<p>In looking at the 2005-2006 audition dates as they appear and trying to figure out how to schedule auditions, I am wondering about auditioning at school A on day 1, flying to the next location that night, and auditioning on day 2 at school B. This subject has come up before, but now that the process is over and done for you, if you did this, did it work out? Would you do it again that way? Would you advise us to schedule that way? We'll be flying from California so each trip is one whole day to get there and one whole day to get back.</p>
<p>Mtmommy,</p>
<p>Although I suppose I could just email you I will post in case others have similar questions. :-)</p>
<p>I flew down to Houston on a Thursday night, drove up to Huntsville and auditioned at Sam Houston on Friday afternoon, drove back down to Houston and flew up to Oklahoma City on Friday night (got in bed around midnight), woke up at 7:00 the next morning to get to OCU by 9:00, and left on Sunday. Needless to say it was a crazy, crazy weekend and by Sunday night I was totally spent but I think that was due in large part to the fact that I went up to OCU by myself and it was pretty stressful to have to rely on (notoriously unreliable) taxis to get around. Other than that, it was just fine and I was okay to audition and stuff. However, those flights were quite short and didn't require any time changes so I was lucky.</p>
<p>I would say go for it and schedule it that way, as long as you can plan every last little variable (at least, as much as possible) out in advance so that when it's time to go you can just follow the itinerary and not worry about anything besides auditioning. Also I made sure to get as much sleep as possible the entire week before (I'm glad I did that, as I fed off it that weekend)!</p>
<p>Yes, WE did that. My child had 8 auditions. As you likely know, most auditions are set for the months of January and February and so it is hard to fit in all those trips (plus the expense) and most of these kids (and I know this is true of your D too) have very hectic schedules at home with shows they are in and classes/training that they take so if you can minimize the number of trips, it helps. Also if flights or long car rides are involved, it kinda cuts time and money to combine two auditions. My child did one EA audition in December to kinda get one under her belt and to spread it out a little cause so many were concentrated in a two month period. When we culled all the information of possible audition dates, we tried to group any "pairs" together that we could, if it worked for us and for the dates and locations. Sometimes, you can't line the audition dates up with your first choice date and don't hear back right away and must provide options. But if you keep on TOP of the audition appointment process with each school (and it really varies in terms of procedure) and you get the calls or emails or whatever they want, in as soon as it is allowed, you might get your first choice audition dates (we always did but again, did the contacting as soon as it was permissable). Anyway, every kid has a different list but for us, we were able to combine Syracuse with Ithaca on one weekend and Penn State with Carnegie Mellon on one weekend, so that was two less trips there. I'd say the only drawback to this is that if it is your FIRST campus visit when you go to the audition, and the audition does take up a good deal of the day, you might not get to do the full array of things you might have done on a college trip to one school because the time is more limitted and you have to travel that night to the next place. We were still able to fit stuff in at each place but the time is slightly more limitted that way. But in some ways, your kid is on a roll...kinda like in audition "mode" and hyped up to do it for the weekend and very into it. For my child, these were some of her most sucessful auditions come to think of it. You gotta just look at your list and the logistics of how it would work and build a two school combination audition into one weekend trip. I don't think this is unrealistic (found others doing it when we were) compared to at Unifieds (which we did not do) when a kid might audition at maybe five schools in one weekend. The two college trip is still a full day (or more) at one school. </p>
<p>Susan</p>
<p>We did two sets of triples-an audition on FRI, SAT, SUN. He also had his NYU audition midweek with those triple bookending it. But we were trying tosqueeze as much in before winter arrived. S did not find this problematic but some kids might. It is really difficult to predict how things work out the best. If S had gotten sick that week, for instance, we would have had a problem since the bulk of his auditions were centered during that short time span. I think after he finished that block of auditions, he did reach a new skill and comfort level. He was now a pretty seasoned auditioner, and knew the ropes quite well. My friend whose son did 9 auditions in one day at Unifieds, said that he wished he had been able to do a marathon like that at the onset of the audition season. It would have jumpstarted him well in the process. There is an understandable awkwardness when you start this process as it is new to you. My planning multi trips you can also save money, as Susan points out. This is not an inexpensive venture, particularly if a parent is accompanying the child and airfare is involved. Despite careful planning and scheduling we did have some things occur where we had to cancel tickets, buy last minute tickets, jump at the last minute; all due to unpredictable events. I'm still stuck with two airline tickets that are good for a year that cannot be refunded, and the trip is between two cities that we are unlikely to visit.</p>
<p>jamimom -</p>
