when my d was auditioning 2 years ago we ran the math for Julliard. She had a .4% chance of getting in!!! The key is finding safeties with excellent programs that your kid can see themselves at. Also I highly recommend a COLLEGE audition coach like MTCA, they know the odds, they know what these programs are looking for, and they know the landscape.
Also most of these programs want even gender representation – so when CMU accepts 20, that is actually 10 for your kid’s gender.
@tweetsas, Is there a difference between an audition consultant and a coach? Thanks!
@connections I believe that there is a difference, but I am just learning about this topic.
@judevine: I am sorry for what you and your son have been through. By now you may have the answers you need, but I would like to share some acceptance rates for the schools you mention. BU auditioned 1200 for 50 spots (not sure the exact number of acceptances, probably between 70-90). Rutgers auditions about 800 for 18-20 spots, CMU accepted 21 out of 2000 auditions – mathematically,these programs are similar to getting into Harvard. Even NYU accepts only about 1/3 of auditioners, but those they accept must also pass academic standards so that can knock some out right away. This is a painful process for many many very talented kids. If you talked to a lot of the kids auditioning with your son, they all had coaching, tons of exoerience and were the leads in all their school and summer productions. As for financial need, I am not sure where information above came from that these schools are less likely to accept poorer students, most of the top programs that I researched are in need-blind admissions schools (CMU, BU, NYU, UMich, USC, Syracuse, Ithaca are a few). The only kid from the entire CMU summer drama program (out of 120 MT+acting kids, most of whom would not need financial aid) to get accepted was a scholarship kid. Julliard definitely does not consider need (they have $1B endowment for only 855 students) and many state schools are mandated to separate financial aid and admissions reviews. I know this is not the result you would have liked, but I also want your son to understand that this is not a reflection of his talent, or your finances, just the outrageous competition. I truly hope things turn out for him.
@Momw3boys just to clarify for future people reading the thread NYU does not except anywhere close to one third of applicants. This past year over 3000 auditioned and the entire NYU Tish studio system will accept approximately 300 people. That’s a 10% acceptance rate. And that is overall, if you go studio by studio many are much lower.
You may be right on the Tisch rates, I was estimating conservatively based on past audition numbers of 2500. Tisch has a freshman class of 300 (6 studios of 50 each) so they have to accept quite a few more to fill those spots, depending on yield larger schools admit 2-3 times the number. I’m also not sure if the 2500-3000 auditioners include those auditioning for Steinhart, which would be another …50?..entry places. I just have a vague memory when there for the info session that the % acceptance was much higher than the other top 10 programs just because their incoming class was so large. I certainly would not want to belittle the difficulty of getting I there, and their academic criteria were more rigorous than most of the other top 10.
@juvedine would your S consider Rutgers BA Theater? My D also applied to the BFA but was not invited to call back weekend (she was invited to UMinn/Guthrie callbacks though so go figure) but she was academically accepted for her second choice major of BA Theater. She has four BFA offers so we are not considering it but we would have had she not had a BFA offer as it is in state and affordable…Here is a link to the program: http://www.masongross.rutgers.edu/theater/programs-of-study/theater-ba
@Momw3boys Steinhardt’s numbers are separate from Tisch.
When D went to Steinhardt, she had a class of 30 students at the start of freshman year for MT. They usually shoot for about 24 students attending max. That year they had almost a 100% yield. Only 1 boy did not attend. (My D happened to know him.) This was told to parents by the program’s director, and they had to create 2 sections for some classes–which they have not done since. But you can see that they accepted 31 students in the hope of yielding 20 to 24. They are not accepting 60 + students, hoping to yield 20 to 24 (2 to 3 times the number.) I’m sure they would rather accept fewer and go to waitlists.