<p>For those who are not coached, will we ever know how they are fairing compared to those who have had the coaching advantage? I am questioning if it is, in fact, a real advantage in terms of yielding acceptances. It would be interesting to see some stats, if they exists. I am sure someone here on CC has run the numbers. Bang for the buck? For the big money, I would hope for a big payoff.</p>
<p>I think the real value will be to those who need to really up their game to compete. Top level talent will be recognized, even if it is raw. But the next level is toughest. There are many really good singers/actors that need to find a way to stand out. The 2 minute audition has to be memorable and that’s not easy. The wrong monologue/song can kill it. And a good coach does not try and get you in the “best” program. They tell you where you will find a fit. No different than sports. I would never send my kid to a school if he was going to always be sitting on the bench. I’d do my homework and find a fit. I think a coach can find the best “you” and show the best “you”. But everyone can’t be what Michigan or CMU is looking for. They make no guarantees. You just have to want the best school for who you are. If you haven’t learned to show yourself off, they may not remember you. And maybe you will be given merit money because you are exactly what they are looking for! Most coaches let you buy as little help as you want. Be focused, ask specific questions, tell them your budget. Pay for an hour and see if you need any more help. Don’t buy the “package” if you just need a little advice. I think an honest opinion on a school list and help picking monologues could get you by.</p>
<p>An alternative to full College Audition coaching might be an Audition Class.</p>
<p>My son was part of a large regional Youth Theatre group in our area that offered Master Classes for high school students. He took two 12-week (2 hours a week) audition classes. One focused on college auditions and one focused on professional auditions. They talked about everything needed to audition (songs, monologues, headshots, résumés. questions, presentation, etc.) Each class had about a dozen students and everyone heard everyones feedback. Local casting agents and college recruiters came in to give feedback. My son actually got a paying-gig from the class.</p>
<p>It was the professional audition class that really propelled my son into pursuing Musical Theatre as a career. The instructor (who has multiple Broadway credits) convinced him that he had the talent to make it. She even questioned the economic wisdom of going to college at all. She felt, vocally, he was ready. He was leaning towards pop music at the time, but after a couple of impassioned conversations from his instructor, he plunged all-in to theatre. Those two classes ($160.00 each) were a bargain considering how much clarity it brought to my son.</p>
<p>I think the whole “bang for the buck” question, and whether a coach “yields acceptances” is the wrong way to look at at. The coach is a mentor who understands the profession, has a broad (and deep) knowledge of the literature, and can help your student work on some craft issues, and give them support and perspective. To me, that is more important than “yielding” acceptances. I see the relationship as closer to that of a private music teacher (development-oriented) than an SAT coach (single-goal-oriented.)</p>
<p>Agree with glassharmonica.</p>
<p>Agreed with glassharmonica. Every family must assess the value of coaching for themselves. At my sons’ high school, there have been successful students accepted to top MT programs with no coaching at all. We chose coaching for a variety of reasons. But we were realistic that coaching alone would not guarantee admission. My sons knew they ultimately had to put the work into selecting appropriate repertoire, choosing an appropriate list of prospective schools and ultimately performing in their auditions. I will say that in the case of our family, coaching provided my sons with numerous opportunities for “mock auditions” which they found very helpful.</p>
<p>My daughter has been getting private voice lessons for several years, and we met additionally with a coach a couple months ago for her monologues and acting. The latter has already been worth her weight in gold. She knows my daughter’s abilities, knows the schools out there and their strengths/weaknesses, and has been very helpful guiding my daughter towards what schools she should apply to. So to me it’s been quite helpful. I know it’s not a guarantee of finding a spot, but what is in this business?</p>
<p>Manvan, I like these low cost alternatives. I think they can be very valuable. We found an online coaching option. (I don’t intend to refer service here), but there are certainly many other options, as you mentioned. So far we have an “on hold” from CCM, so we are pleased. But, honestly don’t we all want both? good results AND effective mentoring (as glassharmonica and soozievt point out). I think we would be lying if we didn’t expect better results with a more expensive private coach to advise. There is one who is a Broadway professional, for example, who the colleges are very aware of (again, no referral) That couldn’t hurt.
