@vvnstar- I absolutely do NOT think there is anything wrong with having guidance and/or help through the insanity of the process - and you are right that mtca/moo/Dave Clemmons can step into that role. But just as not everyone is lucky enough to find CC (I so envy the parents who found it early, never knew it existed until fall of senior year) will people know those coaches are out there? I am not expressing this very well- and I do NOT want to offend people who used coaches - it just seems like the bar is getting set higher and higher- and will there come a day soon when “natural” isn’t enough- at least for certain schools.
People, why do you have to bring these topics up on Sunday night? I just had my glass of wine, and that means no posting anything anywhere!! 
I actually agree with both alwaysamom and vvnstar. I’m also aware that anything that I pay (lots) for, drive my daughter to, research on her behalf (like reading CC) gives her an unfair advantage over some kid with the same (or more) talent, but no access to resources, or with parents for whom performing arts are not something you invest in. Nothing about this process is fair.
As nice as it would be for everyone to have the exact same preparation going into college auditions, that just isn’t life. And it never has been the case. There are always going to be people who have had the advantage of being trained for years with some of the country’s best teachers while there are others that will have only done plays at their school. Coaches actually help even that out for many. Kids who haven’t had access to knowledgable MT professionals can work with someone who really knows the field for perhaps the very first time.
As far as “a day when “natural” isn’t enough” - There should be nothing that is not “natural” about a student who has worked with a coach. They are usually very prepared and confident. But that should not be mistaken for not natural. Their material, their attire and the way they conduct themselves should be uniquely theirs.
I do agree that auditioners are more informed and prepared each year, whether they have learned about auditioning from a coach or their local teacher or CC or a great book like “I Got In” or the internet. Technology allows all of us access to more and more information each year.
“Coaches” permeate the entire college application process:
- SAT/ACT tutors, classes, etc.
- For-hire college counselors/advisors - there are even multiple associations for professional counselors such as: The Independent Educational College Advisors (http://www.iecaonline.com/) and The Higher Education Consultants Association (http://www.hecaonline.org/). There is an entire sub-segment devoted exclusively to Ivy League Admissions.
- Athletic recruitment services
- College financial advisors
Weren’t Prep schools established with the express purpose of gaining advantage for admission to elite colleges?
Nothing about the college admissions process is a “level playing field.”
I’m not naive enough to think that we can return to the ‘good old days’. My feelings on the issue of coaching actually has nothing to do with any perceived advantage that some think kids who have been coached may have. I don’t believe that that is always the case, because I’ve heard too many comments from those involved in the audition process who don’t believe that all coached kids are presenting the best that they possibly could.
I also know that there isn’t a level playing field, there never has been. My own kid was privileged to have been born into a family that has been involved in the theatre world for several decades. She is also privileged in that she attended an excellent arts high school and had many wonderful theatre experiences throughout her childhood, including trips to NYC several times a year to see shows, in addition to regularly attending professional productions in Toronto. Probably she was most privileged by our ability to pay for college without incurring any debt.
What I think many of the current kids miss in this process is developing the ability to search for material on their own. Going to the library, seeing theatre of any and every kind, searching online, reading dozens/hundreds of plays through the years, listening to cast recordings, not only for audition songs/monologues but to broaden their knowledge of the theatre canon. This is something that all theatre kids should be doing, and taking shortcuts in the process used by some coaches, isn’t always a good thing.
I understand that there are kids who live in locations where it may be difficult to more difficult to access experiences and information but these days, with what’s available via the internet, which is much more than even ten years ago, it just seems to me that it’s a shame that too many believe that a coach is a necessity in order to be successful. I feel badly for those who are unable to afford the coaching and thus worrying about their kids being at a disadvantage.
In answer to the question about why should theatre kids not have ‘coaches’ when kids going into other majors do. Well, I’m not really a fan of any type of coaching , to be honest, and that extends to college admissions, SAT prep, LSAT prep, etc.
I completely agree with you, @alwaysamom, and my D did exactly that.
