Final Acting Decisions Background - Class of 2022

College Majors Theater/Drama Majors
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I cannot believe I am finally on this side of “THE DECISION” and with two days to spare! This is LONG because I want to pay it forward. . .

Background: S began singing in his crib – always on tune. In 4th grade he got the lead in a school musical and during summer camp he was the lead singer in the friend band, but because his buddies were sports guys – he pursued sports and making movies with his buddies. In middle school he got supporting and lead roles in school plays/musicals (and kept making movies during summers). Our local church choir director advised us to save money on vocal coaching until S’s voice began changing (8th grade). So he began voice in the middle of 8th grade and his voice teacher would also coach him on monologues before school auditions.

Once he got to our academic high school with a surprisingly amazing (and competitive) after school drama program, he moved up the ranks – surprising the chorus teacher during his freshman audition that he could sing (he wasn’t in chorus), getting lots of callbacks and eventually landing supporting roles and leads. His weakest link is that he never took dance lessons until the summer before his senior year.
During junior year, he didn’t have any idea what he would study. After getting the great roles at school, he began thinking that maybe he could study acting/MT, but wasn’t sure whether he should pursue a BFA or a BA.

We didn’t use a coach. We spoke with Artsbridge – and they were really helpful in our initial conversation with schools we should think about, but S didn’t want us spending the money since he wasn’t sure what he wanted. We decided to go it alone and let the results push us in the right direction. He didn’t want a stand-alone conservatory; he wanted a drama program that was part of a large academic university.

Summers: We didn’t know about college summer programs. S participated in local performance based programs, but nothing that aided his audition process.

Tremendously helpful were his academic stats. His GPA is 3.75 (which I include for future people thinking about Northwestern) and his ACT score was a 34. He passed several prescreens on stats alone.

Prescreen Filming: We got right to work at the BEGINNING of the summer (July!) filming his prescreens. His vocal/acting coach helped him select monologues and songs. We used a local film place, which was pricey. They also screwed up the close up Shakespeare monologue for CMU, so we had to either re-film (more $) – or use his comedic monologue as the close up. We opted for the latter, and that was a mistake. I’ve heard that cheaper set ups can yield better results (not sure if the sophisticated filming is viewed with suspicion, or what). I would advise against the high price film set up if you have an alternative.

Dance prescreen: We filmed this over the summer. We hired a gal who is currently at BW (for MT). She was great. We didn’t have our list ready, so we had her teach him the easiest Ithaca routine and figured we’d send this to all the schools. The video didn’t come out bad (this girl was good), but it was clearly my S’s weakest link and I don’t think using Ithaca’s routine was a good idea.

BA Schools: Northwestern, USC (BA and BFA), UCLA-Acting, Oberlin, Northeastern, University of Md, and Case Western.

Double Degree (BFA and BA) Schools: Univ. Michigan & BU (the thought was the BA was a backup)
BFA Only Schools: CMU, Elon, Penn State, Syracuse, Miami, NYU

We didn’t have very many BFA schools on our list. The only reason I was OK with this was that he was OK with Plan B, which was to go to any of the BA schools as a Theatre major or even as an undecided major. If your kid KNOWS they want to pursue a BFA, you need an expanded list. When the rejections start coming, you will be PANICKED otherwise.

The plan was to apply to the prescreen schools for BOTH MT and Acting and see what the schools thought. We started applying early in September and finished all prescreen applications by mid-October. Early submissions are good because it usually translates into earlier audition times.
Prescreens: CMU, Penn State, Elon, Syracuse, Michigan (UCLA and USC)
Results: I know that others have seen inconsistent results and felt like the results of prescreens were fluky. That didn’t happen for us. We got consistently shut down for MT. Something was wrong (I think the dance!). He passed all acting prescreens except for CMU (and I blame that darn close up mishap – but it probably just saved us money).

Auditions:

Elon: He was supposed to audition at Elon in the fall, but he was incredibly busy with his school musical. Plus, it didn’t meet his large academic university criteria. So we changed that application to a BA application and canceled his audition.
He had two auditions for scholarships at BA schools (Case Western and UMD). He also used his monologue for his high school play audition. I thought that would help him with his practice. Lurkers – don’t do this. Go to one of those mock audition days that the coaches offer. It will help with confidence building.

Penn State: All auditions are held on campus which is about 3 hours from our house. My H drove my S because of a conflict I had with my younger child. It was for the best because my H doesn’t stress my S out like I do. S auditioned in December. This is a tiny program and they held the auditions as a group – in front of each other. Last year they required a research paper to apply. Not true this year. When I looked on the audition page (on acceptd), it looked like only 55 people auditioned for their class of 10 actors! So I think the odds are a bit better here.
January: My S wanted to do as many auditions on campus as possible AND he wanted to go to the auditions alone – if he could. I don’t advise this. . .

