@tmygirl CONGRATULATIONS! Your son had a wonderful audition season. And I am so happy to see someone else on here choose TCU, even though your S will be MT and my S will be Acting. Please PM me! The MT and Acting students have quite a few classes together and I would love to have the guys get connected before the fall and also get to know you!
@limbo2019 Donāt buy a t-shirt! They mail you one.
@sloopysnoop ā¦ yep, Terrence Mann directs a show once a year at Western Carolina. The kids all said heās super approachable and makes a great effort to remember everyoneās names. Oh ā¦ and they all call him Terry. (I thought that was cute!)
@tmygirl I aināt even mad we didnāt get him at Otterbein (maybe a little mad) :)) XOXO congrats on a fabulous journey! Remind your S when he makes it big about that interlochen prescreen I want good seats!
YAY @tmygirl! So excited for Sās decisionā¦ I know your journey has been a whirlwind! So excited to see where the wind blows him after TCU! 
Such a mature well versed young man-- great job!!! Healthy thoughts for your mom!!!
As the mom of a junior ā I LOVE these stories! Best part of the year ā congrats to all!!
Bumping this so we donāt lose it! Maybe it could be pinned? I think it was last year.
BACKGROUND: My Sās journey has been a bit of a long and torturous one! Started in shows at 3, very involved ever since in school, community, regional/professional. Started dance in 7th grade, then moved to a competition studio in 10th grade and got really into dance. He thought he wanted to do MT in college, so we did our homework on CC, but then last May he all of a sudden had a change of heart ā much like @evilqueen 's D from what I can gather. He realized he really wanted to get an academic degree (either Psychology, Sociology or Public Health), and at a strong academic university. He also wanted a mid- to large-sized school, real campus experience, preferably near a city but not NYC.
I have to admit I was kind of bummed that he decided to step off the heavy-duty MT bus, because he has always loved it, but we plunged back into the college search process with a somewhat different focus. We did tons of searching and found that the only places he was interested in where he could double major in MT and that fit his many other criteria were Tulane and Northwestern (though NW is a certificate in MT). Knowing he needed to apply to more than 2 schools, he figured out that while MT usually doesnāt allow for a double, Dance often does. He figured he could double in Dance and something academic, then take voice lessons and audition for musicals whenever he was allowed, and keep his skills up that way. Plus he needed some academic safeties just in case.
Applied to: Elon (Dance); Emory (Dance); James Madison U (Dance); U Michigan (Dance); Northwestern (Dance Major, MT Certificate); Tulane (MT); University of Vermont (for the hell of it)
Prescreens: All Dance ā Elon, Michigan (passed both)
Accepted to: Elon (Dance), Emory (Dance), JMU (Dance), Tulane (MT) and Vermont
Rejected: Northwestern
Waitlisted: Michigan
Final Decision: Tulane BFA-MT.
Coach: Dance instructors helped with pre-screens and dance audition prep; voice teacher helped with Tulane video auditions (had to submit 3 full songs and monologue). He had started with MTCA in Feb. of junior year, but we stopped that in June when he realized he probably didnāt need that level of coaching given his goals. They were great though for the short time he worked with them!
Summer Programs: Broadway Artists Alliance (NYC); local dance camps
Training: Dance (ballet, jazz, tap, hip hop, lyrical, modern, partnering) ā 6 years
Voice (6 years)
Some piano and guitar
DECISION: Tulane offered him both an academic scholarship and an MT scholarship, which has cut the tuition bill down significantly. His sister went to Tulane and loved it (Business major), and S really loves New Orleans. He did some dance classes and a voice lesson when he visited and really felt he could still learn a lot there, while still being able to also get an academic degree. Between MT and dance there are lots of performance opportunities.
He also really loved Emory when he visited, especially the dance department, so it became a very tough choice, but in the end he felt that Tulane was overall a slightly better fit (and cheaper!).
Sās was a much different route than most of yours, and he is ending up at a school not known for MT, but he is really happy and excited, so I thought I would post the details here in case there are others out there who are looking for a slightly different experience! Congrats to everyone on here!
Thatās awesome. One of my sonās friends is pre-med at Tulane, but she has done a bunch of extra work there. They film a ton of shows down there. Itās a nice way to make some cash.
