Final MT Decisions Background - Class of 2024

College Majors Musical Theater Major
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@bfamt424 My D is a different person now that she’s made her decision. She’s on all the social media, adding future classmates, looking for a dormmate. I’m excited that she’s excited and able to talk about the future (while still preparing for AP tests and finishing up all her other classes).

So many ups and downs. Self-doubt started to creep in when she saw friends passing pre-screens or being accepted to “major” programs. I didn’t think she would take the rejections as hard because when she was younger, auditioning for commercials, she understood that it wasn’t only talent- there was fit involved that may have been separate from talent.

But she sees now, that she is enough, and that now it’s up to her to take in all the training and work just as hard as she has been. Her vocal coach was in a national tour before it all shut down. He has observed that there is attrition. There is work for those who are talented and persist/perservere. He has also emphasized it is essential for her to be flexible and learn many skills to be employable (tv/film/commercial/behind the scenes).

So, for now, she is ready to take on the world- once she can leave the house, of course.

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I did not post nearly as much as a lot of you, but boy has it been a great ride with this group!

Post 1 of 2

Programs Applied to:
AMDA (BFA Acting), BOCO (BFA MT), Coastal Carolina (BFA Acting), Dean College (BA Acting and BA MT), Drew University (non-audition) , Emerson College (BFA Theater & Performance), Fordham University (BFA Acting), Marymount Manhattan (BFA Acting and BFA MT), Pace University (BFA Film/Commercial/Voiceovers), Rutgers University (BFA Acting), UNCSA (BFA Drama), Wagner (BA Theater Performance)

Prescreens: BOCO; Coastal Carolina and Pace (passed)

Accepted Academically to: Coastal Carolina; Pace; Drew University (safety); Wagner

Accepted Artistically to: Marymount Manhattan (BFA Acting); Dean College (BA MT); AMDA (BFA Acting); Emerson (BFA Theater & Performance)
Rejected from: Fordham; UNCSA; Rutgers; BoCo

Wait-listed: none

Coach: local voice and monologue coaches; ACTabove for audition prep and prescreen recording

Summer Programs: none

Background: S became interested in performing as he entered middle school. He was shy and an introvert throughout grade school, but found his voice, literally and figuratively, when he took chorus in 7th grade in order to avoid the general music elective!!! He did 1 musical a year through middle school (which goes through 9th grade in our school district) and then decided the summer before 10th grade to do a local camp production, where he returned the summer before his junior year. The summer before his senior year, he auditioned for the Bucks Co Playhouse and was cast there, where he spent 5 weeks of rehearsals and masterclasses, followed by 3 weeks of performances. He was cast in all of the Fall plays and Spring musicals at his high school and when it wasn’t for the role he wanted, he worked his butt off to improve, so that’s when my husband and I realized he was motivated to do this, which meant we were all in by the time we started the college search!
The Journey: We started talking about college with him the 2nd half of sophomore year, and initially he wanted no parts of it, instead just hoping we would say yes to him moving to NYC and auditioning…which, by the way, wasn’t going to happen! Once he made peace with the fact we weren’t writing checks without an education attached to them, he decided if he had to go, he did not want to be in the cold anymore (we are from PA), so NC would be where he would look. In a passing conversation with another mom, I mentioned acting and NC; joking with her how I had never heard of anyone pursing theater in NC!!! With that comment, she told me about a friend of hers whose daughter went to our school and was graduating that May from UNCSA, regularly ranked in top 10 programs; I couldn’t believe it!! When I told my son about that conversation, he looked it up and that school became his #1 school. Over the next several months he started looking a bit more into schools, and stumbled on AMDA; so at the start of junior year AMDA became his number 1…it seemed clear a conservatory was where he was headed!
His focus was definitely going to be on acting, and not MT, because although he was given spots on the select choirs in middle and high school, he was never really confident in his voice, and he never took a single dance class. Midway through junior year we decided to start looking at a few schools in NYC just to get a feel for the various “types” of campuses, and although he liked all of them, with the exception of one, AMDA stayed on top. The plan was to audition in Aug, get in, and then be done before senior year really ever started…boy could that have been farther from what became reality!!
Although he began vocal lessons with one of the camp directors in 10th grade, due to scheduling, he took the first half of junior year off, but by spring of junior year we moved full steam ahead getting back into lessons to prep for audition season. He switched coaches 2 times before finding the coach who would help him through the prescreen/audition process. He had also taken an Acting class through the Bucks County Playhouse early junior year and clicked with the teacher, so he was able to work one on one with her once the class was over to prepare for the prescreen and audition process.

