Just a tease, because we have a decision in our household. I need to finish up our story and I’ll post it.
LOL! Good for you! What a relief for you and can’t wait to read the story.
Bumping for those asking about the thread. Are you still teasing us, @songgirlsmom?
We are close!
OK…here you go!
Applied to: Viterbo University, Nebraska Wesleyan University, Rockford University, Culver-Stockton College, Millikin University, University of Central Missouri (academically accepted to all with academic scholarships ranging from $10,000 to $17,000)
Prescreens: Nebraska Wesleyan (passed)
Artistically Accepted to: Viterbo (BFA MT), Nebraska Wesleyan (BFA MT), Culver-Stockton College (BFA MT), UCM (BFA MT); withdrew applications from Millikin and Rockford after Viterbo and NWU acceptances. Artistically accepted into Southeast Missouri State (BFA MT), Stephens College (BFA MT) and Drury (BFA-theatre) after scholarship audition at Missouri Thespians.
Coach: none
Summer Programs: Three years at Orpheus Music Festival at Simpson College and one year at Torggler Summer Vocal Institute (where she got to sing onstage with Patti Lupone!!!)
Training:
Dance (limited to 1 year musical theatre dance, one semester of college ballet, one year of studio ballet and a few other private lessons)
Voice (7 years)
Acting (2 years, one year of private study, one year in the Coterie Theatre’s Master Actor program)
Background: D caught the theater bug in 6th grade when she was cast as Snow White in her middle school’s show Ever After, but didn’t “commit” to wanting a career in theater until she hit high school. She sang in an auditioned kids choir through middle school and started private voice that year too. I really thought she was gearing up for an opera career, because she has a beautiful coloratura lyric soprano voice.
Fast forward to freshman year and after being cast as a singing wife in The King and I, it was full steam ahead for musical theatre. I won’t go into the gory details of her high school career, but it was definitely full of ups and down, with the ups being leads in two musicals, casting in community theatre shows and two trips to All State Choir among other things.
We started visiting colleges at the end of sophomore year to get a feel for what type of campus and program she would be interested in. I think we visited a total of 13 different schools. She had been on the Simpson College campus for Orpheus and really loved the feel of the smaller campus. She wanted a small program with lots of personal attention within 8 hours driving time, so she created a list that eventually got whittled down to six schools (including a state school as a financial safety) all auditioned BFA programs. (yes, I know…but she said if she didn’t get in anywhere, she’d take a gap year, train more and try again)
We started summer of senior year with a list of 12 (including some Ohio schools that we had not visited), but eventually she decided she wanted to cut the list even more. I was sweating quite a bit by this point.
First audition was Culver Stockton College., where she had to audition for theatre and music faculty. She was accepted soon after into the BFA MT program with very nice talent scholarships from both theater and music. Second audition was Nebraska Wesleyan. She was absolutely in love with this school from our previous visit and the audition day only fanned the flames more. She was ready to sign on immediately if she got the thumbs up. Well, thumbs up came two weeks later, but the modest talent scholarship was not enough to make it even remotely affordable without massive loans even with her generous academic scholarship and small music participation scholarship.
Moving on to the Viterbo audition, her other dream school. On the drive from the hotel to the university, a car ran a red light and plowed into us. Yep. That happened. D is in hysterics. I’m on the phone to the police and trying to figure out how to call the school to let them know we can’t make it. The tow driver offers to drop us off…D pulls it together and wants to do the audition. We were about 10 minutes late, but everyone at Viterbo was incredible, gracious and wonderful. You wouldn’t have known anything was wrong from D’s demeanor. (I was a total wreck, trying to figure out how we were going to get home—car was undrivable and has since been totaled) The acceptance to the BFA MT program came as a huge happy surprise. Unfortunately, no talent $$$ upfront, so not knowing if Viterbo would be affordable, the hunt was still on.