BU (1/5): S flew to BU in the morning by himself for a 1pm audition. There is a PROBLEM with BU’s address. Somehow, when you call an Uber, there is a similar address in a suburb about 20 minutes outside of Boston. S had never been to Boston before, so he didn’t know. NOTE: This happened to me a few months later when I took my D’s on a college visit to BU (except I knew enough to straighten out the Uber driver before there was a problem). I also read that this happened to someone on cc a few years back. So MAKE SURE UBER DRIVER KNOWS YOU ARE GOING TO BU. OK after all that trauma, he was still on-time, but he was exhausted and didn’t “bring it” to the audition. He had McKaela. She was kind and had him run around the room as his “adjustment,” but he was certain that it was a bad audition. It was sad because he LOVED the school.

to be continued. . .

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part 2. . .

Univ. of Michigan(1/12): We had to stay overnight to attend the morning audition, so I went with S. NOTE: We rented a car, but I met someone who Uber’ed from the airport to Ann Arbor (which wasn’t expensive), but there weren’t any Ubers available for the morning of the audition. They ended up having to call a cab and were a bit late. If you Uber to Michigan – call the morning Uber early. One other tip: Don’t park where they tell you to if its bad weather. There are paid spots right next to the audition location. My S was the second or third person called from the first group. This timing was perfect for him. He was still very fresh. This audition went REALLY well. He was BEAMING when he walked out.

NYU (1/15): S took a bus to NY by himself. He didn’t think the audition went particularly well, mostly because the auditor didn’t ask him to make ANY adjustments. He did his two monologues and was done. I think because his stats were good (and 50% of the decision is based on academics), she probably liked what she saw enough and didn’t think she needed to see more. But he felt pretty deflated. This was the lowest moment. He thought his material must be bad. I convinced him that his material couldn’t be bad if he passed all those prescreens with that material (again the prescreens were helpful for us). So he pressed on.

Miami & UCLA (1/20): Another day trip bus trip to NYC (during Unifieds). Miami was in the late morning and he almost cancelled it because they told tried to delay it. He was concerned about missing his UCLA audition, so they compromised and his audition was first after the “movement” call. Btw: The Miami movement call is a DANCE call. S said he did OK, but he was very worried about that one. During the Miami audition, they asked him to sing. He loved that audition.

UCLA was another great audition. The teacher worked a lot with S’s comedic monologue and never got to his Shakespeare monologue. That was probably a bad thing, but the adjustments were really helpful and S felt like he got acting training.

Syracuse (1/27): We decided to have H drive S to Syracuse for this audition. H likes to drive and he doesn’t get my S nervous. This was a great audition. The auditor would call out direction during S’s monologue and S had to work the direction real-time into his monologue. S said it was challenging.

USC (2/3)-in NY – day trip bus again: Honestly, I thought the BA was a better fit for my S than the BFA at USC, but I thought that auditioning for the BFA might give S a leg up, especially since we never visited USC. We are across the country on the other coast and I didn’t want to add a visit to the expense of the trip. I highly advise people who are leaning toward this BA to ALSO apply for the BFA. Auditioning shows more interest. Even though it was a good plan, the audition was his worst. Continuing his poor Shakespeare luck, he forgot his Shakespeare lines. S recovered in time for his interview and happily chatted about his background and interest in making movies, etc.

Results: Accepted to Case Western (December), UMD (January), Northeastern (February). Then the waiting. . . First came the rejection from Michigan (that stung a lot!), then the WL for Penn State (3/1). At this point, I got rattled and had S check that his BU application would be considered for the BA if he was rejected for the BFA. NOPE! Fine print. If you are rejected for the BFA, they reject you entirely. So because S knew his audition didn’t go well, he wrote to the admissions folks and changed his application from a BFA to a BA in film. It drove me crazy all the waiting. The only thing that kept me going was checking in with my cc friends and hearing good news from the early schools. It happens!
Then he was accepted to Syracuse with merit $$ and also to Miami with twice as much merit $$. YEA! Accepted to Oberlin (more merit money), then USC (no merit $) and NYU-Stella Adler studio (no merit $). He was rejected from Michigan, UCLA and Northwestern (so a 3.75/4.0 GPA with lots of APs is not high enough for Northwestern).

Decisions: Our top 4 were Miami, Syracuse, NYU and USC. We were able to take Miami off the list after I called Syracuse and asked for more merit money (they don’t have more “merit” money, but said they’d look for more “grant” money to make their offer closer to Miami’s. They found some! Yea.

