<p>MomofaPrincess: I loved your earlier post and you are right on! Well said.</p>
<p>Rejected from CCM (expected and not a big disappointment).</p>
<p>Also rejected from CCM and wasn't upset. Just not the right "fit" for me. Even though I really did want to go to school there...I could kind of tell during my audition it wasn't the right place to go.</p>
<p>Thank you Newbie. The problem with a rejection is it seems so subjective and personal. I want to thank Tiffw for starting this thread. I hope all of us can post eventually on the "acceptance" thread. In the meantime, I like to look at it objectively. 1000 people audition - 20 can post on the acceptance thread. That makes 980 of us able to post on the rejection thread. If 2% get in a school, that means NINETY-EIGHT PERCENT get rejected. By any standard of the term "normal", that means getting rejected makes you NORMAL. It doesn't mean you are a reject...it doesn't mean you aren't talented...it just means that statistically you are normal, certainly not alone, and in a much larger group of people than the accepted group. </p>
<p>Here's another statistic I learned recently - 90% of all actors are unemployed. Another thing to look forward to down the road. This is not for the faint of heart. When I talk of these odds to parents of kids pursuing other college majors, they look at me like we are crazy. That is the nice thing about this board. We know our kids aren't crazy. They do this because they have to - they live and breathe this life and can't imagine doing anything else. And I've also been told that is the way you have to be to make it in this business.</p>
<p>The next couple of months will no doubt be quite an emotional roller-coaster for both students and parents as auditions wind down and notifications are received. This Board can be a great source of support and information. It can also be a source of stress as you read about acceptances and wonder why you haven't heard from the same school and assume the "worst".</p>
<p>Please know that there is often no rhyme or reason to what appear to be "patterns"of notifications. At a given school, some students will report receiving phone calls, some emails, some letters and some will be banging their heads against the wall wondering why they have received nothing. Acceptances and rejections come both early and late and often in waves. At one well known school to which my daughter applied, there were 3 separate waves of notifications, none of them appearing to correlate to audition dates. Based on what was reported on this Board, the first wave seemed to have more acceptances than rejections and the second wave more rejections than acceptances. My daughter was in the 3rd wave, hearing after many students who auditioned a month or more after she did. After reading about all the rejections from the first 2 waves, not having received a congratulatory phone call that others reported and seeing what appeared to be a pattern of increasing rejections, you can imagine what we were feeling. And then she got an acceptance letter with a large scholarship. Admissions offices sometimes get to a student's name on a list, well, simply when they get to it. </p>
<p>The point is, don't allow what you read on this Board or hear from others make you nuts. The reality is that you simply can't predict the outcome from what is occurring with others. And try not to feel overwhelmed by the "odds". I know it's tough, but remember that many very high quality schools accept significantly more students than the intended class size because of anticipated yield. You very often have the same pool of students applying to the same schools so that the total number of different auditioners is not nearly as great as the sum of all auditions at each school in a geographic area. If you have put together a good diverse list of schools that are well matched to the academic and talent strengths that you bring to the table, particularly if you have included some non-audition BA schools with strong MT programs, the odds are that your student will receive an acceptance from a school at which your student will have a very gratifying experience.</p>
<p>Hang in their and best wishes to all of you for an end result that makes you and your student smile!</p>
<p>Rejected from CCM.</p>
<p>I suppose I'm not surprised..</p>
<p>I want to thank MichaelNKat for his message. Yours is a voice of reason and calm in the midst of all our anxiety. I plan to print your response and refer to it often. My son had his last audition yesterday and now he has, i think, at least a two week break before he hears. My mantra is "it is what it is." My son trained well, did his best, put his heart and soul into this--and now it's up to the schools. How they select from so many talented kids is a mystery to me Best wishes to all of you!</p>
<p>It's true that if they offer 40 acceptances to get their 20 openings, your odds just got better. Who is in the pool though - I don't understand how that changes anything. Whether it's the same 800 that auditioned at another school or a different 800, it seems statistically you'd still have 40 chances at that school. (diluted or increased by ratio of male/female factors) </p>
<p>Obviously the more schools you audition at the more you've increased your chances.</p>
<p>Your odds of having a spot in at least one school on your list get better. In very simplistic terms, let's say there are 20 spots at 5 schools for a total of 100 seats in the freshman classes. 600 kids audition at each school. Sounds like 3000 students but nope, it's really only 1500 because half the kids are auditioning at the same schools in one combination or another. And let's say that each school accepts twice as many students (40) as the actual number of seats (20) because of the anticipated yield curve. So 200 acceptances are going to go out to a total of 1500 different students.</p>
<p>So at school A, your chances of an acceptance are roughly 6% even though the freshman class will be about 3% of the number of applicants (remember, yield vs acceptances, 20 vs 40). Across all 5 schools, however, your odds get much better that there will be a seat for you. 100 actual seats for 1500 different applicants, 6.6% (as compared to a 3% freshman class if you fixate on one school). And 200 hundred acceptances spread out among 1500 different students even better the odds although the math becomes too complicated for the hypothetical (because you need to factor in the spreads of the applicants with respect to each of the schools).</p>