However, the level of sophistication required for the MT admissions process now borders on the ridiculous. Consider requirements like these:
After spending almost four years assembling a rep book with all kinds of stuff in it (Golden Age ballad/uptempo, Contemporary ballad/uptempo, Art Song, Patter Song, several Pop/Rock songs from various periods, dramatic/comedic classical monologues in verse, several modern dramatic/comedic monologues written after 1970 per most school’s requirements, etc.) D threw up her hands in defeat when she saw requirements as specific as these.
In and of themselves, these overly-specific requirements may be not so bad, if you only had to audition for a small number of schools. But that is simply not the case anymore. I think that it is very common for students to audition for 12 or more schools now. Not to mention all the effort required for normal schoolwork, SAT/ACT test prep, AP test prep, state-mandated test prep, theatre productions, extra-curricular activities, jobs, and just being a high school kid.
The theatre parents that I know lament all the time about the difficulties faced by students who enter the process without substantial parental, school, and coaching support, and a lot of it is brought on by the college programs themselves.
Amen @EmsDad. The colleges are all different and difficult
I’ve really hesitated to post this story because I don’t want to smear a coaching company (and so I’ll just call it a “coaching company” and won’t give a name or even indicate whether it’s an individual or a group), but I think it offers something to think about:
At breakfast during Unifieds in an otherwise quiet room, I clearly overheard two adjudicators sitting right next to me from a well-reputed (most say top tier) acting program talk about how one coaching company’s students are, to them, easily identifiable, predictable, most often unable to veer from what they’d been coached, and a bit fake. It was all said in a negative way, complete with eye rolling and shaking of heads. They even said, “Thank God we only saw 4 of (blank’s) students yesterday.” I was so shocked! This company’s students get in great programs, so, obviously, it works, but it seems that not all people across the table respect or appreciate the approach.
Again, just because I clearly heard a conversation about this doesn’t mean people should not use a coach or even this particular company if they can somehow ascertain which it was. (And, to the vast majority of people reading this, I’m just a random internet person, anyway.) As I’ve said, this company seems to get phenomenal results. I just am offering up the apparent fact that there is another opinion out there among the programs regarding coaching, at least with one company.
In August of D’s junior year, we both panicked over monologues. D had searched for almost year and, in late spring, hired a local coach who was supposedly well versed in college auditions, but the monologues chosen seemed wrong for this process. So, we did what I said we wouldn’t do: we hired an audition coach. We chose Chelsea Diehl from My College Audition, and we have said many times that we are relieved we did. D had only light coaching (meaning not a lot of sessions–just a couple for college list selection and a few for monologues–all via Skype), but Chelsea has been there whenever either of us has needed her about anything in this process, happy to talk via Skype or email. She’s been a fabulous, positive support who really “got” D right away. Although My College Audition offers vocal coaches, D didn’t use one because her local voice teacher knows what she’s talking about with colleges and has been a tremendous help (and is involved with a well-regarded program herself), and D also consulted with her very helpful voice teacher in a city from which we had moved who was involved with another well-regarded program.
Just to be crystal clear: the adjudicators that I heard were talking about one specific “coaching company,” not others. I have no idea what they think about other coaching or coaching in general. I certainly found Chelsea, for example, to be concerned with having D represent herself as herself, and D was not at all over-coached. In fact, Chelsea wanted D to dig deeper herself into the materials instead of coaching her through it all. She was and continues to be a tremendous, down-to-earth, genuinely caring resource.
Gee, it sounds like I’m advertising for her, lol. I’m not!
As for overhearing negative comments about a particular service or coach in a dining room, I would not put a lot of weight into such things, especially if you don’t know the entire context in which the comments were being given. If you know that school does accept kids from that coaching service, obviously the coach or service is not the reason why someone is not accepted. The coaches I’m familiar with (Mary Anna Dennard, MTCA and Dave Clemmons) certainly want their students to show their unique personalities while being prepared, confident and professional. None of them would want their students to appear stiff or fake. And they certainly would want them to be able to take direction. D certainly worked with her coach on how to handle adjustments in the audition room. I would be very surprised if kids from these services, if they listened to their coaches and worked on it, would not be able to handle that during their audition. But to be able to do so requires hard work and practice. If students don’t work on it, no matter who their coach is, they may come off stiff and fake if they can only present their material one way.