Congrats, @zebrarunner! PLEASE promise us youāll come back and let us know more about the Tulane program. My D applied to the MT program and also got an incredibly generous scholarshipā¦it hurt to turn them down (she really, really, really wanted to stay in the northeast). I have always thought that program deserves more attention on this board. I canāt wait to hear all about it! Best of luck to your son.
Thatās great @zebrarunner ! Thank you for sharing. Good luck to your S! New Orleans IS great!!
Congrats @zebrarunner So excited!!
Congratulations zebrarunner New Orleans is such a cool place to be!
Congrats @zebrarunner to you and your S!!! Woohoo!
WOW Iāve been waiting to make an entry in this thread for 2 years! I originally intended to go right for a BFA MT but then had second thoughts, first because I got my SAT scores back and seriously considered liberal arts schools and then because I am secondarily interested in management/producing/casting so I considered programs for that specifically. Here comes my very convoluted, indecisive, crazy-a** journey/process/year.
Prescreens: Texas State, Baldwin Wallace, Otterbein, Coastal Carolina, Pace, UArts, Indiana BFA, Ithaca (theatre management)
Passed Ithaca and UArts. I didnāt count any of the ones I didnāt pass as applications because I never completed them (some didnāt require an app to send a prescreen and I didnāt send SAT scores to the rest. I eventually withdrew from all but Indiana where I applied intending to be considered for the BA).
APPLICATIONS
Theatre Performance/audition somewhere: UArts, Webster, NYU, BU, Marymount Manhattan, Cornish, Hartt, Emerson, American (double major Business and Entertainment/Musical Theatre) and Columbia College Chicago
Management/interview: Ithaca, DePaul, half of American
Liberal arts/non-audition: IU BA, Northwestern, Brandeis, Sarah Lawrence
AUDITIONS
Auditioned at Unifieds: UArts, Webster, Cornish, did walk-ins for U of Utah Acting and SCAD but never applied
Auditioned on campus: NYU, BU, Hartt, Emerson, Marymount Manhattan
RESULTS
Accepted (in chronological order!): Columbia College Chicago BAā>BFA MT (would have auditioned as a freshman), IU BA Theatre & Drama, UArts BFA MT, Cornish BFA Theatre/MT concentration, Ithaca BS Theatre Arts Management, DePaul BFA Theatre Management, Sarah Lawrence BA Theatre, Brandeis BA Theatre
Wait-listed: American (would have auditioned as a freshman but never put myself on the wait list because I assumed I wouldnāt get enough aid from them to be competitive with other schools)
Accepted academically but not to theatre dept: U of Hartford, Webster, Marymount Manhattan
TRAINING
Circle in the Square Summer MT Intensive 2014 (summer before sr. year), voice teacher does a week-long summer intensive of his own where he brings up his old NYC buddies and they teach us. Itās intense and I did it twice.
Local acting classes/workshops through middle and high school. My school offers wonderful acting classes taught by a wonderful woman, and we have an organization nearby that has regular workshops and show choir, which I did until junior year. My voice teacher also brings people from
Voice lessons since 6th grade, switched in 9th grade to more serious MT voice teacher
Dance since middle school at local studio that I love (3 years of ballet, 2 tap, 2 hip-hop, 1 lyrical, a bunch of jazz). They are very good about having beginner teen/adult classes and everyone is welcome.
No college audition coach (I did do a few MTCA dance classes over the summer and I tried to hook up with them for prescreen things but they never e-mailed me back) but the CITS song interp teacher specializes in college auditions so she picked my material and worked one of my songs which I also sang for the showcase. She was great. Also, a local director whose daughter goes to Ithaca for MT did a seminar on college auditions the winter of my sophomore year. That totally changed my life and kick-started my research.