However, she did decide with the three acceptances in hand that she wanted to cancel Millikin and Rockford. She figured Culver Stockton was going to be affordable, so if money didn’t come through at Viterbo, she’d be happy going to Culver.
The Curve Ball
In January, D auditioned for a Thespians scholarship at the Missouri Thespians meeting. She didn’t get one of those scholarships, but she did get callbacks to about 10 schools. Southeast Missouri State offered her acceptance into the BFA MT program based on her scholarship audition. So did Stephens College. After talking with faculty of both schools, she decided to throw them in the mix, since we still didn’t know if we’d be able to afford her two favorites. After looking over Stephens, even though it came highly recommended by her acting coach and its unique three year BFA program, she decided that she wouldn’t fare that well at an all-girls school.
She did quickly apply to SEMO and was accepted with an academic and a leadership scholarship. We scheduled a visit to SEMO to check it out. In the meantime, she has her audition at University of Central Missouri. She thinks it went well, but I wonder if her heart is really in it. (The artistic acceptance came right after the SEMO visit.)
The next weekend is the SEMO visit. And game over. The BFA program is housed in the beautiful River Campus, a satellite camps not far from the main campus. The facilities are incredible. They do a senior NY showcase, and the curriculum looks amazing. They do two mainstage musicals a year (and she can audition for both) There is a brand new dorm for just visual and performing arts students that has practice rooms, a dance studio, classroom and its own cafeteria. A shuttle runs constantly to the main campus for gen eds. She fell head over heels again. On the way home, she says “mom, this is crazy, but I want to go here. I’m ready to commit.” I am speechless, not only is it not a small college, it wasn’t even on our long list. We just didn’t even know about it. (Oh, and it is also the cheapest option on her list.) But its conservatory feel within a large university has won her over.
The hardest parts were notifying NWU and Viterbo that she won’t be coming. This was incredibly bittersweet for her and for me. Both are insanely awesome programs. We had hoped that scholarship money would make them affordable, but alas, it was not to be.
So……
Final Decision: Southeast Missouri State (BFA-MT)
Lessons Learned: “Anything Goes” in this crazy college hunt. I feel like we found an absolutely hidden gem accidently despite all of the college visits and research we did. So after all the miles put on the vehicle(s) and a totaled vehicle to boot, the school she ends up choosing is the one she didn’t even know she was auditioning for; one that we didn’t even need to leave town to do. It’s nuts!
I do second guess everything and wonder if D should have tried for more “top” programs or if it’s a mistake to go to the “unknown” school, but she is extremely happy and confident in her decision. I have no doubt she’ll make the most of her time with the professionals at her chosen school and she doesn’t seem to be looking back at all. Ugh, this whole process is just mindblowing.
I have to give a shout out to @KaMaMom, @CanadianMTGirl, and @TNMTDad for all of their awesome messages, information and support. Even though my D isn’t going to the schools you helped us with, you all deserve massive kudos for your awesomeness.
Yay @songgirlsmom !!! So happy for you & your kiddo!!
@songgirlsmom, Great post! It’s really interesting to see your daughter’s path - and a great reminder for next year’s seekers that there are so many wonderful programs that are easily overlooked yet provide great training at reasonable cost. Congrats to your daugther!
Way to go, @songgirlsmom! SEMO has an awesome facility!
Congrats @songgirlsmom Now you all can take a deep breath and enjoy the rest of senior year!!
WTG!!!
Congratulations @songgirlsmom My D is also in at SEMO for BFA MT, and it’s a strong contender. We also looked for “hidden gems” in addition to the schools with the crazy odds. She still has 2 more auditions left…so I will be posting the full story with her permission when all decisions are in!
Bumping! This is my all time favorite thread! 
Thanks for sharing!! Love it! Keep us updated on how she likes SEMO… Looks like a program my d would enjoy!
working on the post…but …D committed today to a BFA MT program!!!
