<p>At Michigan, the speaker addressed the illness issue. "Everyone gets sick here," he says. I figure that they have been in the business long enough to be able to see through nasty colds. My son thought he had a cold going into that audition, but it was just that overscented hotel room, but he had a very stuffy nose going into the auditions. It cleared up later in the day and was fine at CCM, but he did feel that he sounded nasal at the Michigan auditions. But I think it would be a good idea to offer to reaudition if the voice judge feels he cannot hear what he needs to hear because of the snuffles and rasps. I think the voice and the general presentation of the kid as a whole is what matters the most at these things. I spoke to a number of kids already in the programs who had to start at ground zero with music theory, had 2 left feet and no previous dance instruction, could not play the piano, but no one said he/she could not sing. </p>
<p>I had already seen CCM, Emerson, CMU so the visit was not so important at those schools. I had never seen Michigan, and would have like to have looked around the campus a bit more. MT kid will have to go back and forth between Main and North campuses as the theatres and dance studio are on Main and the School of Music which houses the MT program is on North. MT students are housed on North, I was told. Main is the campus near the town of Ann Arbor which I really liked. </p>
<p>There were not many kids auditioning at the first Michigan audition this year either but there were some really high powered resumes. Quite intimidating, really. Particularly among the boys. Several with professional credits already, homeschoolers, kids with connections. Of course, I did not see the audition. I met 3 kids accepted from last year's November group which I thought was a lot and I don't know if that was it or how many accepted did not matriculate. The speaker said that all of the top schools tend to compete for the same kids so there is that issue as well. There was one class where UM overaccepted but I don't remember whether it was last year's or not. And I met several kids who were accepted off of the waitlist in previous years.</p>
<p>The CMU audition also had some intense kid in there, and the kids running the auditions were much more laid back than the very enthusiastic Michigan kids. Saw some of the same people including my friend at both auditions. The kids did tell S that more kids tend to get in from the earlier groups. The parents were left to sit in a classroom with deskarm chairs while the kids went and did their auditons and I did not think that was conducive to much conversation, so some of us hung out in the much more comfortable University Center lounge. Both Michigan and CMU let kids auditon early if they had other travel plans and wanted to get out of there. We did not at CMU, but my son was in the first batch so he was out quickly. At Michigan, he was run through early after the dance audition. Everyone seems very open about where else the applications have been filed even to the administrators. Very natural to ask, very natural to answer which I found unusual. Also the parents were very helpful. </p>
<p>Don't know when my friend's son has his Emerson audition. I had referred this site to her. I do believe she is staying at a hotel right near the school but not the Radison where we stayed.(Funny, we stayed at the same place in Michigan, but did not know it as we did not get in touch after CMU and I had not thought to ask when I saw her in Pittsburgh. I was last minute anyways making the reservations that week) She is very knowledgeable in selective school admissions, but I found that she did not know too much about MT. This site is really a gem for anyone interested in this field of study. Her son has applied ED to NYU Tisch and she had no idea about the Steinhardt vs Tisch schools, and other things that are discussed on this thread.
She did tell me that her neighbor's D goes to Tisch Strasberg Studio and that there is a severe shortage of males at that studio and at CAP21, possibly all of the Tisch studios. Not the case at CMU, Emerson and Michigan, and S said that Syracuse was lopsided with males too. So have fun, everyone with the auditions, and good luck. (Can't bring myself to say "break a leg")</p>