@efr9598 Congratulations to your S! AWESOME school, AWESOME program! What an accomplishment!!
Quote: MTCA is different in that they provide direct master classes with MT directors, mock auditions, advice on dress and attend Unifieds to personally support kids
MCA does the same, except for personally attending Unifieds, although Chelsea and co. are available at all times via phone.
Thanks for all the kind works @Janine1 @Twoboysandadog @kb23345 and @followurheart - how exciting for your D! I am sure weâll have a chance to meet on the NU campus at some point.
@efr9598 Congratulations! We know quite a few students at Northwestern, many of them in the theater department. You canât beat Northwestern for the education, theater department, faculty, intelligence and engagement of its students, or lakefront campus (as long as you can take the winters). Enjoy!
@efr9598 and @follwurheart My D will also be attending NU in the fall. Like you S, she fell in love with the place during Wildcat days. I will post her story when I get a free moment.
@BandMom55, congratulations to your D too. I will look forward to reading your Dâs story. 
I guess itâs time to post my daughterâs decision!
Finally!
Training: voice 8 yrs, tap 2 yrs, many years of community /school theatre, various acting/master classes, attends an arts high school for MT ( instruction in acting, voice & mainly MT dance) .
Summer programs: 8 years of local theatre camps, Destination Broadway NYC, intern at her schoolâs youth theatre academy, LIU Post Summer MT Institute
Coach: none professional.
Applied: Wright State, Point Park, Northern Kentucky Univ, DeSales Univ, Western Carolina, Kent State, Univ of the Arts, Montclair, Baldwin Wallace, James Madison , Rider
, Univ of Mary Washington (non audition safety, theater with MT concentration)
Academically accepted: all
Prescreens: none required.
Audition cancelled: Rider (due to illness couldnât reschedule)
Denials: Wright State, Baldwin Wallace, Point Park, Montclair
Waitlisted: James Madison
Accepted: Northern Kentucky, DeSales Univ, Kent State, Western Carolina , Univ of the Arts (from waitlist)
My daughterâs audition process was all on campus. we decided to forgo Unifieds. D said she preferred seeing the schools & many schools on her list werenât there. Tbh it was a challenge to schedule the auditions as D is very active in constant productions at school & itâs not possible to opt out of any of them.
We had been working on the school list /researching since soph yr. I feel like we wouldnât change it much, as we had geographical limits (nothing over 8 hrs away) & financial, trying to keep list inclusive of schools that were reasonable or were known to be generous aid wise. We added a few schools after attending SETC junior yr ( which I highly recommend) I wanted her to audition @ some lesser known programs that draw from a more regional pool but still have a good rep for theatre/MT. I cannot tell you how wonderful many of these schools were, taking the time to talk with her & just going way beyond what you would expect. there is something to be said about adding some schools that do not audition 1000 kids. I encourage current junior parents on this forum to look into some of the lesser known schools. Please donât discount a school because it isnât on the âlist of top MT schoolsâ. obviously you should audition at well known programs that fit your child but donât pad your list with top heavy schools since there is a high chance of disappointment come April.
My D is a brown hair, Caucasian soprano who can belt as well as sing legit. She is a singer first & has been singing since age 5. She briefly considered a VP major but cannot get away from her love of MT after doing her first show in 3rd grade. My H and myself were very realistic about the difficulties of this process. We felt D was a strong enough actor & singer to get acceptances but we thought dance may be her talisman. Sheâs a singer/actor who moves well and has not had formal ballet etc. Not sure how that all played out & of course we will never know!
D had some top choice schools and BW was her first choice. She was very intrigued by the BM degree & the emphasis on music. So that denial stung the worst as she felt the audition was her strongest. Interestingly, the day my D was supposed to get BW decision, an email came from Kent State offering her acceptance. It was totally not expected to come that day & arrived literally an hour before BW notified.
After looking @ her acceptances we revisited schools. Might I add with maybe one exception we had good experiences at all of the schools we auditioned at and visited. Whatâs funny is Kent State was on our radar initially. It then fell off and then got added again to replace missing Rider.
We toured the Kent campus, she sat in on classes, met other welcoming students/faculty, loved the true college vibe and felt it checked off all the boxes.
She could take advantage of their collaboration with the Porthouse Summer regional Theatre and audition for summer stock which is a great opportunity as you can earn equity points if cast in shows , which many Kent students are. They also offer a Porthouse summer MT college academy for incoming freshmen which my D is attending this summer. She will get to interact w/Porthouse actors/staff & earn college credit from this also. Financially they were very generous & she would be debt free at graduation and can go audition ! SoâŠ
Final Decision: Kent State!
Many thanks to all the seasoned posters on CC who helped with questions as it was beyond helpful. This process is not for the faint of heart and we all know CC can be annoying⊠lol âŠbut it is also a plethora of info and as long as you filter it you can garner so much knowledge. I have been reading this forum and giving my two cents for the past year and 1/2! Also thankful for those parents who have reached out and those we met at auditions/SETC and CC messagingâŠ
You know who you are <3
@theaterwork yay! So happy for your D! I second the SETC recommendation-was a great experience to see all the programs out there and get a glimpse of the auditioning process.
@theaterwork Congrats! Such a great outcome!
Fantastic @theaterwork! Did you EVER believe youâd finally get to this day?! Congrats to your D!!
Thanks @Onourown , @mom4bwayboy , @Jjrmom8 . And no @mom4bwayboy I never thought weâd be done! A forever process! @-)
Love reading your story! So happy for you and your D! Hugs!!
@theaterwork â debt-free at graduation??? Woo hoo! Way to go; love your story!
