Wow, that’s quite a journey! I know some of the kids at Point Park and they LOVE it. Hopefully your D will find her home there! Best of Luck.
Yes, o yes, @GSOMTMom – a two-time survivor! BAL to your gorgeous and Talented D!!
Yeah, apparently we’re all about the dramatic in this family HA! The D is super excited to start her next adventure!
I hear you, @GSOMTMom – I’m a Drama Mama myself, as you know!
Thanks so much for sharing your story @GSOMTMom. So happy for your outcome. PPU is a great program!
We know several kids who have transferred to other programs and it is a whole journey unto itself that is not well represented here on CC. But how difficult that decision is to make! I hope more people will share their experiences about transferring. How did you know it was the wrong program and not that your child was just having a tough time adjusting to college life in general? How soon did you start applying/auditioning? Did any of your credits transfer for anything (gen eds, etc.)? How did the school you were transferring from react? When were they aware you were trying to transfer? I hope someone will answer all of these questions at some point as I’m sure this issue comes up more frequently than is represented here on CC. And also people who chose a gap year - what were the pros and cons and how did you make the decision a gap year would be the best option? If anyone is willing to share, I think there would be a lot of people interested in learning more about transferring and/or gap years.
GSOMTMOM, Can you say what your daughter didn’t like about Shenandoah, as my son is thinking of applying there. If you’d prefer to private message, that would be fine. Good luck to your daughter!
OOOOO! Great questions. I was getting super long winded and left things out…
As I said, the fit or lack thereof was evident from the visit day. I was not surprised that she wanted to transfer. I thought she adjusted really well to college life, overall. She’s very independent anyway so I expected her to do well. By spring semester, she kind of shut down and was very sad and that’s when I decided that no matter the outcome, she wouldn’t go back to that school. She made a number of good friends and worked with great teachers but she was just sad most of the time. I was happy to be able to see her so often that semester because I was very worried.
September. Pretty much just like the first time. Montclair was the one school that had a separate application for transfers and it didn’t open until Jan 31st which was the same day as her audition. The audition can be scheduled without the application being in.
The only gen ed class in the first year of MT at Shenandoah is a Freshmen Experience class. COPA specifies that you are a freshman when you transfer in and any credits accepted are considered electives. I didn’t see the letter from their office detailing the classes they accepted.
The reason that I didn’t post about the transfer during the process is becuase The D’s advisor is on here. He knew she was considering a transfer but I didn’t want to share the deets. I think they were supportive as so many students, in general, transfer every single year from every single school. Again, I was a few hundred miles away being the travel agent so I don’t know much.
Some faculty knew earlier than others or that she felt the program wasn’t a fit and she may consider a transfer. The MT head was on sabbatical and out of the country first semester but I advised that she should let him know before auditions started in case they needed to find another 'her".
Hey @MTMommaJAA , your turn! 
Congrats to you @GSOMTMom and The D! Just want to add that we love Michael McKelvey at Point Park. Our D has done SummerStockAustin with him (and will again this summer) and has nothing but praise for his teaching/directing. She is currently the understudy in a professional production he is directing right now and is learning so much. D has worked with a number of the COPA students (he brings them with him for SSA) and they are not just talented but nice people (not at diva in the bunch). Best of luck to your brave girl!
Aaaww thanks for sharing that, @austinmt! And thank you everyone!
Twice a survivor! That makes you Queen! And your D survived a rough patch, too. Yes, changing your mind, path, direction, school, outlook on life, hair color and dietary choices are all possible, legal, and OK. Congrats!
Congratulations to you and dear D!! I would guess that many of us 2018ers held our collective breath the first few months of freshman year waiting to see if the “perfect fit” was still a “fit” in the real world. I commend your D for going through a freshman year and auditioning, traveling, etc. I especially commend you for being the wonderful and supportive mother that you are. You are going to be bored silly next year 
I know, @entertainersmom! Whatever shall I do?!!
Well, I see more hang time with MTMajorCook in your future
Can you PM me his name, too? We’re in VT and just starting this process for next year.
