Background: D (IL) First exposure to Theater was in grade 5 when the local HS was looking for Muchkins for Wizard of Oz. She auditioned and was cast. She’s been hooked ever since.
Stage experience: 16 Musical Theater shows and 3 professional Operas (2 children’s chorus, 1 adult Soprano 1 role)
Voice: Choir in Middle school and Public High School( prior to Home Schooling) Audition- based performing choirs (Jazz and Chamber) 2 yrs. Private voice for 8 years, classically trained.
Dance: Early dance at 4/5 yrs old. Quit and returned at 11 when she got interested in theater. Consistent Ballet 7 yrs. 1 yr Pointe, Intermittent Tap, Jazz, Modern and MT 3 years on audition based competitive performing dance team.
Acting: Nothing formal until this year, but intermittent drama classes in her local theater company and 1 yr Theater in HS. Improv team 1 yr.
Summer Programs: various summer camps in our area, Interlochen, 3 years. Roosevelt/CCPA Pre-College. Interlochen was seriously the biggest bang for our buck. I cannot say enough about this program. She went for the first time as a Freshman. When she came back she got EVERY lead role that she went out for. A dramatic difference in her ability to “act a song.”
Negative factors/Things working against us: First of all, D is one of those dreaded caucasian, blonde sopranos. Next, she’s been homeschooled and we didn’t know how this would be received/perceived. Lastly,We didn’t plan on auditioning this year. D was not going to go to college and take a gap year due to some trauma in her life. D had a stalker. He was her improv coach in the theater company. It was really bad, required police action and produced a ton of anxiety for her and for us. But something happened that changed everything and we ended up auditioning this year! Keep reading, I’ll tell you about it.
Competitions: D has loved vocal competitions! She thrives on them. She has done 15, ranging from local to International. She has placed in every one of them, 11 being 1st, 2nd or 3rd. Competitions have lead to her singing in New York at Carnegie and Symphony space. It was a competition that changed everything for us. Last year, The Classical Singer Convention was in Chicago, which is where we live. It was a 4 day event consisting of many rounds. They also had a huge college expo/fair. Over 60 college and university programs came. You could walk around and talk to all of them, get information on their programs, etc. This was the whole purpose for doing it. I thought D might like to start talking and learning about programs for next year. Well, She ended up doing really well in the MT division. The college faculty (and other industry professionals were the adjudicators). With each round she passed, people began to stop her in the halls, or in the expo room and talk to her. They also had a system of feedback after each round. You could go to a box to retrieve your scores and adjudicator comments. They wrote things like “ I hope you apply to…” and other great things. She made it all the way to the Grand Finale concert and placed 3rd over all. At the end of the night, when she got off stage, she had a line of college faculty waiting to talk to her and put their business card in her hand! We were so absolutely shocked at it all. On the way home, she said “Maybe I can go to college…” It was the end of May (insert gulp) and she had not even taken and ACT or SAT! We pulled it together and flew into action. She took the June SAT and immediately began the process of identifying schools/programs and filling out all the apps and essays.
The Data: 20 college applications, 16 auditions, 8 acceptances, 7 rejections, 1 redirect. We dropped some of the auditions when she got a couple early acceptances.
Programs applied for: Western Michigan, Southern Illinois University, Millikin, Wright State, Viterbo, Cornish, Hartt, CCM, Baldwin Wallace, Emerson, Roosevelt/CCPA, Webster, Ithaca, Ball State and UW Stevens Point, Rider, Illinois Wesleyan
Prescreens: Ithaca, Rider and Illinois Wesleyan. Passed all of them.
Acceptances: Millikin, Hartt,Wright State, UWSP, Viterbo, Cornish, SIU and Dean (Walk-in, did not end up applying)
Redirect: Ball State BA in Theater Studies
Coach: None. We did have help with prescreens from her dance studio owners.
Things we did well: We did some early auditions that yielded early acceptances. The first was a safety school and that was a self confidence booster for sure. The next was Millikin which is a highly rated program at occasionally makes a top ten list. That was November, and when she got that acceptance, we released some of the other safety schools. We planned well and were organized with spreadsheets of schools, requirements, etc. We started early, all apps submitted in early September and prescreens done and submitted by mid October (this is about as late as I’d want to push it, shoot for earlier for best selection of audition dates and times. We also had a good ratio of schools with campus auditions to schools we were doing at unifieds. It ended up being about 50/50. We also had a good ratio of tier one reach schools, tier two I think maybe schools and tier 3 safety.
Things we could have done better: Do a better job of researching programs and really knowing what you want. There were schools that she auditioned for that were a complete waste of time and money because the program was not a good fit. But, we didn’t figure that out until half way through the audition season. D wanted a program with rigorous dance all years. Dancing 4-5 times a week. There were several programs that literally were only 1-2 per week in Ballet. Sign up for walk ins at Unifieds right away. Slots fill up. I didn’t convince D to do walk-ins until end of the day 5:00pm on Tuesday. Many schools are only there through Wednesday. After a nightmare experience with one of her scheduled schools and a complete and utter breakdown, we redefined what we were looking for in a school. Which leads me to the next point, cast a very wide net and know your kid. We did ok. But we were 3/4 of the way through audition season when I felt like we had just now figured out what we were looking for. Knowing my kid, tier one is really a complete waste of time. For who she is, life experience, what she needs, I wish we would have played in tier two a lot heavier.
). I just heard a review of Hair on Broadwayradio’s podcast (they reviewed Titanic last year; so it is a place where the kids are seen). They always have great things to say about their productions.