But I would like to see some stats or hear experiences from others to determine if the expense makes a difference in the yields. Or maybe the answer is, just keep the expenses down, and take low cost guidance as a valuable enhancement, and not be result oriented. For ourselves, we will see very soon how we fair with the choice we made. But our kid has a thespian sibling, so we are looking ahead as well!</p>
<p>How could you really measure results since most of those without coaches are probably not on here? Some will get in somewhere and some won’t. If I had it to do over again I would definitely use a coach and skip a wasted audition trip to cover the costs. But you can’t know what you don’t know. Here’s the thing with my daughter…she was very firm about her list. I don’t think a coach could have steered to schools she was dead set against and I’m reasonably sure that’s what would have happened. She wanted prestige in arts and academics and did not want to hear about up and comers. She wanted to shoot for the wow factor. For those who would be happy to get in anywhere a coach can probably push them in the right direction and a realistic assessment or maybe a, “Don’t waste your time there. You have no chance,” would have been helpful. But in the end whether she ended up with more acceptances or not really doesn’t matter. She can only go to one school.</p>
<p>Well, of course you want better results from college auditions if you are hiring a college audition coach. It’s very different from an acting coach or a voice teacher. We met with one once and she provided referrals that were very helpful and well worth the 80 bucks. Many of her students were coached for years, not training, specific college audition coaching. I’m sure on the whole they will do better than those folks who are clueless, but there’s a lot of grey area in between those two extremes.</p>
<p>sassystage~ not getting the correlation between those who would be happy to get in anywhere and using a coach. We had a realistic, competitive list which we created in collaboration with a coach who listened to what my son wanted and assessed how his talent matched up to that list. I trusted her expertise and knowledge of this crazy MT audition process. Would he have had acceptances with out a coach? Probably. As I said in a previous post, it was just much less stressful navigating the process.</p>
<p>@DaddyW: I do not think that you will ever find the “stat” that you seek. In order to prove a hypothesis that expensive private coaching makes a difference, you would have to control for talent, commitment, process-knowledge and skills of applicants, to name only a few of the factors likely at work in this process. </p>
<p>For example, suppose you were able to accumulate raw data on acceptances that showed a better “yield” with expensive coaches, but all you had were rates of acceptance. That data would not tell you much, because it could be that the applicants that used coaches were also, on average and prior to coaching, more talented, committed, process-knowledgeable, and/or skilled than other applicants. </p>
<p>If the data that you accumulated showed little difference in yield between those who used expensive coaching and those who did not, it could be that the “top talent” does not tend to use coaches and their successful results mask out the fact that coaches helped a whole bunch of “mid-tier” talent gain acceptances over their “mid-tier” peers. Or one could hypothesize that applicants from some, or perhaps many, PA HS’s probably make less use of professional coaches on average because their schools offer lots of training in audition preparation and their yields are perhaps higher, on average, than the entirety of non-PA applicants. Their data would skew the statistics. The same would likely be true for applicants from strong youth theatre programs, etc.</p>
<p>In order to derive a meaningful statistic showing the efficacy of coaching, you would have to be able to compare applicants of otherwise equal talent, process-knowledge, commitment, skills and who-knows-what-other-factors before coaching, some who used coaches and some who did not. Good luck ever finding that data.</p>
<p>I don’t really see how you can call it expensive. It is no more than SAT coaching/class, which is simply learning the tips and tricks to up your score- it works. It is no more than athletes pay to create that highlight video and go to showcases. It can save you time and money. I can help you find programs you can afford. It can take over the job of telling your kid they might not want to audition for school X because their dance skills do not measure up or school Z because they would be better suited to school Y because their acting is better than their singing. You do no need MORE acceptances, you need SOME acceptances to schools where you fit. A whole lot of rejections tells you nothing and puts everyone in a bad mood. I’m not trying to sell these services. If you stay away, mine may have a better chance. But CC is supposed to be helpful I think it would be helpful and I want all your wonderful children to be successful. I think everyone needs a mentor.</p>
<p>Agree with your post #72, EmsDad! There would be no way to measure it.</p>
<p>For the record, my own kid did not have a “college audition coach.” She had her private voice teacher for five years and so in her final year, she did work on audition songs with him in voice lessons. In terms of monologue prep, she did work with an acting teacher/coach for five months privately as she had not had any drama/acting classes or anything. For dance, she had danced at her studio all of her life and continued with classes, nothing private. Nobody was a “college audition coach.”</p>