Applied to: Baldwin Wallace, Ball State, University of Utah, Point Park, University of West Florida, Ithaca, University of Minnesota, Northern Colorado, Western Michigan, Carnegie Mellon, NYU SteinHardt
Prescreens: Ithaca, Baldwin Wallace, NYU SteinHardt (Passed All)
Academically accepted: BW, Ball State, U of U, Point Park, UWF, Northern Colorado, Western Michigan (generous transfer scholarships from BW, Northern Colorado and Western Michigan)
Withdrew: NYU SteinHardt. Parents were not supportive of this one, but I had every intention of going alone… until I got my first acceptance.
Artistically accepted: Ball State BA Theater (redirect) Baldwin Wallace BM VP, University of West Florida BFA MT, University of Utah BFA MT
Waitlisted: Northern Colorado MT and University of Arizona MT (last minute video audition)
Coach: I worked on my songs technically with my voice teachers but never had acting/monologue coaching for the auditions.
Training:
Voice: I’ve been taking private voice for three school semesters now from singers in the Arizona Opera and working on classical music and MT technique.
Acting: Tracy Liz Miller is an actress who has worked off broadway and in the NYC area for years. She moved to AZ to direct, and we did a production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream together at Southwest Shakespeare Company, and coincidentally she was also my school acting teacher that following spring! I learned so much from her. I took theater in high school for but never did any shows until last year. I just got into Scottsdale Conservatory Theater (summer program) and can’t wait to keep learning more.
Dance: I just started dancing last year and have been enrolled in ballet, modern, jazz and tap for about 8 months now. I love it! I’m naturally a gymnast, and competition cheerleader, so it’s been quite an adjustment to get ballet everyday, but patience and hard work are paying off slowly.
Summer Programs: “Making it On Broadway” Jodi Langel’s Summer intensive in NYC (master classes with Lindsay Mendez, Kelli O Hara and Sutton Foster)
My story:
I auditioned for my first musical about a year and a half ago at community theater and fell in love with the whole experience. I thought I was going to major in business or marketing, just because I had no idea where I fit in yet. I was cast as a lead and genuinely surprised I stood a chance. I started auditioning for community and regional theater and 11 shows later, I had the “sit down” with my parents where I told them I simply couldn’t or didn’t want to do anything else with my life after college other than musical theater. They were thrilled! I had my first wait-list and eventual rejection from Northern Colorado last spring when I auditioned on a whim. This gave me inspiration to train all year long until 2015 Unifieds and on campus auditions. I started at a community college as a classical vocal major that summer, enrolled in acting class and attended a summer dance workshop. I did my research to build a list of schools, film pre-screens, schedule on campus auditions and trained relentlessly.
The schools:
My first choice above all was Baldwin Wallace. After watching “Stages” how could anyone like me not want that? My second choice was Ball State, after having a director who got his BFA in acting there and a theater teacher who’s former classmate works in the faculty, I thought it would be a perfect fit. On campus auditions were: Point Park, BW, UNC, CMU (just for the heck of it). I enjoyed my interview with Barbara at CMU and she really helped me challenge myself more and was so kind. The rest were at Chicago Unifieds. I immediately fell in love with BW’s atmosphere. The faculty and master class we attended were wonderful, the MT and VP students were so kind and I loved the conservatory environment. (Though there were 8 inches of snow that morning and though I’m an Arizonian, I made it through) Dogfight was absolutely amazing that weekend and so was the opera, La Finta Giardiniera.
Unifieds: I had great auditions for Ithaca, Western Michigan and Ball state in Chicago. Ithaca was my favorite because I got to run my song twice and they sort of workshopped it in this crazy way and it was super fun! We stayed in the same hotel that unifieds were held and I would describe the experience as “a candy-land for music theater performers.” Choose your school, LOL. Everywhere you went you could hear belting, run into dance calls in the hallways and hear people passionately running monologues through the walls. I wish I could have signed up for more auditions at unifieds after learning how many schools were actually there! It was great to stay there and be able to visit our room for the emergency cough drop and throat coat needs and the restaurants nearby were delicious. After all was said and done, I was excited to get my audition results!
