Yay!! A SEMO decision!!! Welcome to the Redhawk family!
Congratulations @momof3nerdz !!! Sounds like a great choice for your son, best of luck going forward! My D also does speech and debate, HI is one of my favorite categories, but she does Prose, duet, poetry!
@CMB625, my S went to state for Poetry as well last year! Fun!
I appreciate the feedback. I am talking about CCPA at Roosevelt for Musical Theater in Chicago. We visited last summer and he instantly fell in love and during his audition he connected with the voice coach. My S is completely fixated on going to CCPA for MT over Millikin Acting, LUI MT, and Stevens Point MT even though CCPA will cost ~95K more over the 4 years than the others due to scholarships. I am wondering if it is worth the extra money. I also think that maybe the other schools want him more with the amount of scholarship money they are giving him. Being wanted is a good thing.
Thanks for the welcome, @songgirlsmom! I added SEMO and our info to the theatre acceptance by college thread.
@JCLmtmom Roosevelt unfortunately has a reputation for not giving much aid, and you see to have experienced that first hand. LIU’s MT program is definitely up and coming and has the added bonus of not being far from Manhattan, Millikin isn’t discussed much on the forum but is generally well-regarded and has produced successful alumni in all fields of theatre. Roosevelt certainly is the most prestigious school on the list. I personally think anyone going into theatre should try to graduate with as little debt as possible, if you can afford Roosevelt I would say go for it. But if it means taking out student loans and you personally taking out loans then it definitely shouldn’t be. It’s a hard business to go into with that much money riding on your back.
It’s time!!!
Background: When our D was young, we signed her up to try a lot of activities just to see what might interest her - gymnastics, soccer, t-ball, ballet, clarinet, robotics, karate, Girl Scouts, the list goes on. She enjoyed most of these things but never felt hugely passionate about any of them. That was ok by us. We felt that exploring new things was valuable in and of itself. However, when she was 8 years old and she attended her first ever audition for a play at our local community center, something new and big happened. She was cast in the lead role which we parents didn’t initially recognize as being as big of a deal as it was. We (parents) have never been involved in theater ourselves…I mean, we’ve long been patrons of theater, but we’ve never auditioned for or performed in anything in our lives! We blindly dropped her off at rehearsals for several weeks, mistakenly calling it “play practice”. When it came time for the performances, we settled into our seats happily expecting to see a mishmash of elementary school kids looking adorable and stumbling over their lines. When our D stepped on stage in front of an audience for the first time…we were stunned, and we remained stunned throughout the show. We talked about it all the next day - What was THAT? Is she really that good, or do we just think she was amazing because we’re her parents? It turns out she was genuinely talented and, perhaps more importantly, she was and still is earnestly passionate about the craft of acting. So our D, completely self-driven over the past 10 years, has gone on to perform in dozens of community theater, regional theater, and Fringe Festival productions, plus 2 films. She loves it, and it brings out the best in her. We parents, meanwhile, have learned about all new things like headshots, call times, callbacks, tech week, character shoes, and more.
She became intensely interested in pursuing her BFA in Acting when she was in 8th grade. That spring, she was the only middle school kid in a production that was otherwise full of incredibly talented young adults, many of whom attended a local PA high school, had just completed their own BFA auditions, and were eagerly awaiting decisions. One young man and two young women in particular, juniors and seniors at the PA high school that year, took my 8th grade D under their wings - not only during that show, but as ongoing friends to this day. The young man is currently a junior in Northwestern’s Theatre program, and the two young women are graduating with their BFAs in Acting next month - one from MN/Guthrie and the other from Rutgers. Also of note, another young man in that same show is currently in Marymount Manhattan’s BFA Acting program! My D followed in the footsteps of these slightly older mentors, attending that same PA high school, where she thrived. She’ll be graduating next month with a 3.9 GPA and 15 college credits under her belt. Within the past two years alone, on top of applying for BFA programs, she participated in founding a feminist theater company, devised and performed in several new plays in local regional theaters, earned her certification in Unarmed Stage Combat from SAFD, worked as teaching assistant for a freshman acting class in her high school, and will be directing her first show next month.
Summer Programs: ArtsBridge Summer Dramatic Acting Intensive (invaluable! highly recommended!)
Monologue Coaching: ArtsBridge’s summer intensive included quite a lot of monologue coaching. She also worked with a monologue coach from her PA high school for 5-6 sessions in December and January to hone her final monologues before auditions in February.