YAAAAAASSS @crc500
Posted this in the wrong thread first - now copying here / in two parts:
Finally the moment to do this – so happy it’s sort of all over! And our story is very Wizard of Oz-like - a long journey only to rediscover that home was right in front of you all along. And yes, there is a happy ending.
I’ll say at the outset, though I thought I knew a lot about this process and the level of competition ahead of time, I totally didn’t get it. We live near NYC and know lots of working NYC theater professionals, all of whom, having seen D perform, told us with that D was exceptional and would be successful both in college acceptances and in having a professional MT life. One, a producer, has even booked her a couple of times for prestigious professional vocal jobs. She had spectacular recommendations from a couple of them. Because of our proximity to the real world of NYC theater, and the validation from it, I thought it was going to be a whole lot easier than it was. What I learned most is that college auditions/decisions often net really different results/appraisals than working world equivalents.
Background: no coaching - didn’t think we needed it, small public, non PA HS, years of training in voice and dance, couple of years in acting, largely in NYC, and strongest areas, we thought, were voice and theater dance. We figured D’s best results would be from voice and dance-focused schools, and the ones which wanted just one, contemporary, monologue. Got that completely wrong - her best results came in the auditions where they wanted to see the most, particurly those which wanted a classical monologue along with a contemporary. Total surprise. Also, her preference was to leave NYC (though she loves it) for college years, hence only one NY application.
Story began a bit differently than most because finally, I can say that D did the BoCo MTDI program last summer, completely loved everything about it and one day towards the end of it an email from D arrived for me with the subject header: The Best News Of My Life! They had brought her in and told her she was accepted for Class of 2020. It was incredibly exciting and gave her an enormous psychological boost going into all of this.
I held off on posting this here all CC season because it was told to her privately, we were unaware of any similar offers to others in the program, and I wasn’t sure about sharing it during application season, but it altered her course completely. She basically cut half her list off - any schools which she wouldn’t have chosen over BoCo plus any schools one had to travel to to audition, with the one exception of Michigan.
So, in terms of MT she wound up only applying to 8 programs, all audition, all competitive: Ithaca, Syracuse, CCM, UMich, CMU, Emerson, Manhattan School of Music plus BoCo (she still needed to go through the process there).
Passed all pre-screens - which we did totally low-tech.
Auditioned for Young Arts using audition season material - also low-tech - and was amazed to be named an HM winner. (As a result, she’s about to do the YA Regional Week in NYC, which is really exciting.)
We were thinking: we got this.
Wrong.
Decided to do one audition ahead of the curve to get the practice, and chose the school she was least invested in, Emerson, which had Early Action. Figured she’d get a deferral, at the very least.
Rejected. Oh so naively then couldn’t believe it. Looking back, it was a necessary correction of attitude and started us on the path to understanding how tough this is.
NY Unifieds, all auditions went well - one weird experience in the interview portion with one school, but CMU was an outstanding audition, even factoring in how much everyone loves their CMU auditions. Flew to UMich in February, straightforward, fine, dance component totally her Fosse wheelhouse.
Results started coming in: CCM - a hold; Ithaca - rejected.
Last audition was Manhattan School of Music, on Feb. 29, was offered acceptance “in the room”, which felt great, though D still preferred BoCo. A couple of weeks later got a “no” from Michigan and the CCM hold disappointingly, as we thought she might be a CCM “type”, turned into a no.
That was the low point. Especially as by then I was starting to panic over the potential cost of BoCo. In the euphoria over the admission, I had kind of glossed over the money component, and as the months went by and I saw how tough this all was, and heard all the BoCo never gives anyone much because they don’t have much, I began getting really scared about completely devastating my D if it wound up being unaffordable.
The day after the lowest point, which had my D in tears, considering herself a failure despite my telling her it was normal for MT admissions, the BoCo acceptance email arrived, and with it a larger than expected talent scholarship, which enabled us to say definitively, “Yes - you can attend”. Huge happiness followed. Like HUGE. She loves the school, the vibe, Boston, and especially the family atmosphere there from both students and faculty. And the phenomenal dance program there.