…rejections are the hardest. I panicked when nearly every letter was a rejection or a redirection. Was I not meant to do musical theater? It was frightening… I had thought everything went so well. Scared, I submitted a video audition via accept’d to University of West Florida. Then I saw on CC how it was common to schedule more auditons after initial results, which helped me cope. (Thanks guys) A week later, I recieved two yeses from my walk-in auditon for University of Utah and a yes from West Florida BFA MT. I nearly lost it when I got a yes packet from BW in vocal performance, and was relieved that the final 2 letters from U of A and UNC were just Waitlist letters. I realize now that anyone is fortunate to even get 1 or 2 acceptances for MT because of the crazy competition. Anyways…
I still didn’t know what to do. The dust had settled. Now I had to choose between Vocal Performance or Musical Theater. It was down to BW or U of U or UWF. My heart was in shreds. I should be happy during this time like everyone else… Right? But all these past 2 months were, were misery and tears and life defining moments trying to dig deep.
What I would do differently:
1.) Prepare material I LOVED. I think I got caught up in thinking about vocal range and acting range that I selected things based on “showing what I could do” rather than something I absolutely loved to perform. I am grateful for that learnig experience… and every audition since, I have vowed to myself to stay true to my gut feeling when choosing monologues and songs, because I learned that’s where the passion comes out.
2.) Get a coach who brings fresh new ideas to material. I relied so heavily on myself through this whole experience (filmed my own pre-screens, made all the appointments, applications, research, material selection) I really craved an outside opinion of my practice auditions.
3.) Don’t do a show during auditions. I was doing Annie Get Your Gun 8 times a week, and then traveling evey weekend to auditons, while taking 15 class credits and working a serving job. Im not saying it’s impossible to do a show during all the chaos, but my attention and energy was spread so thin during the whole semester, I could have focused solely on college auditions.
What I learned:
- Life goes on/do the research. The "top tier" schools may look glamorous and have great training but that doesn't mean there aren't other options. In fact I discovered just how many programs there are who don't get the same credit or recognition until I did more research and saw all the training and success stories that people had to share. I thought life was over after all the no's but now I have fond memories of those auditions of "the best" schools, which only have made me work harder to be at the level of the talented people I auditioned with. They definitely inspired me.
- Have fun at dance calls! Point Park students who helped out with auditions were amazing and I had the best experience meeting friends that day and just had a fantastic time at the dance call. After all the singing and acting auditions its the PERFECT way to show who you are without the stress.
- Travel with a friend. Parents are the best things in the world. Had my dad not seen the dreams I had as possible, it would have been a lot harder to do this completely alone. He was my travel buddy and support system for every audition! :)
- Pack all dance shoes and extra auditon dresses. The dance calls at Unifieds were on carpet and not so sturdy with character shoes, luckily I had jazz shoes in my bag as well.
- Be yourself. Be confident and happy with the material you have chosen to audition with. OWN IT. (The plane ride is a good time to go over monologues and songs) :)
Final Decision: just felt like posting the background story. Will post it soon, when I post it in other thread. Thank you for taking the time to read.
What a tease, @destiny95!! Great post.
A cliff hanger…
BACKGROUND: When D ( @stage2nature ) was 2 or 3, she wasn’t part of the children’s choir at church, and she didn’t know the songs they were singing one Sunday, but she, unsolicited, unabashedly walked right up onstage and sang and danced with the choir to the best of her itty bitty body’s ability! (She was and is not the type to draw a lot of attention to herself, so the fact that she walked right up there was odd. Thankfully, the choir director was not upset at all, but delighted and encouraging.) We knew we had a performer on our hands!
She was 4 when she appeared in her first production, a show at a regional theatre’s children’s production. Since then, she’s appeared in over 45 productions, mostly at various regional/professional theatres, but also at community theatres, plus some at our homeschool co-op, which puts on great shows. (I’m one of the directors, so, of course, I’d say they’re great, ha ha!)