My recommendation: meet the coaches yourself. Look at their results. See if they are a good fit for your particular circumstances. And go from there. Even though we worked with one particular coach who we love (Mary Anna Dennard) I always try to mention several of the other great coaches and services out there that I am familiar with when discussing this topic on CC because I know there are many good options out there and each of you has to pick what is best for you. It sounds like @myloves found another interesting option in My College Audition. I’m not familiar with it but sounds like it is also worth looking into if you are looking for coaching. Just as there are many different college programs that provide great training, there are many great coaches out there. No need to criticize any of them unless you have had a first-hand issue with them. Just find the one that works best for you.
@alwaysamom I agree kids wanting to go into this field need to be passionate about it and learn as much as they can. I’m not sure why a coach is considered an obstacle to that. I know my D was required by her coach to read and consider many, many monologues before making final selections. She was asked to look for and suggest pieces she liked to add to what the coach suggested. D was at the library, searching online, consulting friends and teachers… She was required to read entire plays, do play analysis, character analysis, etc…while working on the monologues with her coach. Same for her songs. They went through quite a few before settling on the final ones. Then the real work began in knowing the context in which it was sung in the show, again character analysis, really understanding the mood and tone, the time period, what would their mannerisms be, etc… It was a lot of in-depth work including lots of research. I don’t know any coaches worth their salt who just hand kids a monologue or song and expect it to work without a lot of effort on the student’s part. So again, I think the coach is providing valuable direction in how to research and select material, something the student may not have known how to do. The coaches I am familiar with are not providing a short cut. They expect hard work out of the kids they work with. And again, many people who work with coaches have not had people in their communities who have helped them figure out how to do such things.
I keep promising myself to quit posting rebuttals - But it just feels like there are a lot of negative assumptions about coaches and the students who use them that make me feel very defensive. I’m not angry, and I do appreciate everyone’s point of view. I don’t want to antagonize anyone. But I just want to make sure everyone understands that working with a coach requires a lot of time and effort on the student’s part. It is no short cut. And there are lots of good coaching options out there. Do your due diligence in selecting the best coach for you if you decide to work with one.
@vvnstar - I know just how you feel- there have been a number of issues where I have felt compelled to wade in to defend choices (and I always seem to make the unpopular ones! Exhibit A: my kid is at NYU - the whipping child of the CC theater world!) even when I know it is going to open a can of worms. I totally respect your viewpoint.
Coaching just like many summer programs seem like they are very helpful if you have the money to do them. I think and I could be wrong some people may feel like it is the haves versus the have nots. I could be wrong. I am sure that the schools generally can see the diamonds in the rough or they see the potential in the kids that may not have the opportunity to be “coached” or go to summer programs. Some coaches take kids on scholarship so hopefully if people find this site and they would like coaching and can’t afford it they explore that option.
@toowonderful @evilqueen and others make good points about expected yield and final tally lists on coaches’ websites. It would seem that those schools offering spots to twice as many applicants as they have room for must have an excellent grasp of their expected yield.
So, yeah, MTCA reports 31 admitted to BoCo but there’s no way that there will actually be 31 places filled in the fall from the MTCA pool of applicants. Nor will they actually fill 34 places at Hartt, 22 at Marymount, 20 at UArts, 18 at Tisch, 11 at Ithaca, and so on. It is not reasonable to expect that those classes will have little room left beyond coached kids. You’d need the total number of offers of admission to really extrapolate the likelihood of that scenario. (Perhaps at schools where we imagine the yield is more like 90% the small handful of kids admitted from one coaching studio would actually represent a significant percentage of the matriculating class. The total tallies would make the handful look like a smaller number when, in actual fact, it’s a potentially larger presence.)
