Emerson Pre-College Acting Studio Program

Has anyone participated or has their child participated in the Emerson pre-college acting program recently? DD will be a rising senior this summer, interested in BFA/Acting programs for college and we’re trying to determine if this program is a good one to go for…thanks!

My daughter attended last summer and really loved it! She is an experienced actor and singer, but has had very little dance training, so she wanted to attend a summer program that would have lots of dance time. The Emerson program allowed her to have 3 hours of dance training 5x/week and she also really loved the acting and singing classes. I think it was definitely worth it - she really bonded with the kids in the program (and in fact they still have a SnapChat group that they all communicate on and have throughout the whole college application/audition process.) The most valuable part of it was living in a dorm for 5 weeks and attending classes just like college, plus being right in downtown Boston. It really helped both she and I realize that she will be fine wherever she ends up and that in turn made the whole college application/audition process a little easier because she has no doubts that this is what she wants to do. She also was able to audition for the MT program during the last week of the intensive, which felt really good to her - she knew she already had one audition finished, which helped her feel better through the ups and downs of the crazy college admissions process.

I applied for the MT pre college program, does anyone know when we might be finding out? They said the reviewed applications frequently!

Did your D find the talent of the summer attendees to be competitive or just average?

Hey @cakerice - if you’re addressing a question to a particular user they’ll be more likely to answer if you use their ID as I did yours… @ symbol and the user name. That notifies the user that they have a mention on that thread. This thread is old and @dramamamaCC might not see your question otherwise.

@cakerice Re: talent/training level - it was a mix in MT, and she also hung out with the Acting kids quite a bit. I think there were only 3 boys of the 32 (?) MT kids. There were some girls who had tons of training, and some who didn’t. My daughter chose it specifically to have 3 hours of dance, 5x a week, for 5 weeks, as she has had little formal dance training - and she definitely felt she was the worst dancer there. I know they divided the kids up into 2 sections for dance by ability. At the end of the program, they did a showcase performance and each kid had 90 seconds of some sort of song/monologue combo. Watching it, you could see that some of the kids were more or less “polished,” but even the less experienced kids performed with confidence and great energy. I do know that not all of the kids there for MT chose to pursue audition-based college program, because they still have an active SnapChat group to keep in touch with each other. I would consider it less of a “pre-professional” training program and more of a “exploratory/experiential” program, I guess. For us, the intangible benefits of having her be independent in a city and gone from home for a long stretch while studying MT full-time were equally as important to her development as the training she got.

@dramamamaCC my daughter will be attending this 5 week program this summer. We have been waiting for a “packing list” can you give us any guidelines of what was required to wear during dance/classes so we can start ordering clothing attire now and not wait until a couple weeks out? Any particular supplies your D felt were necessary or helpful that we should think about making sure we have packed? Any advice would be great.

Hi - I’m sorry I didn’t see this until right now! I checked my e-mail from last year and it looks like you have probably already received the handbook and other documentation. One thing to remember is that they are right downtown in Boston, so anything the kids need is probably available for them to run out and purchase. Having snacks in the room was very helpful, and there were a couple things we ended up needing (a heavier blanket, some shoes she left at home, etc.) that I was able to take up to her, as we live about an hour away. Hope your daughter enjoys the program as much as mine did!