<p>However, I do think it helps to get some individual prep help with songs and monologues but this could simply be with your voice teacher and then maybe you have a drama teacher or someone at your local theater who can advise you on your monologue prep. College audition coaches are one option but there are other options too. I do think training and prep with mentors helps in terms of anyone pursuing such a field, not unlike a potential flute major who would work on their pieces with a private teacher or an art student getting portfolio guidance with an art teacher and so on. Mentors and teachers help with training and this is advisable but can take many forms and doesn’t have to be a “college audition coach” per se. Someone familiar with having trained or advised others who have pursued this field in college is ideal, however. </p>
<p>My advice is not to hire a coach with the goal of “better results,” but with the goal of mentoring and helping the student prepare and train. No matter how good a coach is (or even a college counselor), the student him/herself is still the one who has to be admitted and it is his/her talent and rest of his/her record that will get him/her in. Advisors and coaches can help a student prepare and present him/herself to the best of their ability but cannot change someone’s ability or get them admitted if they would not otherwise be on their own. A student certainly can get admitted without all these coaches or advisors. But getting assistance might make the process less overwhelming and can guide the student to present him/herself as well as they can. But the rest is really up to the student’s own talents and abilities.</p>
<p>Cross posted with Theatremomma but agree about the value of mentors in and of themselves and not so much about “results.”</p>
<p>I agree with theatremomma and soozievt (and everyone else) - my d comes from many years of competitive softball (and we have best friends on the baseball side) and the amount of money expended for coaching and training in the pursuit of college scholarships (which turn out to be mostly partial rides to in-state public schools, by the way) that we observed was unbelieveable (easily on the order of $5,000-10,000 per year per player). But if you didn’t do it, you were generally behind the curve (unless you were a 1%-er uber jock, and guess what, most of them were leading the pack in dollars expended).</p>
<p>While MT coaching can seem like a lot of money, you can get effective help for a lot less than what we saw on the sports side of things. It sure seems to be a good investment when you ratio it against the downside of not optimizing your efforts in this complex process.</p>
<p>Most of the kids I know who have pursued audition based programs, have had someone help them prep their songs and monologues but these were not necessarily always “college audition coaches.” I think someone helping with prep who has expertise is beneficial. Keep in mind that so many of one’s competitors for these programs will have gotten some form of help in preparing (and again, not necessarily through “college audition coaches”). It may be their local voice and acting teachers.</p>
<p>To clarify- I didn’t mean anything negative by getting in anywhere (admittedly that sounds bad). The coach’s job is to get your kid into a school. That’s what they advertise. That’s how they measure success. That’s why we hire them. Sadly, not all kids are competitive at the top tier schools and many who are don’t get in. So they steer students into programs that are more likely to accept them. That’s not a bad thing but I’ve seen a lot of very talented kids in tears because while they have acceptances they did not get the results they wanted. Right now there are probably hundreds of MT hopefuls who would be happy to get in anywhere.</p>
<p>I concur with post #64 and glassmenagerie (I’m sorry, I’ve forgotten your handle)</p>
<p>Getting an objective and realistic assessment of talent is crucial when our kids are considering performance as a career.</p>
<p>My wife and I grew-up as performers, even into our adulthood. I have been involved in directing and teaching in a youth theatre setting for the past 6-years and my wife has taught dance and been a choreographer. I have had to cast many shows and have evaluated hundreds of 8 to 18-year-olds through audition processes. But when it came to my own son, I had to get an outside opinion. Sadly (Im ashamed to say) I underestimated his talent. I had to have someone with the right eye tell me he could perform at the next level and beyond.</p>
<p>I have had many of the opposite experiences with other kids. In our youth theatre setting we are very positive and we attempt to assign everyone a unique part in the shows. We encourage and develop kids and sometimes we cast folks on effort over talent. This has at times caused parents and actors to have inflated views of their talent.</p>
<p>Case in point: One young man had been cast multiple times in lead roles. He was a great dancer, funny actor, average singer. He was a bass that stretched into baritone range and he blew his voice out every single show (until I started directing him and limited his rehearsal vocals and made him a tea concoction.) He did not consult me when he auditioned for the school he wanted. He went in over confident and ill prepared, blew the audition, and did not get accepted (which was quite a blow to his ego.) Honestly, he needs to be a dance major that can act and sing a bit or he needs to be an actor who can dance and sing a bit. He needed someone to tell him that, but he (nor his parents) never asked.</p>
<p>I agree that getting a realistic assessment of one’s talent is very important in this type of college admissions process.</p>
<p>
glassharmonica, but I like glassmenagerie, too.</p>