We went to USC’s SDA day (yes a cross country trip) and LOVED the school, the weather, etc. The main downside is that the kids do mainly stay in LA after graduation. The focus of the education is very different with the BA and it became clear my S would have to address that question.
Next was our visit to Syracuse. We met up with @VASkydog’s S and family and another cc family (didn’t get their cc handle) who was very helpful in getting S to apply for the Honor’s program. S had to write two essays on his phone as we traveled back home because the application was due that night at 11:59. He was accepted to this program which means that he gets to live in a great freshman dorm with individual hall bathrooms! There were several BFA-Acting boys visiting on this trip and they seemed to get along as friends immediately. I think there is a chat group that they are all on now.

We ended up cancelling our visit to NYU mainly because it was the MOST expensive option and S isn’t a kid whose been chomping at the bit waiting to get to NYC. He was far more intrigued with LA than NYC. So the decision came down to USC-BA or Syracuse.

FINAL DECISION: SYRACUSE BFA-Acting!!!

Everyone was SO nice and so helpful. It felt like the Midwest to me. Every second we spent in the theatre was exhilarating. They let us watch a song rehearsal for their upcoming show and the quality of the performance was AMAZING. They let the kids observe a class while Mr. Zito spoke to the parents. Anyone who wants to go on the London semester or the Tepper semester can go. The training is as good as it gets in this program. It’s a small group of kids and they take care of each other. The ONLY downside of this school is that the weather isn’t great. (We researched it: There is just as much rain here as in NYC, but obviously lots and lots more snow.) But it seemed to S that some bad weather was a small price to pay for the amazing experience that this school will bring. It’s the right “fit” for my kid.

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One last thing! I really want to thank this cc community. You were my only friends who knew what I was going through. I’ve had numerous PM conversations that were enormously helpful as well. Thank you everyone.

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@MomofJ5 - congratulations! See you at Syracuse!

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Awesome story @MomofJ5!!! Thanks for all of the amazing details! This will really help people getting ready to take this journey. Congrats to you and your S!

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Congratulations @MomofJ5 ! So happy he has found his happy place!

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Congrats @MomofJ5 ! He had some amazing choices and it sounds like he made a great decision. And what an awesome, detailed story. I was always stressed that something like that uber to BU would happen.

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Congrats! @MomofJ5 Thank you for posting! I agree that CC has been a great community to share this experience.

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Congratulations @MomofJ5 What a wonderful ride! He couldn’t have gone wrong with any of his choices but it’s so great to be finished with all of this. Hopefully, you get to enjoy the last few weeks of Senior Year! No one has mentioned that our Artist spends the majority trying to find a college and auditioning. What a great outcome!

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@MomofJ5 Congrats to your S! Figuring out the right program path as you go would make the process waaaaay more bumpy! If you have a chance you should post the details in the MT discussion. Like you mentioned, we deliberately filmed “rough” with an iPhone. And I didn’t even ask anyone, but knew in my gut that submitting Ithaca’s dance elsewhere, might not be a good indication of interest, lol! My S had the exact same challenge: it was a lot of sweat, time, and schedule frustration making two dance videos, including 2 different instructors in my S case. Syracuse’s program is awesome. My S never expected to like it and he was surprised after auditioning. The students truly conveyed their support of each other and were openly warm to auditioners.

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Congratulations. @MomofJ5!

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@MomofJ5 So happy for you. Love the detailed journey. I wish my daughter was as independent son! Syracuse is an amazing program! Great choice : ) !!
These posts will be so helpful to future kids and parents…

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@MomofJ5 Wow and Congratulations to your entire family!! Loved your clean write up and so happy everything fell into place!! Best Wishes to your S!!

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Thank you everyone. You guys have been so supportive. There is even more helpful advice I learned from you all (compare the curriculum of the schools- and not just the academic curriculum- also the theatre curriculum). As for that Ithaca dance prescreen blunder (he didn’t even apply to Ithaca!) - he refused to film a second routine because he hates dance. Really- that alone should have told us where he needed to focus his energies!

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I went away for the weekend and so much good stuff was posted!!

