multiple elements like acting, singing and dance would never be that quick at least not when it is reported that the auditions did not feel “rushed.” Go with 15 minutes total and not even think about gross time (transitions etc.) vs. net.
No school so far is claiming that they process 8,000 auditions. I’ve read things here at the high end claiming that CMU auditions 2,000 - 3,500. Let’s go to the lower number which allows us to downgrade that full time equivalent person to just 1/4 time. We only need them for 500 hours 4 audition/hour all year and see 2,000 pp.
The actual open audition season is Nov - Feb of which net of holidays is maybe 10 weeks at best. So if one full time person alone would have to audition 50 hours/week x 10 weeks to get it all done. A more likely scenario would be for 5 people to dedicate 10 hours/week for 10 weeks. Again… let’s suspend time and ignore that many of these auditions only happen on weekends.
Pause for a moment to ponder 10 hours per week JUST in the audition room which doesn’t account for travel to/from off campus, discussion and write up time and all of the rest during those 10 weeks. Who is teaching the current students when the faculty members are attending to the recruiting efforts?
And who is paying for it? A program that takes only 25 kids even if you assume all are full pay at $60K (and they are not) has a gross annual tuition income of $1.5 million per class. This is before faculty salaries, recruiting expenses, production expenses and everything else.
This isn’t really my area of expertise though I could produce a spreadsheet that really looks at this more closely if I had to. My spreadsheet would be far less quick to assume the best case scenario to make the school’s case for the audition numbers and the time they take as it would be so easy show a range of data.
But I don’t have to produce a spreadsheet about this. I don’t really care. I have NO experience with CMU and other top notch programs like it and I’m not picking on them. I’m only asking the question which is one that you all should be asking any time you are feeling discouraged by these YUGE numbers. I don’t understand at all how such a small faculty could process that many auditions and still teach the lottery winners that attend their programs. So either these numbers are real and nobody is actually minding the store, or these numbers are just YUGE and by that, I hope you get my meaning. Or my math sucks. And that could be true too.
@halflokum, you raise great points. I’d heard to be skeptical of self-reportage, because sometimes there’s overlap in the numbers. Also, it’s really important to stress that just because a school has an extremely low acceptance rate, doesn’t mean it is necessarily a great school, and just because a school has a relatively high acceptance rate doesn’t mean it’s a ‘bad’ school. There may be some overlap between exclusivity and excellence, but they’re not equivalent at all.
I don’t know if the UK schools do it differently from schools like CMU or Juilliard or whatever. But I do know that when they’re here in the U.S., they audition 15 minutes/audition for about 9 hours straight. So that’s 36 students/day. In America let’s say they have 20 days here (I don’t know exactly how many days–they are in a number of cities and are there for several days each). That would be 720 just in America/Canada. It may well be more. Then they audition in the UK, and have many more days. So let’s say they have triple the days, that would equal about 3000 right there. So their claim is entirely possible.
At LAMDA, they do have a dedicated faculty head whose job description in part is to do auditions. He rarely teaches, but he does teach (and is amazing). My understanding is that his main job is to be the visionary head of the school.
As far as cost–yes, it’s definitely not supportable at all by tuition. In the UK it is sustained by the gov’t and by private philanthropists. For CMU, I don’t know what their model is but I’d guess they are sustained in part by the general school fund; their program brings a great deal of prestige and visibility to the school itself. But that’s just a guess. Many conservatories have the same problem - very low faculty to student ratio - yet they continue to thrive, so there must be some sustainable model. Different programs do the auditions differently though. Some schools are committed to having the head be present at all auditions. I know when my S did UNCSA, that was what happened. Other schools have almost ‘gatekeepers,’ or individual faculty members who are not the same student to student; their job is to decide whether the student gets a callback (e.g. Juilliard does this). I don’t know if that decision is financially based or visionary based, or both.
I just want to stress again that just because a program is exclusive doesn’t mean it’s equally great, and it certainly doesn’t mean it’s the best school for you. But again, as long as you know the odds are low - how low doesn’t really matter so much - I think if you want to, it’s great to audition, and approach the audition as a ‘what-the-heck.’
There will be lots of “what the heck” in the years to come, too, as our kids move from BFA programs to the real world.