Congratulations @theaterwork ! I am looking forward to getting out to Porthouse Theatre this summer - my kidsâ friends are participating in various capacities (actors, tech, admin). We live 30-40 minutes from Kentâs main campus if she ever need anything.
I canât wait to read your story @BandMom55 - and how awesome that theyâll be in school together!
Congrats @theaterwork! Sounds like a great fit for her!
Thanks @artskids will keep that in mind! We are going to see "Newsies " at Porthouse since we will be picking her up from her summer program when it starts I believe. I think she gets to go to rehearsals etc for it .
AWWWW! So great @theaterwork! Congratulations to your D- she had some really great choices.
@theaterwork You beat me to it. Congratulations!
SECOND TIME 'ROUND . . .
Background: Theater kid since the age 5. Summer community musical theater workshops every year. School plays starting 7th grade to high school. She also did some acting for student films & indies.
Training: Private voice since age 9. Show Choir, community choral group. Jazz & Ballet starting in 9th grade.
APPLIED: Shenandoah, Desales, Seton Hill, Point Park, Temple, Pace, Montclair, Marymount Manhattan, Long Island University, U of Arts, Muhlenberg, Penn State, Molloy/CAP21.
Academically accepted to all.
Prescreens: Shenandoah, Pace, Temple, Penn State. Marymount Manhattan (Not regular prescreen, but MT audition dates were full, so they said submit a video and theyâd notify if they wanted to give her an audition slot.)
Passed all except Penn State. Passed Pace for Acting only. Offered MT audition slot at Marymount.
Auditioned for both Acting & MT at all the programs that allowed that.
All On-Campus Auditions. Could not do NY Unifieds because of a prior family commitment. Could not do any other Unifieds because of expense. (I was still paying off expenses from last yearâs audition travels.)
CANCELLED: Shenandoah-could not make audition dates fit in schedule.Seton Hill and U of Arts (These were late dates & didnât appeal to her anyway.)
This is my daughterâs second round of MT auditions. Last year she applied to 8 programs that youâve never heard of - all small colleges with BFA programs that were audition-based but not especially selective. In retrospect, I think the auditions were more for scholarship consideration than admittance. She was accepted to all and chose one that offered the most scholarship money. Thought she was set for the next four years and that was that.
After a month at her âchosenâ college, she knew it was all wrong for her. She waited another month before telling me how unhappy she was and after some long thoughtful discussions, I agreed that the program wasnât all we thought it was, and she would be better off trying again. By then it was November and we knew that it would be a huge race to get applications done and auditions scheduled for this spring. As she was still away at college and prepping for finals, and struggling emotionally too, I did the lionâs share of the application process this time.
We did a lot things wrong last year - the biggest one was thinking that all MT BFA programs were pretty much the same quality. So this year, I knew we needed a different plan â mainly because of CC. I came to CC too late last year to heed much of the very helpful advice offered by you veterans. And to be honest, I smugly thought you were all making a big fuss about nothing. I AM HEARTILY SORRY! I WAS SO WRONG!
The first ârightâ thing we did this time was get an audition coach. D chose Chelsea Diehl at MCA. Chelsea did online coaching with my D via skype while she was still at her first college and a few more in December at home. Three things the MCA team did for us that made all the difference: 1. Find different songs and monologues that fit my daughter. (The ones she used last year were dated and/or overdone.) 2 Helped create a list of ranked programs to apply to; and 3. Suggest that she audition for Acting as well as MT.
We didnât consider acting last year at all. So when Chelsea suggested it , my Dâs first reaction was worry that Chelsea thought she wasnât good enough to get into MT. Chelsea assured her that that wasnât the case, but that you just donât know what the programs will be looking for, so itâs best to give yourself more options. D has always been a strong singer, but when Chelsea met her, my Dâs voice was damaged from improper use at her college and so she didnât sound like herself. Knowing this, she agreed to the Acting auditions but didnât like the idea of not doing MT.
January Auditions: Point Park, Pace, Muhlenberg, DeSales.
February Auditions: Marymount, LIU-Post, Montclair and Molloy/CAP 21
March Auditions: Temple; Scheduled but cancelled: U of Arts & Seton Hill.
January auditions went very well â It was obvious right away that DeSales was interested in her and Muhlenberg scholarship audition was good too. Pace was Acting only and she made it through the cut to the callback audition which she thought went well. Point Park acting audition was also great, loved the people and did a good job. Point Park MT - not so much â she knew her MT audition didnât go well. Her voice was still unpredictable and she couldnât get the volume out without it cracking. So she held back for fear of doing more damage to her voice. Out of the January colleges, she really liked Point Park the best.
February, her throat felt much better and she was almost back to full voice. She felt that she did her best at all the colleges and was very excited that Marymount Manhattan had called and given her an MT audition slot the day before she was scheduled to do her Acting audition. Worked out great that she could do both the same day. LIU & Molloy/CAP21 went the best of all. She loved both programs and the faculty too. Montclair, however, was her very favorite campus. The audition itself was a bummer (zero interest showed by auditors, not even a hello when she entered the room). Nonetheless, she loved the campus and location and really really wanted this one to be a yes.
March - ended up only doing Temple audition, again for both MT and Acting. Did them on the same day and felt that both of them went well. Auditors were attentive and seemed to like what she gave them.
ACCEPTED ACTING: Point Park, Temple
ACCEPTED MT: Desales, Molloy/CAP21, LIU-Post, Muhlenberg, WL- Marymount
NOT ACCEPTED: Pace, Montclair
To be continued . . .