I was kind of floored when the second sitting of the SAT I semi-impulsively took and did not study for fall of senior year (after spending the night at a friendās house and getting 4 hours of sleep) resulted in a perfect 800 in critical reading. That made my superscore a 2200 and actually kind of threw me into an existential panic over the choices I was making and whether I was ready to say goodbye to challenging liberal arts. Hence the applications to those kinds of schools, and my only doing 8 live auditions without walk-ins. UArts was my first acceptance that felt ārealā and it happened a week after Unifieds. I was floored and so excited. I even did the whole āthereās been a mistakeā bit. I loved, loved, loved my audition. I mentioned that I was also interested in theatre management and it just so happened that the woman who was interviewing me was the head of theatre management and teaches casting and business of the business classes! They seemed really supportive of my interest in that, which I didnāt get from every school. I absolutely adored BU and had the greatest audition of my life and totally bonded with the auditorā¦and then a few weeks later, I got an e-mail saying that they loved me and wanted me to interview for Production and Design. Production=/=producing. That was a really tough rejection to take, and it was the only one I was properly sad about. Once all the acceptances were in, it felt like a choice between liberal arts/BFA MT/theatre management. I pretty quickly ruled out theatre management because it would mean giving up performing as my primary thing, and I wasnāt okay with that. Later I might work in a casting office or something and not perform at all, but Iām not ready for that now. I have so much more to do. My parents didnāt want me to go to Cornish because it was far away, and Brandeis and Sarah Lawrence were SO expensive. I was really close to going to Brandeis, and I might have if the price tag hadnāt been so high. Iām glad that I had the option, but I was going to do theatre regardless and it didnāt make sense to plunge myself and my family into debt for 30 years. UArts gave me a giant scholarship right away, and more in my aid package. And it actually made a dent. The only other school that was comparable in price was Ithaca, and I had pretty much decided against theatre management by that point. So UArts seemed like an obvious choiceā¦until my dad decided I should go to a better academic school and said he would refuse to pay for it. There was a lot of family turmoil towards the end. But just before I left to visit schools, my parents sat down and my mom showed my dad what it would take for me to go to Brandeis or Sarah Lawrence. And she reminded him that Iām going to end up in theatre no matter what I do for undergrad! And he totally changed his mind. So after we unsuccessfully tried to negotiate with the Brandeis aid office, and visited UArts and loved Philly and all the people there, AND they didnāt take away any extra aid because of my grandpaās higher education fund for me, it was a no-brainer. I just committed today as soon as I got home. I might not get a brand-name education, but Iāll be doing what I love in a cool city with cool people, and Iāll learn a ton, and Iāll be able to take those classes with my auditor in casting and business of the business. Iām so excited to start at UArts in the fall, SAT score be damned! (And you know what, I donāt feel like Iām āwastingā my brains or whatever because thatās part of the reason we can pay for it! And because theatre is a LOT more intellectual/academic than people realize.)
HERE ARE SOME FUN THINGS I LEARNED:
- Knowing what to expect well in advance was key. I did a lot of the data gathering on my own, which was my decision. I love to research. It's important to me to know things. I'm the kid who knows all the obscure material and begs her friends to sing it because she is the wrong gender/type/ethnicity/doesn't have those notes! My mom and I made spreadsheets, and they were useful for audition material, but in terms of general school information it was easier just to keep brochures around than type tuition numbers into Excel.
- Do your prescreens right. I was away for two whole months at Circle in the Square, and though I grew a lot as an actor and met some cool people I definitely lost out on prep time. I closed down the drama bookshop every day, and I found monologues, but at the end of August they still weren't coached and I was having to think about prescreen requirements. My prescreens were a mess. I hired a professional videographer who I had worked with at a restaurant. He was great, but the scheduling was so crunched that I ended up not really rehearsing my songs with my voice teacher who was accompanying me, not having the right sheet music, not having any help choreographing or cleaning my dance, not taking good enough care of my hair/make-up/wardrobe, not having enough coaching on my monologues...and it all showed. My voice prescreens had better lighting, but the monologue ones made me look absolutely hideous and even though I originally planned on sending them to nine schools (switched to management at Ithaca and never sent it to Shenandoah), I didn't redo them because the video guy was so expensive. I could have done so many things better on my prescreens. I'm rambling, but it's my biggest regret. I truly wish I hadn't rushed to get them done.