When she was little, I could never imagine her as a dancer because she was pretty uncoordinated then, but she really came into her own at around 9 and took off, dancing almost all forms, including pointe, and participating in a dance company for a few years. Of course, taking dance with her theatre schedule has been challenging, but we managed to find quality studios and instructors who were supportive and understanding of D’s theatre life. But, even though D adores pointe, she had to stop taking it; it required too much time. In fact, her dance training as a whole has been mostly spotty because of time; theatre productions have always come first. Still, she loves it, picks up choreography quickly, and acts when she dances, so I guess it was enough. She’s so excited to dance daily/almost daily in college!
She’s taken voice lessons since she was 10, with about 3 years off total. Her instructors have always been top notch. Her first, sadly, passed away. Her second was connected to a highly regarded MT program, and, her third (because we moved) is connected to another highly regarded program. They have been invaluable–encouraging and insightful about singing, the theatre world, and college programs. D is so blessed! Her current one has poured herself into D’s college audition process and is a true, fabulous mentor who truly knows D and cares about her, and we could not be more grateful for her!
D didn’t go to any national summer programs, but she went to a local pre-professional theatre camp for 3 years where the program director (also a regional/professional director) took an interest in her. He’s been a fabulous support since she was 8! She’s been fortunate to be surrounded by great professional directors like him who have served as mentors and encouragers. We’re so thankful for their support!
We weren’t going to get a national college coach. D’s vocal coach doesn’t agree with the idea of them (one “company” in particular), the other vocal coach didn’t see the need, one of the aforementioned directors also felt it wasn’t necessary, and we didn’t have much more money to spend on this. (We have a few more children.) But, in September, we panicked. Monologue choices were wrong, and D wanted another, outside opinion on the school list. (Vocally, she felt confident in her choices because of her local voice teacher and also feedback from her previous teacher.) We decided to consult Chelsea Diehl of My College Audition; she seemed so reasonable, warm, and helpful in her blog. That assessment was correct. We’ve both said many times that we’re relieved that we’ve had her on D’s team! Her generosity, insight, perceptiveness, compassion, and interest in her students as individuals is awesome. She was able to quickly and correctly ascertain exactly what D wanted and needed and what her personality is, then guide her appropriately and sensitively, always encouraging D to listen to her intuition.
The question often comes up on here whether or not national audition coaches are necessary. I don’t know if they are–I actually genuinely hope they’re not because of the expense and other things–but we both loved and appreciated D having one even though D only had about 6-8 Skype sessions total with Chelsea, plus many emails.
Although there were a few times this year when I felt close to going over the edge into college audition madness and fretted internally a couple times over our decision to not have D go to big name summer programs, audition for national shows, or enter national competitions, having the encouragement of all of these people helped keep me grounded and somewhat sane! They also were a fabulous help to D and helped her stay calm and truly enjoy herself.
PROGRAM’S ON D’S AUDITION TRAIL: Belmont, CAP-21, Hartt, Illinois Wesleyan, Montclair, NYU/Tisch, Northern Kentucky, Otterbein, Roosevelt, Shenandoah, Texas State, University of the Arts, University of Oklahoma, Wright
WALK-INS: Coastal Carolina, University of Alabama Birmingham, Stevens-Point
SAFETY: Columbia (Chicago)
You might notice that many of the usual “big guns” weren’t on D’s list. The perceived fit of the environment within the program for her along with quality training was all-important to D. She was focused and looking for something specific, and it didn’t matter much to her if the place was considered “top tier.” There was one which I tried to get her to include on her list, but, even though I gently kept bringing up the program, she resolutely stuck to what she knew she wanted. She had a moment of “told you” about this at Unifieds, when we had our only negative Unifieds encounter from either NY or Chicago Unifieds. We walked away from that encounter, and she laughed, “See? THAT’S why I didn’t audition there!” (It’s a great program with great people, I’m sure. I’m not degrading it at all; neither was she. It just wasn’t a fit for her. Others seek out what she did not and vice versa.) I admire her ability to keep laser beam focused on what she thought was a healthy, challenging learning environment for her–a good fit for her.