<p>do you mean he had one audition a day for 3 days? For 3 different schools? And for what schools were you able to schedule them so that they worked out geographicallly? so - he auditioned for 7 schools total? (or am I mis-understanding?) And he did not do the Unifieds?</p>
<p>So many questions....here - I am still trying to get us the flights to Pittsburgh for the CMU summer program! Whew! Get that travel agent hat on!</p>
<p>Thanks for your generosity (and Soozievt too!! as always!) in sharing your travel logistics with us.</p>
<p>janenw</p>
<p>If I remember correctly we did it in 6 days in February. It is easier to schedule acting auditions as compared to MT auditions because they don't require as much time. We drove to San Francisco to do 4 auditions,
and then drove to LA to do the rest of the auditions at the LAX Hilton, and one other hotel near by. We stayed over night 2 nights in LA at the Hilton. That was a very good thing. It gave my S a good night sleep in between the San Francisco and LA auditions. </p>
<p>At one point in my scheduling we were supposed to go to Las Vegas to audition for Hartt. When I realized it was going to be hard to go to Las Vegas, San Francisco, and then LA within 6 days, (driving) I called Hartt and asked if they would please reschedule us for an LA audition. They were very accommodating.</p>
<p>Yep. Friday, Saturday, Sunday auditions. Home for the week, NYU on Wednesday and then Friday, Sat and Sunday auditions. He auditioned for more 10 schools in three months-the marathon in November, two schools in October and one in December. We squeezed them all in the fall because his schedule starting in January was impossible, and it was even worse than anticipated. No time for the Unifieds. Don't know what we would have done if he had had no takers from the early answers. It would have been a tough situation. As I stated earlier, a friend of mine did about 10 auditions in the fall as well, and the feedbacks were not favorable, so they added a bunch of non audition schools to their list and scheduled auditions at Unifieds. A tip from her was that the Las Vegas, San Francisco and LA Unifieds are less packed so you can really pile them on there. NY and Chicago did not allow for much in the way of walk ins--you would have had to schedule and allow leeway in between auditions, and many of the schools were too busy to schedule walkins. Her son scheduled some auditions but snagged a lot of walkins and some schools even doubled up cuz business was a little slow there at the west coast auditions. He did well from what his mother said, despite what seemed to me an absolutely crazy day. He got some nice choices and even merit money from some of those schools without having to visit them, and most of them did not charge audition fees which I believe we paid for every single school. They got a cheap flight out there, stayed at the same hotel that was holding the auditions which was right on airport grounds or nearby so it was alot of bang for the buck. The only drawback ifor them was that the auditions were late in the season so it was old hat for the kid and there was a bit of desperation in the effort. As it turned out, he ended up with choices from the fall auditions as well from schools that deferred him and even a school that they were sure was a rejection. So you really can't tell how you did on an audition or if it even mattered. If they take you, they take you. Can't really predict. May have needed your type and there was a shortage of it. You could have hit the chord (literally) with the auditioner, or you could have been great but there were so many of your type that it was a crapshoot who they would take. I know that kid had one audition where he thought they loved him and he was going to be in, and it did not turn out that way. My son was accepted at a program where the auditioners did not seem to be the slightest bit interest in him--he was the last in a long day and they seemed to just want to get him out; they were half falling asleep; he was quite upset about that. Yet he got in and some kids did not who were in there earlier and got to strut there stuff several different ways and got some positive remarks.</p>
<p>Unifieds - someone brought them up. Do you have to apply to every individual school before you audition for them at Unifieds? Is it different than a regular audition? Sorry for getting off the topic!</p>
<p>My friend's son did not apply to a single school at the Unified auditions until he auditioned for them. In fact, he picked up the apps at the auditions. He also did not have appointments for most of the schools, but he did have some appointments. It is not wise to go without at least some appointments, and if you are eyeing some schools in particular, it is wise to make the appointment as they may be full when you get there. You are taking a chance if you do not have a time slot. Also the young man was told by a couple of schools that they were not taking any more appointments, but when he got there those schools did have some open slots and he did auditon with positive results for one of the schools. Now they did this is as last chance sort of thing, as they had already done the audition rounds in the fall, and even a few schools in the new year, but they were not happy with the early feedback and wanted as many options as possible. I would not advise anyone to count on the Unifieds for a spot,unless it is the only way possible, but as a supplement to the process. Mainly because they do come late in the process, and you could get sick, the weather could derail your travel plans, some schools might well be "all full" up though I was surprised to hear of the spots left at some pretty competitive programs. It seems that if a school takes the trouble to set up shop for Unifieds, it truly gives the a candidate full consideration, something Doctorjohn has said is the policy at Otterbein. From the results I have seen, it appears that other schools have done the same, as this young man was at the very last Unifieds and his results were quite positive. But then again he was quite a seasoned performer auditionwise by then too. But I truly would not tell someone to plan on just doing the Unifieds. Don't put your eggs all in one basket.</p>