- It is so important to consider the entire school/area as well as the MT program. I knew exactly what I wanted out of the program, but I didn't realize that location is absolutely paramount for me until I went to visit Ithaca and hated it. The people were lovely, but I just wouldn't be happy in the middle of nowhere. Thankfully, excluding prescreens I didn't pass, all of my other schools were in or near major cities. I also came to realize that I don't want to be in the South or on the West Coast. And I didn't want a school with big football or too much partying. This all came a lot later than it should have, because I was overfocused on BFA MT programs.
- Don't overlook a non-audition BA program! If you can afford it. Lots of liberal arts schools have really solid theatre departments. Also, the degree means nothing. A lot of college theatre books ask "do you want a BA or BFA?" I'd recommend having more of a percentage of classes in the major that would be okay to you. Mine was about 60-80%, but flexible.
- Stress is a thing and having a light schedule senior year is not giving up. I went through a LOT of health issues this year, brought upon by stress. This is a huge thing and I don't know why I didn't mention it. Anyway, I developed gastritis in early January and brought it to all my auditions. It's an inflammation of the stomach lining and basically made me feel constantly like I was going to be sick for about three months. At first I thought it was a flu, so I didn't do anything about it until after Unifieds. Almost all of my auditions were in the two weeks surrounding Unifieds; in fact, all of them were except for two. So while I was unaffected vocally (and I think as long as I had under 4 auditions in a day, my auditions were probably better because I did so many in such a short time--my first and last, both a month removed from those two weeks, were my worst), I actually got so sick in a walk-in that I had to leave the room. At Emerson, I was literally lying down on the bench outside the audition room. It made dance calls a lot of fun as well. Ugh. I missed so much more school than I would have for auditions. I could have kept it to a couple of Fridays and one Tuesday if not for gastritis. UGH. I was trying to juggle a job 3 days a week, the same courseload I had junior year including number of APs, and dance/voice outside of school. And all of them had to go January through March.
- The last show I did was January of junior year. I totally ditched my high school's musical senior year, and because I was away at a summer program I couldn't do anything then. My resume was honestly pretty tiny in terms of shows, but I had a lot of training. And I didn't feel like I was judged heavily on that. In retrospect, it was a pretty good decision. The fact is, there just aren't opportunities to be in shows 24/7, and I was picky about which ones I would do. Because if I wasn't learning something, what was the point? I tried to be in shows with serious people who I would learn from, and because of that combined with eliminating shows completely come second semester of junior year, I didn't get a lot of leads. I worried about that a lot, but fear not, high school not-stars! It has nothing to do with your talent.
- How you look matters and the fact is, I'm not a naturally good-looking person. I'm not an unnaturally good-looking person, either. Unfortunately. In like a kind of Tracy Turnblad way (read: I'm the opposite of thin). A lot of extremely good-looking people do musical theatre. That was intimidating. I don't know that my size or look hurt me, except in my terrible prescreens, but I took extra care to make sure that all of my material was type appropriate. I might have gone to far with that because I didn't show a legit soprano AT ALL (those songs are all so ingenue-y!), but I felt like my material really supported who I am inside and out. So did my wardrobe. I actually made my audition dress because I couldn't find anything that was perfect. Highly recommend; it's a great conversation starter! Anyway, I'd heard that not being attractive would make it harder. I honestly don't know whether it did. I'd be curious to hear about other peoples' experiences though.
Anyway, I enjoyed the process greatly. It was bonding time for me and my mom. I got to go on road trips, stay in hotels, eat out, meet new people and perform for people who really know the craft/industry and get feedback. In many ways, it was a dream come true. In others (mostly health-related), it was a nightmare! If any juniors have any more questions (especially about UArts as the program is undergoing a lot of change and itās hard to find current info), please feel free to private message me or check out the blog I kept through the process: thatyeariauditionedforcollege.blogspot.com.
It has been a pleasure to go through this with all of you! Iām going to sleep now.
Congrats, @MTVT2015ā¦you sound like a very smart, talented, and yes, beautiful performer who discovered who she was and what she wanted in this crazy process. UArts is lucky to get you!
Thank you @EastchesterMom ! That is so sweet!
I loved reading your story, @MTVT2015! What a journey. You really thought things through and I think you have found your place. You can always do producing or management down the line. Iām glad your parents supported you. UArts is lucky to get you! Look out world! Lastly, go VT MT girls! CONGRATS!