Then, just hours later, she opened the Carnegie-Mellon portal and was stunned by a waitlist. Beyond anything else, it was a giant validation, at exactly the moment she needed it, regardless of whether or not she clears it. Financial aid package arrived a couple of days later and, because we have “need” it more or less matched the cost of BoCo’s.
Finally, it all came to a conclusion yesterday with a Syracuse WL. So, what I would have initially perceived as terrible results at the beginning of this process, I now have come to understand and accept as quite normal, if one is applying to the most competitive, percentage-wise, MT programs: 2 acceptances, 2 WL, 4 rejections.
Continued…
Continued…sorry it’s so epic… (Copied and pasted from other thread)
In the end, D feels extremely happy. She is on the Priority WL at CMU, which was her first choice school throughout much of this process, and will find out in early May. But, more important than that, she loves and feels loved by BoCo, has deep connections with some of the faculty and feels honored to go there and wouldn’t even necessarily choose the hardest-to-get-into one over the other. If the choice becomes hers, a lot of consideration on her part will go into making the decision for her.
What I would do differently: it pains me to write these words, but I would use a coach. We didn’t need one for advising on schools - I love to research and would have come up with a good range had we needed to go the 15-18 route - and there absolutely would have been some safeties on there, both admittance-wise and economic. I did this with my two older, non-arts, kids, successfully. But where I feel we must have stumbled was matching particular repertoire, perhaps especially on monologues, maybe on songs, to the specific colleges. If we could do it over (and thanks but no thanks on that!), I would work with a coach targeting that particular aspect of the process. I do think it might have altered a couple of the results. But then again, who knows? it may have had no bearing and the rejecting schools simply may have had no use for a 5’5" brunette legit soprano this year.
The other thing is that I just wouldn’t have done any long distance, expensive trips unless it was for an on-campus audition or a post-acceptance visit. With the odds involved, if money is an issue, as it is for us, it’s pretty pointless. Aside from going to Michigan for the audition, we did one other, and I now see that expenditure as ridiculous. Apply it to the tuition - you’ll need it.
So a crazy, arduous, bonding year which we kind of could have skipped all of, after the July BoCo acceptance, since we’ve wound up where we started out. But, it’s all great preparation for the profession ahead and it seems to have only made my D more determined, convinced that the BFA is the right path for her (she wrestled with leaving academics largely behind for a long time) and resourceful than ever.
A final shout-out to the kids on CC - two who come to mind are @ParachuteBoy and @destiny95 - I’ve been so impressed over how you’ve handled things, organizationally and emotionally - at times I wondered whether you were really teenagers - although of course, maybe it is precisely because you are teenagers – I admire your dedication and tenacity. Best of luck to you both, wherever you land – you’ll do fine – and to everyone here, I’m sure your kids will be blissfully happy, doing what they love to do, come September, wherever they are.
@rampions GREAT story about your/your D’s journey to Oz!! For sure Dorothy keenly appreciated “home” even more after that crazy yellow brick road trip. I know D will have a great time at Young Arts. I’m getting the emails and see that the dancers will have Baryshnikov on hand!
@rampions Outstanding story! My son has a similar odyssey that I will share once he makes his final decision. So happy and please for you and your daughter that she is landing exactly where she wants to go! Boston is a great town.
Thanks @letterhead and @martin247998 – letterhead, congrats on all your daughter’s acceptances and she’ll be missed at YA. Meant to tell you that D and I both loved your D’s shoes when we “spotted” her but didn’t know it was her, at Unifieds!! Martin247998 - agreed on Boston, and I forgot to include the added bonanza that my son goes to college there too so I’ll likely have two in the same place for two years – AND they can take the train to & from = heaven. Also P.S. (Though we love Pittsburgh too - same son having visited CMU for sciencey & mathy things 2.5 years ago!)