<p>Beware, however. Most of the"big schools" do not accept walk-in auditions at all (some of these schools are not apart of the "Unifieds," but they audition at the same time and location as the Unified schools as a service to the applicants). Also, in terms of having space available, most of the big schools will not give out acceptances until they have seen all of the auditions. Accepting students before they have seen all the applicants seems a little strange to me, and an odd way of doing business. These schools put themselves at risk of not accepting the best class that they could possibly get by not waiting to see everybody.</p>
<p>For the NY unifieds in early Feb, we went to huge lengths to keep my D well - even to the point of not allowing her younger sister to have friends over if they had even a sniffle! [not a popular policy]</p>
<p>Also we were desperately hoping for good travel weather - no snowstorms, ice storms, etc. It was pretty tense for the 2 weeks prior to the unifieds - not something I"d care to repeat! </p>
<p>On the plus side - it WAS a lot of fun once we actually got to NYC.</p>
<p>Jamimom, I have read your account of this talented young man in various posts who did more auditions later on after an early season round of them that were not as positive and I am curious, if you are willing, to find out where he landed because I think you have said he ended up successful and it was kinda a turn around from the point his family thought he was at during the earlier part of the season. I think you said he had several offers. He sounds like a success story, in fact. Would you say so? Can you share where he ended up? </p>
<p>Susan</p>
<p>My D and I flew to Tallahassee on a Friday afternoon, she auditioned on Saturday (finished at 2:00, luckily), flew back on an earlier than scheduled flight to Atlanta and then she turned around and had a regional NYU audition the next morning (Sunday at 9:00 ) in Atlanta. Those were her tightest audition dates. She had energy for both, was pumped up to sing and act well, and she got into both. Who knows?!</p>
<p>We did have a bad experience taking the LAST FLIGHT out of Atlanta one night. The flight got delayed...at least 2 hours, and with the time change going into Illinois we didn't get to our hotel until after 12 midnight Central Time. My D got to sleep by 1:00 a.m...I had to hem some pants and was up til at least 2:00. If that flight had been canceled we probably would have had to miss that audition. MY ADVICE, don't try to schedule things too tightly. Flights get delayed and cancelled. It's tiring to hang out in airports.</p>
<p>We learned it was best to take an earlier flight out of Atlanta. She did have to miss 6th period a few too many times, but her Statistics teacher teaches mostly seniors and is use to it...very understanding.
Good luck!</p>
<p>I have another question! lol How unusual... Anyway, can you audition for the same school twice? Say you have a bad audition in the fall. Will they allow you to try again in the winter?</p>
<p>BacktoBefore--You might want to start a new thread for this one. It's a totally different subject and it might interest people who aren't reading this one.</p>
<p>Susan, don't where the young man ended up, as I have not been in touch. I know that Ithaca, Emerson, SUNY Buffalo, Harrt were his top choices the last time I had spoken to his mother but that they were going to look at some drama only and BA programs that offered some money as well. They were really leaning towards Buffalo because they are NY residents and he did get a nice scholarship there which would reduce the costs greatly. He did not get into Tisch which was his ED school and was deferred at both Emerson and Harrt which was part of what set off the alarms in December as most of their feedback at that time were non acceptances. And, I am very, very happy for them, because I know they were really feeling low at the prospect of another round of apps in December and another round of auditions. But they did weather it and, yes, it is a success story. Another young man, this one at my son's school ended up with bonanzas after failing to get into his state university a some EA schools that started a panic. He, too, was interested in theatre and MT but had not even thought of the process until well into the app season. However, he too did a smattering of auditions just for the heck of it, and has been accepted to a couple of programs much to his surprise, though I don't think he is going to any of those schools. Don't know his final choice either. </p>
<p>So the good thing about the early auditions is that they can give you an idea of where the student stands, and whether you need to add some more schools, do Unifieds, add on some non audition theatre arts programs. If you are lucky, you can be done with the process, but you certainly cannot count on this. In our case, binding ED would have been a problem since my son really went through some changes on what he wanted for his college years between the time he sent out the apps to when the early accepts started to come rolling in. But then had he limited his choices, he may have been forced to go with whatever he ended up getting, so I felt that it was a good situation for him and for any number of kids to get some feedback early. Since most MT programs do not offer binding ED (is Tisch the only one?), getting several options can also mean cancelling later auditions for schools that you would not prefer over the early acceptances. </p>
