I wanted to see how many schools people applied to, how many acceptances each person had and whether or not they had a coach. I wanted to keep user names anonymous, but I did get 42 data points and here’s what I found:
person #schools#acceptances coach
1 12 3 n
2 5 2 n
3 12 7 y
4 4 2 n
5 16 4 y
6 15 7 ?
7 14 10 y
8 1 1 n
9 12 5 n
10 9 2 n
11 15 2 n
12 ? 8 y
13 13 3 y
14 11 6 y
15 8 5 n
16 13 2 n
17 3 1 n
18 12 5 n
19 13 4 y
20 16 4 y
21 11 2 y
22 10 4 n
23 9 6 n
24 20 5 n
25 11 7 n
26 11 3 n
27 18 7 y
28 16 5 n
29 20 8 n
30 14 7 n
31 18 6 y
32 17 5 y
33 16 5 n
34 16 3 y
35 19 6 n
36 15 6 n
37 20 4 y
38 12 3 y
39 25 17 n
40 16 2 n
41 10 3 n
42 11 5 y
A few caveats for analysis.
I had to sometimes make a best guess for the # of schools. Sometimes, people applied to schools later and I tried my best to capture that. If somebody applied to a school and then didn’t audition, I still counted it.
For acceptances (and schools applied), I counted the school if somebody mentioned acting bfa or a redirect to ba musical theatre or ba acting. I did not count a re-direct to theatre studies as an acceptance.
Most people separated out non audition schools by calling them “safeties.” But, if somebody included them in acceptances, I counted them as I in no way know all the schools.
For coaches, I let each person say what counted as a coach. Some people counted their local folks as coaches, some did not. If they said they had a coach, it counted :).
I could not get accurate data from one person’s story, so did not include it here.
A few analysis observations
The # of schools has definitely increased from last year from people commenting on college confidential. The higher #'s from last year were often times from people who added schools later.
Advice from most audition people is that if you apply to 10 schools, you will get, on average, 1-2 acceptances. That doesn’t seem to be the case from the people who shared their stories last year (the averages seemed much higher).
Anyway, hoping my fellow data analysis geeks like this data. Would love to see if anyone has additional insights.
Also, a caveat/question regarding your observation would be, are those applications all audition schools or non-auditions as well? I think the 10 schools yielding 1-2 acceptances has been regarding audition schools only. For example, if someone applied to Muhlenberg and got in, that’s an academic acceptance and wouldn’t necessarily count toward 10 schools yielding 1-2 acceptances.
@lovetoact. Thanks so much! I probably should have separated out boys vs girls, but didn’t. Most people didn’t list schools like Muhlenberg, but some listed redirects to BFA acting or BA MT. From memory (and not analysis), I still think people got more than 1-2 acceptances per 10 schools even if taking these out (but I am going on best guess)…
Thanks for doing this @artandtechmom - fascinating. Another point to make… sometimes when you read CC it feels like “everyone” used a coach, and you can start to panic if you didn’t… but looking at this, the majority of people from last year 25/42 by my count) did not.
LOL, @MTDad2025! I would guess that person 8 applied to their favorite school early decision or early action, had a November audition and was accepted immediately, so they didn’t need to apply anywhere else. I’m sure it wasn’t like “I’ll just apply to one school, I’m sure it’ll be fine!” LOL
Great information. I am sure that took quite a bit of time and it is much appreciated. You all may disagree, but I think in previous years, the idea of receiving 1-2 acceptances generally has meant actual MT acceptances. I am not sure I would consider redirects to another degree an MT acceptance, although they are great options to have. I think 1-2 acceptances also was the norm when it was the norm to apply to 10 or so programs. The increased number of applications perhaps has led to an uptick in number of acceptances also? I also think from what I’ve read hear, applicants are considering a much broader range of schools which can also help.
@vvnstar - I can only speak for myself, but I would consider a re-direct from BFA MT to BFA acting as an acceptance - particularly in schools where both programs are highly regarded and there is crossover - for example CMU, Pace, NYU, Otterbein etc. I do agree that I would not count a re- direct from an audition program into a non-auditioned one, for example theater studies etc, as an acceptance
@artskids - A classmate of your son’s (And friend of my daughter) was accepted to BW from the November audition, and never went anywhere else. He’s such a great kid, I remember him being supportive of my D as she waited for results, while joking that he had no idea what she was going through, because he had been lucky enough to be finished before some people had even finished all their applications.
I think that’s hard to do, El-Cee, because there are too many variables. Correlation is not causation. In other words, if person A used a coach and got 10 acceptances, and person B did not use a coach and got only 1 acceptance, there’s no way to know if the coach was the reason for the difference or not. Maybe person A is much more talented than person B, or is a more in-demand type. Or maybe A applied to many more programs than person B, which increased the odds of more acceptances. Or maybe A applied to less-selective programs that were easier to get into, while B only applied to CMU and Pace and BoCo. There’s just no way to know.
@actorparent1, yay! a fellow stat nerd! Yes, I definitely agree with your comment :). Interestingly, if you just look on percent accepted and take the median, it is pretty similar for both groups.
@El-Cee, as mentioned above I’m not seeing a huge difference in percent acceptances. The only trends I spotted was that 1)non coached people tend to apply to less than 10 or more than 19 schools and qualitatively 2) coached people reported in the comments that the coach helped to create a balanced list and help support the student through the process. But as @actorparent1 says, these are just trends and you won’t ever know if a coach specifically got a person into a school.
@artandtechmom Thank you for putting this together! The way I see it, is to take much of the stats w a grain of salt, and try to see what story the data is telling, and I use it to satisfy my curiousity. I’ve looked at past years of boards to see if ‘student A’ gets accepted to ‘x school’, what other schools did that student get accepted to…and is there any trends I can find…convoluted process and I’ve not figured it all out yet, but if I get there, I’ll be happy to post my findings…
So…all that being said, I looked at the numbers you posted and found that of the 42 students, the average number of schools applied to was 13.15, and the average number accepted was 4.81.
No Coach average # schools applied to was 12.25 w avg acceptances of 4.56.
With Coach average # schools applied to was 14.53 w avg acceptances of 5.06.
And since the average doesn’t always tell the full story, I looked at the medians of the 42 students
Did the same thing w median…
Total students median # schools applied to was 13, and median acceptances of 5
No Coach median # schools applied to was 12, and median acceptances of 5
With Coach median # schools applied to was 14, and median acceptances of 4
Overall, with all the competitiveness of trying to get in, this last years group of students did really well, and many/most of them had options. Hopefully, this gives the up and comers something positive to look at too!
BAL to each and every one of our kids trying to get out there and do what they love to the best of their abilities!
@lithpool, thanks so much for the analysis. I love descriptive stats too, but yes, I agree do need to take them with a grain of salt
I also want to say that my kiddo is personally using an audition coach (MCA) this year and couldn’t be more pleased. We didn’t get a coach to get into more schools, but rather to help with the process, build more confidence and better performance skills, and network with like-minded people. MCA has helped on all aspects of this.
I put the yes/no coach question in there because I wanted to see whether that was a factor in the amount of schools applied/accepted, etc. and from this data set, I don’t think there is much of a difference. But, I didn’t want people to come to the conclusion that coaches aren’t helpful, because people who have used them felt they were a huge asset.
@artandtechmom While S didn’t use a coach, he definitely had support from multiple sources. I believe that we each do what we can do to put our best foot forward, whether it be a coach, practice, meditation, prayer, visualization, lucky rabbits foot, etc.
Thank you again for pulling the data. It was fun to analyze!