BFA Applications: MN/Guthrie, DePaul, Rutgers, UNCSA, CalArts, BoCo, CCM, Boston University, SUNY Purchase
BA Applications: And she applied to 2 BA Theater Programs as strong “safety schools” - University of Minnesota (because we’ve heard great things about this particular BA program and the ease of moving from this program into the thriving Minneapolis theater scene after graduation) and SUNY Purchase (because she fell in love with the general vibe of this campus when we toured it). Another draw is that we have family connections near both of these schools. She would have felt really good about attending either of these if she didn’t get accepted into any BFA programs, or if she were only accepted into a BFA program that in the end we could not afford.
Results:
Accepted BFA Acting Programs - UNCSA, CCM, CalArts, BoCo
Accepted BA Theater Programs - UMN, SUNY Purchase
Waitlisted BFA Acting Programs - UMN/Guthrie (withdrew herself from the waitlist after making her final decision)
Rejected BFA Acting Programs - Rutgers (no callback), DePaul (callback, but ultimately no offer), Boston University, SUNY Purchase
Final Decision: UNCSA BFA Acting!!! CC friends, I cannot tell you how happy I am for my D. She is a strong and resilient young woman who is capable of handling heartbreak when necessary, and we were all prepared for all manner of heartbreaks during this process. And there were some significant bumps in the road. For example, during one of her most important auditions (for a school that she dearly loved and that had always been at or near the top of her list) she developed a cold, and by the morning of the audition she had lost her voice almost entirely. She completely bombed that audition. Her voice cracked and broke on her song, she felt off in general during her monologues. She says it’s the worst audition she’s ever had in her life. After all that work, all the various parts of that application, the travel expenses, the heart and soul put into it…you all know. She did not get accepted into that school. But, back to the present…she did get other acceptances, and in the end she chose UNCSA! Oh wow. Oh. Wow. Just yesterday we booked out plane tickets to fly her out to North Carolina in August – 2 round-trip tickets and 1 one-way ticket… [gulp]
And to all of you: A huge THANK YOU to everyone in this community. What a kind and competent group of people! The extra support and advice you’ve collectively given my family through this stressful process has been greatly appreciated! I am loving reading about your processes and final decisions, and I’m eager to hear more. Keep the stories coming!
YAY, @Janine1 ! I was hoping that your D would choose UNCSA, but after hearing about her background-stage combat, feminist theater company, some film work…sounds like she & UNCSA are a perfect match!
Fantastic, what a great program, and you’ll get to know @bfahopeful so well!
Congratulations @Janine1 , sounds like a perfect place for your daughter! Best wishes for a bright future!
Congrats @Janine1 I agree with @owensfolks that she will fit right in at UNCSA. Go pickles!
Congratulations @Janine1!
Congrats on all your wonderful acceptances!! I recommend going to Barnard College of Columbia University!! Best of both worlds: small, women’s, liberal arts college as well as large, co-ed, Ivy League University. Plus, you get to be in NYC where all of the internships and networking opportunities are at the tip of you finger tips. Best of luck!
Congrats @Janine1 ! Loved reading your story and shared with you that sense of awe when I first saw my son on stage. UNCSA will be wonderful for your D. Best of luck.
I’m working on our story…trying not to make it so long but there’s just so much to say! I hope I don’t bore everyone lol.
@marg928 I’m looking forward to it! Use two posts if you need to!
Can’t wait, @marg928 !
I love the stories, long is good.
Here is my daughter’s journey!
Applied to 23 schools, combination of BFAs, auditioned BAs and non-audition BAs. All auditions were at NY Unifieds except American and Pace.
Prescreens Passed: Florida State, Pace, Elon, Chapman
Did not pass: Ithaca, Miami
Coach: Leo Ash Evens at MTCA. Attended two mock auditions through them that were a huge help, plus a master class with Barbara Mackenzie-Wood at CMU.