<p>However, the early answers are not always accurate indicators. I doubt if my friend's son would have continued the audition process, had he gotten a couple of acceptances. Nor would he have applied to the non audition schools. Although they were surprised and thrilled to come off of the wait list, they did not think this was going to happen and proceeded as such. But they also had a chance to experience the Unifieds, something my son had wanted to do, and would have done, had they been held earlier. I wish they had held some early Unified auditions as that would have helped us enormously in the travel, wear and tear, cost of all of the auditions we underwent. I think some kids, my son being one, did better in his later auditions. During his week long audition "marathon" he felt much better about the second weekend auditons that the ones the weekend before. But some kids may get tired on such a schedule and do better with their auditions spread at and no more than 2 in a weekend. A tricky part of all of this is that you cannot always anticipate your kid's style and you cannot control a lot of
other things such as illness, weather, travel problems, conflicts that arise after you schedule everything, mistakes..we were spared most of this , thank goodness, but we had our share of snags.</p>
<p>Jamimom, thanks for sharing those stories. It is hard to find any pattern in these experiences but they are all very interesting and helpful to read about. I think you offer many great insights. </p>
<p>I cannot truly read all that much into this but in my daughter's audition situation.....it went like this:
First school....admitted to college itself, deferred for BFA, eventually rejected in April to the BFA
Second school....rejected
Remaining 6 auditions: accepted to five, waitlisted at one. </p>
<p>Can't say if she got better as she went along or what the reason was. She thinks she got better. But if I were to assume how she was gonna do at this based on the first two results which were learned part way through the process, it would not look too pretty. But we did not get overly worried that these were precursors to the eventual outcome.....we knew going into this process that the odds at every school were so slim that she'd be lucky to get one acceptance of the 8 schools. We felt she was an appropriate candidate to be trying for these and felt somewhat comfortable that at least one should have worked out. If she got more, she'd be blessed. And she was lucky to even have a choice. It is best to not get one's heart set on any one particular program. It is akin to kids applying to elite colleges (ie., the Ivies and such) where you cannot EXPECT to get in but you need to be a viable candidate to even be applying in the first place (need to self assess). </p>
<p>My child did not do Unifieds but I know many who did and acceptances did come out of those. </p>
<p>Everything you mentioned is very true. I think it is good that your son did not end up opting to apply ED to Tisch ( I recall his quandry over that vividly....we experienced it together)....because in the end, his priorities shifted and he is going to Yale (wahoo!) and it all worked out (and things worked out for my kid too.....she never applied ED either and look where she ended up...at Tisch afterall...came full circle after a full exploration of seven other programs which she ended up liking a great deal as well). </p>
<p>Susan</p>
<p>I will also say that I was a bit suspicious about Unifieds and did NOT want my son to do them. I felt that they were more salvage routes. My opinion was that it woud be a disadvantage not auditioning at the colleges' home auditions and even if my son were not so booked in January and February, I would not have considered the Unifieds upon the onset of all of this. I believe Doctorjohn was asked about chances at the Unifieds and he very solidly answered that Otterbein did not show any favortism as to where a kid auditioned and the acceptances seemed evenly distributed, and it was his opinion that the other schools operated the same way. I did not really believe him in this regard as it seemed counter intuitive to me at the time. Now I personally know kids who did go to Unifieds, and think that I was dead wrong, as I have heard of enough successful auditons there. Also, I was always pretty set on doing things early because in elite schools admissions I think it does give the student an edge. I feel I can say this from my years of experience in this area despite no stats I can give out. I do not believe this is the case for MT simply because of the onslaught of auditions to come and the danger in even filling one space out of such a limited number. You really have to be exactly what they want and need to be accepted early. And once the later auditions are done, you may even be at a disadvantage with an early audition since your paper and the faint memory of your audition will be compared to a live performer. It may well be a disadvantage to apply early to ED programs for that reason alone, and there is still the experience issue to deal with. It seems that kids do improve with the specific experience of auditioning for these programs. Again no specific numbers, just a gut feeling. The exception would be NYU ED where statistically twice as many kids are accepted early over regular --I got that info from admissions when we visited.</p>
<p>Jami...I think some of your gut instincts gleaned through your own experiences and observations of others do ring true. </p>
<p>Kids do get in from Unifieds but your gut about whether to do them was valid. The reason we did not do unifieds was a bit different. First off, I'm not that into doing all those in one weekend because what if the kid is sick or anything like that....lots to lose. Also, we live in rural Vermont, not near any of the Unifieds...so I gotta travel to audition anyway, might as well go to the actual schools. But the main reason we did not do unifieds is that auditioning AT the schools allows for a visit at the same time. It is not as optimal a visit in that the audition uses up a lot of the time on campus compared to a normal visit but it is still a visit.</p>