Within just this CC group there were several applicants who announced 10-13 acceptances. Remember that each of those is counted separately when a coach is tallying. Their reported totals are total offers of admission to all their coachlings. So, the individual kid that is admitted to 13 schools can look like 13 kids, each admitted to a single school.
Similarly, if that same powerhouse applicant is offered $25K a year by every school that admits her/him then that’s 25 x 4 years = $100K, from 13 schools, which adds up to $1.3M in aggregate scholarship offered. So the total scholarship dollars reported does not represent total scholarship dollars collected at the end of the day.
This is not to diminish the extraordinary success of MTCA’s students. It’s an amazing sight! Clearly, they are doing something very right.
Re: what percentage of a class is represented by one coaching studio: On her website, Mary Anna Dennard provides a list of all schools to which her students were accepted, but she typically does not note how many were accepted at each place. She does reveal which schools her students have selected to attend. You can see that by clicking on the name of the school in the I Got In section of her website. So it can give you an idea of what percentage of a school’s class worked with her. She has not updated her site for 2015, but in 2014, for example, 7 of her students went to University of Michigan, 4 to Carnegie Mellon and 1 to CCM. (you can see all the schools they chose on her website) She of course works with far fewer students than MTCA, but their success rates are both quite high.
The data from the MTCA website is kind of interesting to look at - the list below shows Musical Theatre acceptances/offers and yield. The data is not perfect, not all students have made a decision and there are obvious “data busts” where MTCA shows more final decisions for Michigan, OCU, and UCLA than offers.
I found the number of offers made by some schools was pretty amazing.
School Acceptances/Offers Yield%
Michigan 5/2 (yield more than 100%)
Oklahoma City 4/2 (yield more than 100%)
UCLA 2/1 (yield more than 100%)
Baldwin Wallace 4/4 100%
Belmont 2/2 100%
Texas State 2/2 100%
Cincinnati 4/5 80%
Pace 2/3 67%
Boston Conservatory 12/23 52%
Florida State 1/2 50%
Otterbein 1/2 50%
TCU 1/2 50%
Webster 2/4 50%
Ithaca 5/12 42%
Syracuse 4/11 36%
CAP 21/Molloy College 1/3 33%
Dean 1/3 33%
Elon 2/6 33%
James Madison 1/3 33%
NYU Tisch 3/9 33%
Shenandoah 2/6 33%
Northern Colorado 2/8 25%
Hartt 5/23 22%
Emerson 1/5 20%
Miami 2/10 20%
Indiana 1/6 17%
Montclair 2/12 17%
Roosevelt/CCPA 1/7 14%
Utah 2/14 14%
Wagner 1/7 14%
Penn State 1/8 13%
Ball State 1/10 10%
Long Island University/CW Post 1/11 9%
Marymount Manhattan 2/29 7%
Point Park 1/15 7%
University of the Arts 1/15 7%
Rider 2/32 6%
AMDA 0/1 0%
American 0/6 0%
Arizona 0/1 0%
Ashland 0/1 0%
Baylor 0/1 0%
Belhaven 0/1 0%
Catholic 0/5 0%
Central Florida 0/4 0%
Central Michigan 0/1 0%
Central Washington 0/1 0%
Coastal Carolina 0/7 0%
Columbia College Chicago 0/1 0%
Cornish 0/5 0%
Drake 0/1 0%
Howard University 0/1 0%
Illnois Wesylan 0/2 0%
Liverpool Institute for the Performing Arts (England) 0/3 0%
Loyola Marymount 0/1 0%
Marywood 0/1 0%
Millikin 0/4 0%
Missouri State 0/1 0%
New Hampshire Theatre 0/2 0%
Notre Dame de Namur 0/1 0%
Oakland 0/1 0%
Ohio Northern 0/7 0%
Rowan 0/1 0%
Royal Conservatoire of Scotland 0/4 0%
San Diego State University 2 MT 0/2 0%
Santa Fe 3 MT, 1 Acting 0/3 0%
SUNY Buffalo 0/3 0%
SUNY Fredonia 0/1 0%
Temple 0/2 0%
Tulane 0/2 0%
University of Oklahoma 0/1 0%
Viterbo 0/1 0%
Western Kentucky 0/1 0%
Western Michigan 0/1 0%
Wilkes University MT 0/1 0%
Wisconsin-Stevens Point MT 0/1 0%
Wright State 0/1 0%
I’m confused by your list. Maybe you are confusing acceptances (which MTCA’s page uses to mean the same thing as offers)
our-students/2015-acceptance-totals/
and the students’ final decisions. which are here at
our-students/class-of-2015
@emsdad - can you explain how to read this for the non-data savvy? what do 1st and 2nd numbers represent? (example Michigan 5/2 - does that mean 5 kids accepted, 2 who took offer?)