BFAs:
CaLARTS - Accepted with Lillian Disney scholarship
Cornish - accepted with scholarship
Pace FTVC - (on campus audition) accepted with scholarship
Point Park - accepted with scholarship
UNCSA - waitlist
U Minn/Guthrie - called back and waitlisted
Chapman - waitlisted for both Screen Acting and Theater Performance
Carnegie Mellon - rejected
Florida State - rejected from BFA, accepted academically to BA
Rutgers - no call back, accepted academically to BA
SUNY Purchase - rejected from BFA, accepted to BA
USC - rejected from both BFA and BA (that was a tough one)
Auditioned BAs:
American (on campus) - Accepted for Spring 2018
U Tampa - accepted with scholarship
Loyola Marymount - accepted with NO scholarship (that one hurt too!)
UCLA - rejected
Non-Audition BA programs:
University of Alabama (Tuscaloosa) - accepted
University of Alabama (Birmingham) - accepted with scholarship
UC Irvine - waitlist
UC San Diego - rejected
UC Santa Barbara - rejected
University of Washington - rejected
Other:
AADA - accepted with scholarship
Penn State - applied to school but never auditioned due to research paper!
Elon - passed prescreen but decided not to apply due to logistics of on campus audition
The New School - applied but decided not to complete the audition
Royal Conservatoire - did walk in, never heard back
Continued…
Part 2 Continued from previous post
My D always loved to perform…when she was three or four she used to put on her leotard, make tickets, give them out to us and force us to sit there and watch her twirl around! She nearly held us prisoner LOL. I put her in dance at the age of 3 since her 7 year old sister had been dancing for several years. She danced competitively from the age of 7 through the end of sophomore year. We noticed when she was about 4 that she had a beautiful singing voice and she even made a couple of YouTube videos when she was 10 that got over 100,000 views each at the time. At the beginning of 7th grade she began taking voice lessons and, through a friend of her voice teacher who saw her perform, she started working with an acting coach via Skype. She did the Skype lessons for about a year until the end of 9th grade when she finally felt she needed to move on to a real class with real live people in it! We were honest with her coach and she recommended an acting studio in NYC called AcTeen. She auditioned and was accepted into their summer intensive where she attended in June of Freshman year. The director there invited her to try out for her fall showcase and she was accepted with a scholarship. She went into the city several times that fall to prepare for the showcase which culminated in a performance in front of several NYC agents and managers. Several showed interest but one in particular followed through and called her several weeks later. She has a very marketable look…she is 5’ tall, blond hair and blue eyes. Yeah she’s pretty…
We went in for a meeting with the agency around February of her sophomore year and discussed how her dance commitments would make pilot season difficult so she decided to quit dance at the end of that school year. She made the decision that acting was her real passion and she was determined to pursue it. (Around that same time she started talking about majoring in acting in college…no interest in MT for reasons unbeknownst to me…and USC became the dream school.) That summer going into junior year we went to CA on vacation and visited USC, Chapman, UCI, CaLARTS and drove through a couple of others. She felt like she belonged in Cali and that trip solidified her dream of attending college there. Her agents began to work for her right away and she got many in the room auditions and self-tapes over the next few months. About 6 months later she signed an 18 month contract with the agency (it expires next month). I guess they were waiting to see how she did in the audition room and the feedback was positive. She actually had a call back for the movie Dance Camp but after trying out for the lead, my blond haired, blue eyed girl got called back to play the Indian girl…so much for type!…anyway an Indian girl got the role as she should have LOL. About a year ago her agents recommended her to a different agency for commercial and voiceover work so she is also signed with them (one agency for Theatrical and the other for Commercial). Through the second agency she booked a Fuji Instax commercial and a book cover shoot. She was also on hold for a couple of other jobs but ultimately they didn’t come through. So tons of auditioning but so far nothing great.
Quitting dance freed her up to be in her high school’s spring musical which in junior year was American Idiot. We were the first HS in NJ to put on that show. It was a great experience for her…she had both dancing and singing roles but still no speaking parts. Because she was also a varsity cheerleader she could never participate in the fall drama because it was during football season. This year our HS put on The Producers and she was in the ensemble…she’s a strong dancer so she was always front and center…no speaking part again though (although there are barely any female roles anyway). Those two shows are the extent of her experience being in a production. So many of your kids have grown up in the theater world but that is definitely not the case with my D! That being said, all the self-tapes and in the room auditions have really helped her to grow. I found a local acting teacher about a year ago who studied under Uta Hagen so she has been taking once a week class with her as well. Class is very small though…only one other girl who happens to go to her HS so it really hasn’t been all we had hoped for but it’s still training and it’s close to home. And then there’s her MTCA coach Leo who was awesome and helped her to grow so much as well.