<p>In our situation, my D decided to graduate high school a year early and this was not an ongoing game plan. It was all HER idea and she came to us and laid out her reasons in Jan. of her soph year (amidst my going through college admissions with her senior sister no less). Ideally (and with my first D) I like to visit all college prospects in junior year. Then in fall of senior year, I let my oldest go back for second visits/overnights at her two faves. Then in April of senior year, once decisions were in hand, I let her return to the three schools she had narrowed her decision between. So for D2, I would have liked to have visited all her schools junior year (but for her this was now gonna be tenth grade) and then gone back to them in senior year (for her that was eleventh grade) for the auditions or perhaps could have done some at unifieds in NYC. However, by the time this game plan to graduate early went into affect, we were only able to visit one school in tenth grade (the year before she applied) and it was NYU. We had plans to visit BOCO and Emerson and appointments lined up but had to cancel because of misinformation at our high school regarding the date of my D's return from a spring break trip to Greece/Italy and she was not going to be back in time to make those college appointments. Then it did not become possible to fit in more visits with her performance schedules and travel plans and other D's college revisits as well. This was less than ideal to me. My next plan was to visit all 7 remaining schools in fall of her junior year (which is the year she applied to college) so we'd see them all, and then go back in winter for auditions. That started to look insane in terms of time and money and my D just said, let's see some when we go TO the auditions. So, she was considering applying ED to Tisch but I said nobody should make such a commitment without having visited any other program and so we went to visit her other favorite at the time, UMich, in September and that visit impacted her decision to not apply ED to Tisch. We also fit in the visits to BOCO and Emerson in October as we tied it to parent weekend at Brown for other D. So, before auditioning, my D had visited four schools but had never seen four on her list. So, by auditioning AT the schools, we were able to also make four of these ALSO be our only campus visit, quite important to do. But we did do this for all 8 auditions. LOTSA travel as you know. But unlike you or some others, I was only down to ONE child at home this year and was able to do it. </p>
<p>I agree with your gut observations that programs hesitate to fill too many of the coveted limited slots up too early in the season (some have outright stated this) and so auditioning early could be a disadvantage and a distant memory to them when they see new kids much later on and make final decisions. But it is not that clearcut. And of course, it is good to get some auditions under one's belt early on. My D applied EA to Emerson for that reason....to do one in December. Also, in retrospect, she feels she improved as time went on with the college auditions. I have no clue if that is true but if she FELT it, that is all that matters. And her results inadvertantly (?) resulted along those lines. Others had said not to audition at your first choice school FIRST. That was one reason she did Emerson first. But UM was one of her faves and she did it second but then again, you can only do so much with all this scheduling as they have limited options available. </p>
<p>Kids do get in from Unifieds. I don't know if they do all the presentations at Unifieds to kids/parents that they did on campus and those were valuable I thought. Then again, some schools did NOTHING even AT the campus on audition dates (ie., Emerson and I'd say that NYU did very little compared to others). </p>
<p>You are correct on the "advantage" in odds by applying ED to Tisch but that is true of traditional college Early Decision schools and my D gave up that advantage knowingly but also realized that kids DO get in Regular Decision too so it was not like giving up ALL her chance to get in and obviously she did get in RD after all. Tisch is one of the few BFA programs that offered ED. Most of the kid she knows at Tisch now or who got in for next fall, got in ED but those just are who she knows and she got in RD as did many other kids of course. And when those ED friends got their acceptances mid December, she twinged for five minutes (thankfully it ended that quickly) that how perhaps SHE TOO could have been done with the whole shebang that soon and did she lose out by not doing the same? But she right away remembered her reasons for NOT applying ED and to want to weigh the other schools equally that she liked at that juncture and not fully ready to commit and thus her long journey with this process all year and while she did end up at Tisch, she came full circle and KNEW for sure this was the right choice for her after having visited all the others and actually came to love many of her other options, but it was a fully informed decision. It was worth it, she reflects. I recall your son second guessing if he made a mistake to not have applied ED to Tisch and now I think your son also made the right choice (for him) to not have taken that path because he was able to weigh various options and ended up choosing Yale which seems to match what he has decided he wants. So, it all worked out in the end ;-). We all learned a lot!
Susan</p>
<p>With the exception me and a few who made a special trip to audition for Juilliard, the kids in my class going for BFAs did ALL their auditions at the Unifieds with excellent results. Most had multiple acceptances. So, yeah Listen to Doctorjohn. The Unifieds ARE for real. :)</p>