<p>I have a question about majoring in theatre, conservatory programs, and transferring.
I am currently a rising sophmore at a no-name state school and I am interested in transferring. I understand that I may need to enroll as a freshman in order to complete an acting program. I have been acting since I was about 6, but only locally. I always liked acting and received good feedback, but I never knew if I was good enough to audition for "top" concervatory programs. I know a lot of people who did specialized high school programs to prepaire for college auditions. Is this sort of prior training needed? I did a summer session at UNCSA one summer and got mixed feedback, but that's the only real professional feedback I have received. Would it be a waste of my time to audition for top programs? Also, I can't sing or dance...
After reading a good number of forums and lists and such, here are the schools that attract me:</p>
<p>"stretch schools" (I would suspect)
- Boston University
- DePaul
- Syracuse
- NYU
- Ithica
- Calarts
- Emerson
(I don't want to audition for schools with singing requirments, like UNCSA. I also got denied from CMU last year, so that's out)</p>
<p>Others I've heard are good that are attractive to me:</p>
<p>-Sarah Lawrence
-San Diego
-Fordham
-Hofstra
-UC Irvine
-Collumbia College
-Penn State
-Obertein
-UNC Chapel Hill
-UWash</p>
<p>Can anyone recommend or warn against any of the above schools, or offer any suggestions for other programs given my situation?
My gpa is a 3.7...</p>
<p>I would look into Adelphi University (right next door to Hofstra). My D is a rising junior, and she knows many students who have transferred into the BFA, and not all of them have to start as freshmen.</p>
<p>Fordham, Otterbein, and Penn State are all auditioned schools, so you should consider them “stretches.” Columbia College Chicago would be a good safety, as they have practically open admissions. You might want to add Temple University to your list, as they are a good non-auditioned program.</p>
<p>Take a look at Webster in Missouri. Amazing. It’s not on the “top 10” list, but honestly I have no idea why not. It’s probably more of a “stretch” school. But it has great alumni credibility and fantastic training.</p>
<p>my daughter is a rising Junior at Sarah Lawrence and loves it! She is going to London this fall to attend the British American Drama Academy this fall for “BFA” experience.</p>
<p>If you are applying for BFA acting, the singing portion of the audition is really just to hear the tone and quality of your voice as it relates to acting. It is not to hear your singing. So don’t discount a program because of that audition requirement. I’ve read too that sometimes schools that say they will ask for this don’t even ask.</p>
<p>dramamom0804 – I think you are right for most schools but I don’t think that is case for UNCSA where my daugther is going. They do quite a bit of MT work in the program and put a musical on every year. They just recently had to perform a monologue and a song in front of the factulty and she said it was amazing how good the voices were from so many. Given that, it is hard not to think that the actual quality of the singing plays a role in the decision making. Purchase, on the other hand, requires singing as well but they don’t put on any musicals and do not have much, if any, MT component in the training so I would suspect quality of singing does not play a role there.</p>
<p>I agree acting dad. After I posted I thought about NCSA and realized I should have made a special note for them. They are a bit unique in that respect, from what I’ve read.
As an aside, my D just took a very hard look at their curriculum and faculty and is very interested in the school. I mean, she was interested before but didn’t have all the specifics down and now that she does she says the school is in her top 5. We will be curious what your D thinks as the year goes along!</p>