Hello
Posting for son who will be attending Molloy/CAP21 this fall!
Schools applied to:
Boston Conservatory (BOCO)
Boston University
Carnegie Mellon
Chicago College of Performing Arts (CCPA)
Five Towns College (FTC)
Ithaca
Marymount Manhattan College (MMC)
Molloy College/CAP21
Montclair State University
New York University (NYU Tisch)
Shenandoah Conservatory
University of Michigan
Auditioned at Chicago Unifieds
Arcadia University (BA Acting)
Drake
Long Island University Post
Accepted into
Arcadia University (BA Acting)
Chicago College of Performing Arts
Drake
Five Towns College
Long Island University Post
Marymount Manhattan College (from waitlist)
Molloy College/CAP21
Not Accepted
Boston Conservatory - no, after audition in Chicago
Boston University - didn’t pass prescreen
Carnegie Mellon - no, after audition in Chicago
Ithaca - no, after audition in Chicago
Montclair State University - no, after audition in Chicago
New York University - no, after audition in Chicago
Shenandoah Conservatory - no, after virtual audition
University of Michigan - didn’t pass prescreen
Our experience
Mom and dad were a bit worried about this process because the covid/remote learning years were pretty hard for our son. His grades dipped down, he struggled with depression, and he just didn’t have a ton of enthusiasm for anything, especially anything remote. Some of this really set the tone for his application and audition processes. He didn’t put a ton of effort into parts of it, especially essays. His attitude was this laissez-faire “meh, whatever happens, happens.” …that is until we visited colleges.
He completely became excited and focused after college visits. We had pushed off visiting college until he knew which were his top few choices in terms of both his preferences and what we could afford. In hindsight, for us it would have been nice to visit colleges earlier to spark that excitement, it just wasn’t in the cards for us financially.
These colleges didn’t make his short list:
Arcadia: his contacts at Arcadia were fantastic but made it clear they were an acting school with not a ton of singing and dancing training. After some thought they were crossed off the list.
CCPA: again his contacts were great and he really liked Chicago. Finally it was too much of a stretch.
Drake: none of us loved the mid-west location and son in particular wanted to be in Chicago or New York.
Marymount Manhattan College: also a bit of a stretch financially and son didn’t love the MMC dorm/college split as much as he liked the idea of being on long island a couple days a week and down in Manhattan a couple days a week if he chose Molloy/CAP21.
We ended up visiting Five Towns, LIU Post, Molloy/Cap21.
Here are my reviews of each
Five Towns
Very small campus, 600 students total in the school. Clean dorms, one single food option on campus, no frills in terms of sports ball arenas, Greek life, etc. Located on superb on Long Island, no walkable stores/restaurants/etc. Has a public transit bus line stop.
Dance studios, and MT classrooms were also no frills. They did have a decent ~300 person theatre on campus.
All the students at the school are doing arts/communications/music. No business majors, nurses, etc. We heard from multiple people the students are close, almost family-like.
LIU Post
Gorgeous campus also in a suburb of Long Island with no walkable stores/restaurants nearby. Much more traditional college experience with sports ball athletes, Greek life, tons of college students hanging out on campus, etc.
They several dance studios including a newer (very large) one. For performing they had a small black box theatre. Son was a little bummed it wasn’t bigger/nicer. They do have a large professional theatre on campus but it’s run by an outside professional acting company and didn’t sound like the MT program got to use it much, if ever.
Molloy/CAP21
We toured both the Long Island campus and the Manhattan studio. Both were fantastic. The campus had several options for food and several dorms, including one that had practice rooms in it for singing. Molloy is also in a suburb on Long Island but aren’t as isolated feeling as LIU and FTC. They have a shuttle that runs regularly to the beach, a nearby mall and Target.
There are a couple of theatres on campus although we only got to see the larger one.
The Manhattan location was a great, both because of the facilities and the location in New York.
The final decision was for Molloy/CAP21. Even though FTC and LIU post were cheaper due to the offered scholarships he just felt right at home on the Molloy Long Island and CAP21 Manhattan campuses.