<p>While my math overly simplifies the process, my point is this. Everyone gets caught up in looking at the small number of seats and large number of auditioners at each school and forgets that there is a large overlap of students auditioning at the same schools. The ratio of total number of freshman seats to total number of students auditioning is much more favorable than the total number of freshman seats to the total number of auditions because students audition at multiple schools and overlap each other. That's why the key is to carefully and methodically put together a diverse list of schools that are well matched to the student. In that manner you can maximize the probability of a good outcome. And the odds of a good outcome are really greater than simply dividing the number of seats in the freshman class by the number of auditions at the school. </p>
<p>Of course, all of this doesn't mean it isn't a tough, fiercely competitive process. It is. But don't let the naked "numbers" overwhelm you. There's a lot more to realizing a successful outcome than the mere "statistics".</p>
<p>My D has a reject from Point Park and I'm at the mailbox waiting for answers from 9 more schools. No news is....no news.</p>
<p>sualabama, sorry to hear about PPU. :( Hang in there. I feel sure that good things are coming your D's way. (And MichaelNKat, thanks for that post. I think it helps us all to put things in perspective.)</p>
<p>When a school says they offer 40 acceptances wanting to yield 20 students....do they mail out all 40 at once.....and put them at risk to get more than 20...or do they mail out 20 and wait to hear if those students aren't accepting before sending out another round?</p>
<p>I think it varies by school. Some have apparently learned in recent years (as the number of applicants/auditioners has risen) not to offer admission to twice as many as they can take, lest they end up with a class twice the size of what they originally intended. Most colleges base their offers on what their yield has been (the number of accepted kids who accepted them) for several years past. Of course, as MichaelNKat pointed out, many of the same kids audition for the same programs, and until the geniuses at MIT can figure out how to let one person be in two places at the same time (wouldn't that be a great tool for moms?:)), a kid can only accept one program, leaving room for others.</p>
<p>It really can vary from school to school for a variety of reasons. Some schools have very small programs and a relatively tight yield so the number of acceptances is small. Other schools have larger programs. Some have lower yield rates and therefore more "headroom" between the number of acceptances and the number of spots. Some schools use "wait lists" and others don't. Add to it the great variances in number of applicants across different schools and the logistics of getting notifications out can be greatly different.</p>
<p>I have to say that the trip I made with my son to Indiana Univ and the Chicago unifieds was one of the best experiences I have had. We spent a lot of time talking about a lot of things and made a lot of connections we hadn't had in a while due to every one's busy schedules. I will probably remember the trip more than any of the letters generated by the auditions. With that said, he got a rejection letter from Penn State today, I was really sorry since this is my alma mater and I have so many great memories. In retrospect, he felt at the time that it was his worst audition. Oh well, seven more to go, as well as two more auditions left.</p>
<p>Sorry to hear about your son. Good luck with future schools. I didn't know Penn State was sending out letters so soon.</p>
<p>Sorry impalanut about your son. I feel your pain! My D also got rejected from Indiana and Penn State. My understanding about Penn State is that if your student does not get a callback for an interview (at the audition itself), he/she has been rejected. The "maybe's" and "yes's" for the MT BFA are those who get the callback interviews. So you actually don't need the letter to know if you're not in. You know that very second after you audition (if you are auditioning at PSU). I don't understand why the heck Penn State has to do this to the kids right there on site, in person -- can they not just send a rejection letter after the kids return home and call it a day?</p>
<p>I agree that from the viewpoint of those auditioning, it may seem cruel - but the complaint is often made about auditions that 4-10 minutes isn't really enough time to get to know the students well enough to decide who they want. This way, the auditors do get to spend some more time with those they call back. The other alternatives are to hold a separate callback session, which is time and cost prohibitive for many folks, or to accept some, then decide to cut them once they are in the program. </p>
<p>My daughter did not audition for Penn State, and I vaguely recall complaints on here from past years about how the news was delivered. I don't know if there would be a less painful way of letting the students know, but I am not opposed to the concept in general. And, although no one wants bad news, knowing immediately may be kinder than waiting for months to find out.</p>
<p>Regarding Penn State, are the "call backs" at Unifieds actually a separate, true call back where the students leave the audition room and then come back for a later interview, or are they just an extended interview that follows directly after the monologue/songs?</p>
<p>With regards to Penn State, on campus first all auditoneers go to an hour group dance session and then all do a ballet and jazz audition..Next the kids go individually to do their monologues and songs. After that the auditioner is either told that they are free to go or they are invited to stay for the rest of the day. By tis time they have been observed for aat least an hour and a half. If they stay they will have an interviews with the entire faculty, and sometimes sing again, especialy if there were 2 rooms going at once. In this way the entire faculty hears the student. Then they are all taken individually for a theory/sight singing/piano session. This means that those under consideration spend a lot of time at the school that day, not just 10 minutes, and get<em>†ø</em>meet the kids in the program. I do believe that except for the last part the entire audition is videotaped, as are the ones at Unifieds. I have seen the comments of how this process is cruel, but it is very similar to the ones in the real world at summer stock and national tousr and other auditions. Lots of times at those they type cast the auditioners out before they dance a step or sing a note! Sometimes the real world is cruel, and this is not an easy business. No one likes to be rejected, but this method seems to work for PSU. I guess if one is applying they will learn this as it is made clear at the info session that if you are not asked to stay then you will not be admitted. My D is a fr MT there, and the MT kids go to the auditions, help, and are allowed to observe the dancing and singing/momologue auditions as well, This did not bother my D last year, and she says that it is very educationa to observe the audition from the other side. Caveat Emptor. ;')</p>