@toowonderful, I think Em’s Dad may have been confused by MTCA’s use of “Acceptances” to mean “number admitted”. The number that took those offers will be trickier to sort out but, as he’s the data king, I’m guessing he will get it done.
As far as Michigan MT goes, 5 MTCA kids have taken their offers according to the Our Students Class of 2015 page. Admission was offered to only those five. There were also 3 kids accepted for Acting but I only see one that indicates she’s going. This is actually a great illustration of what I was trying to say above. Michigan MT’s yield from MTCA is 100%. Michigan Acting’s yield is 33%
Oops! It helps if you use the right year to scrape data (I accidently used 2014 Acceptances in my post above). The corrected list is shown below - thanks to @vocal1046 for noticing the problem. Same note as above that not all students have made decisions and not all students posted their final decision:
School Acceptances/Offers Yield%
Michigan 5/5 100%
NYU Steinhardt 2/2 100%
UCLA 2/2 100%
Abilene Christian University 1/1 100%
Carnegie Mellon 1/1 100%
Dean 1/1 100%
Texas Christian University 1/1 100%
Oklahoma City 4/6 67%
Belmont 2/3 67%
Texas State 2/3 67%
Cincinnati-CCM 4/7 57%
Webster 2/4 50%
Ithaca 5/12 42%
Baldwin Wallace 4/10 40%
Montclair 2/5 40%
Boston Conservatory 12/31 39%
NYU Tisch 6/18 33%
Northern Colorado 2/6 33%
Florida State 1/3 33%
Wagner 1/3 33%
Penn State 2/8 25%
Otterbein 1/4 25%
Pace 2/9 22%
Syracuse 4/21 19%
Elon 2/11 18%
Shenandoah 2/11 18%
Miami 2/12 17%
Hartt 5/34 15%
Indiana 1/7 14%
James Madison 1/8 13%
Emerson 1/9 11%
Point Park 1/9 11%
Roosevelt/CCPA 1/9 11%
Ball State 1/10 10%
Molloy College/CAP 21 1/10 10%
Marymount Manhattan 2/22 9%
Long Island University/CW Post 1/11 9%
Utah 2/23 9%
Rider 2/27 7%
University of the Arts 1/20 5%
Liverpool Institute for the Performing Arts (England) 0/8 0%
Ohio Northern 0/7 0%
Columbia College Chicago 0/5 0%
Coastal Carolina 0/4 0%
Drake 0/4 0%
Millikin 0/4 0%
Viterbo 0/4 0%
Relativity 0/3 0%
Santa Fe U 0/3 0%
Catholic U 0/2 0%
SUNY Fredonia 0/2 0%
Western Michigan 0/2 0%
Cornish 0/11 0%
East Carolina 0/1 0%
New World School of the Arts 0/1 0%
University of North Carolina Greensboro 0/1 0%
Northern Kentucky 0/1 0%
Royal Conservatoire of Scotland 0/1 0%
Western Carolina 0/1 0%
Western Connecticut 0/1 0%
Winthrop University 0/1 0%
Wisconsin-Stevens Point MT 0/1 0%
Wright State 0/1 0%
American 0/4 0%
AMDA 0/2 0%
Alabama Birmingham 0/1 0%
U of Arizona 0/1 0%
Baylor 0/1 0%
Boulder MT 0/1 0%
University at Buffalo 0/1 0%
Wow, How many students does MTCA coach? Is there a total?