@FourStars - your “journey” story is so exciting. It is just the beginning for your beautiful baby girl, she is going shine so bright. Having a competitive program like UNCSA call you and say 'hey, we want you!" says a lot about her talent. That doesn’t happen to everyone, for sure. It is also fun to read how both of our girls spent much time in the MT world and fell in love with acting through that experience. They are strong kids and know what they want. That’s a blessing. And as excited as I am for your D to shine at UNCSA and become a Fighting Pickle, I am equally as happy that I found a new friend. :slight_smile:

@MomofJ5 Your story is also amazing. I want to say that you get ‘mother of the year’ in my book. I love that your S decided he was doing this on his own. You have given him the wings he needs to traverse this ever challenging world - especially in the hover, helicopter society we live in. Kudos to you! I am a Syracuse grad and I absolutely loved it there - snow and all. You learn to embrace the snow - kids challenge each other to never wear pants (only shorts) through the whole winter. The only problem is once the sun shines (around May 1st) no more work is done. LOL

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@momofJ5 - I just loved reading your story. I love getting the glimpse of how mother and child worked together all year long and navigated the ups and downs of this journey. The bad Uber/GPS addresses! My goodness, we all live in fear of this stuff. But what is also so interesting is that your S ended up with choices that really matched his objectives. It sounds like he was driving the ship, and as a result your search was much more targeted.

I feel like we were so terrified of massive all around rejection that we cast a larger net than maybe we needed to. I think coaches are in support of this, and I get the logic, but the strongest suggestion I would have is do as much soul searching about what you want and really research the schools so you pick a personalized list, and know a lot about the school for the Interview. It sounds like your S excelled at this. Way to go.

On top of a great program, Syracuse alums are rabid about their school and do anything to support one another. He will get the best of the drama program, and a university with a strong alumni footprint.

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@MomofJ5 Congrats to your son!

A question and a comment (we’re done already, so it’s all hindsight):

Is it/was it common knowledge that kids only pass prescreens if they make the academic requirements? Or only with certain schools? Perhaps this was discussed in previous posts in the fall.

Comment: my d passed 4 out of 5 prescreens. This gave her quite a confidence boost/false sense of hope, as she didn’t get into any of these schools. Interestingly, two required dance prescreens (one of which she didn’t pass), the other that she did pass, did not require further dance at the live audition. So, while our prescreen results were fairly consistent, the live audition follow ups were not. And, my d got into her committed school on a video audition, which was the same ones she used for her prescreens.

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@ginaf1102 is gonna make me cry and we haven’t even met in person. Yet! It will happen. Thank you for your constant positive, thoughtful comments here, for everyone, that led to us seeking one another out and establishing a friendship off-line. I’m thrilled our girls got to meet at least! They seem to be cut from the same cloth, and I have a feeling their paths will cross again. I know your kind, talented daughter is going to rock it at BU and that we will enjoy staying in touch.

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@DramaQueen219 - I would say your D’s prescreen results were also informative. She passed nearly all of them. That means that her material was very likely appropriate for her type. Obviously not getting into any of the programs was about the crazy competition and the whole type thing. I think it’s a mistake to get cocky about passing prescreens since it’s more likely than not that they won’t lead to acceptances. But getting consistent prescreen results does mean something. In our case there was a problem with the MT package and not with the Acting package. I’ve read here (maybe in last year’s thread?) that after getting consistent no’s on her prescreens, an MT girl worked with a coach and revised her material for the live auditions she scheduled and had success with that. So by no means was my S’s path the only way.

As for the academic component- Michigan’s Acting and UCLA’s prescreens don’t ask for film- no monologue submission! They asked for transcripts, test scores and recommendations (Michigan)- so obviously those prescreens were purely academic. I think the same was true for NYU and USC. Maybe BU (I cannot remember.). But I don’t think the rest had any academic component. I could write a whole post about what to do for test score improvement as well. My S’s first practice ACT score was a 27- and he ended up with a 34. They are 100% improbable- but you have to know the kid and what they will and won’t do on their own and have money to get third party tutoring. That’s the sad part of the process- how expensive it is.

@FourStars - yes. All of his acceptances were at places where he could sing (as opposed to Michigan for example where the programs are more separate). I really wanted him to apply to UNCSA (we have an amazing girl from our hometown who is a freshman there), but he insisted on a large academic school (maybe because he wasn’t 100 percent sure what he’d want to do in the end?). Anyway- it worked out and we are certainly preparing to buy great snow gear.

@ginaf1102 - S is very strong willed. The best way to deal with him is to present him with facts and NOT tell him what to do. I’m not always good that that. So glad you enjoyed your time at Syracuse. I know many people don’t apply because of the weather- but wow- what a gem. I really feel fortunate.

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@FourStars The soul searching stuff is so, so hard at this age. My kid is just at the tip of the search so to speak. You can’t force a good soul search by a certain date. It is a life process. Make as good as a decision as possible with what you know, and then redirect as needed. I think my kid became a tad frozen over the enormity of it all.