During the lessons, we also were put in touch with a local couple who works with students to get them through the application process, and with their help the “AMDA only plan” was put to rest and we created a list of schools that were both academically in his wheelhouse, and had artistic programs where he knew he would fit, just in case AMDA was a no. Since he was able to visit half a dozen schools spring of junior year, he was able to come up with a few spots geographically that he knew he wanted to be and despite the early decree that he wanted somewhere warm, he found out during those visits, he really only wanted to focus on Boston and NYC; therefore, he did not cast a wide net, but he had a very balanced list. Although the coach and me wanted more, his final list had 12 schools – 11 audition (3 prescreen) and 1 non-audition.
Throughout last summer, he was crazy busy with productions at the Bucks County Playhouse and another regional theater so it took longer than we had planned to get to the point he was ready to record his prescreen, but we finally had it ready to go by mid-October and submitted to his 3 prescreen schools. Pace was a quick turnaround and he had his 1st yes 4 days after submitting!! We figured we were in for a great outcome and would quickly add to the 7 non prescreen school auditions we already had on the calendar; unfortunately, the high of the 1st yes, was quickly squashed by the 1st prescreen no from Coastal Carolina (although he had already been accepted academically), so we knew he was at least going to college. Then another crushing blow came in the form of a prescreen waitlist from BOCO, which became an official no about 3 weeks later. Along with the prescreen results, he was also accepted to his safety non-audition school, Drew University. This is about the time, I started questioning his decisions and wondered if he should add more schools, and think about doing unifieds, but I resisted and let him take the lead on how this played out.
His audition season started out amazing. First up was Dean College the first weekend in Dec, and it was such a positive experience, I mean this school rolled out the red carpet from the first visit 6 months earlier! Son applied to the acting program, but once the director saw all the MT experience on his resume and he performed his monologue, he was asked to sing. My son felt so great after their feedback of his song he emailed the director of the program a couple days after the audition to ask if it was possible to also be considered for their MT program, and the director was more than happy to submit him for that. Within a week he received his first acceptance to their BA MT program, so although he had previous BA offers, this was his first auditioned program Yes, and they gave him the top performance scholarship!!

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Post 2 of 2

Son made a conscious decision not to participate at any unified, but the first big weekend of auditions for him was 4 scheduled auditions in NY (Marymount Manhattan, AMDA, Fordham and UNCSA) the same weekend as unified. All of his auditions were on campus, with the exception of UNCSA, which would be at Ripley the Mon after NYC unified weekend. All went well the entire weekend, except UNCSA when he didn’t get a callback, which meant he was out…bummer, since it was the original #1 choice, but since he had found an interest in many other programs during the application process, it was not as devastating as I thought it would it have been the year before! Any disappointment he felt was made better when 2 days after getting home, he received an acceptance from Marymount Manhattan in their BFA Acting program, which was amazing because after that audition, he couldn’t stop talking about the day, the program, the current students, and more so how he really was starting to see what non-conservatory schools had to offer. Then the next day, the call came from AMDA accepting him to the BFA Acting came!! I figured at that point we would be done, he got into his #1 and he would want to cancel his remaining 5 auditions, but he had really come to like something about every program, so he wanted to finish it out!! We ended Jan at Rutgers; then he had the next 2 weeks off, and boy was that perfect timing because he got whatever awful chest congestion thing was starting to make the rounds, which cleared up just in time for the final 3 auditions. Before those final auditions he did hear back from Rutgers, and it was a no.
The last 3 weeks of Feb he had one audition each weekend…Emerson, Pace and Wagner. Through the entire process, he never verbalized a favorite, or top pick, but after the Emerson audition, as we packed up at the hotel, he actually said out loud, I think that one is my top…wait, what??? We never ranked, it had been so good not ranking because if it was a no, it wasn’t too bad, because there was never that feeling of being rejected by your #1, but now, if he was putting a favorite out there, wouldn’t that mean a no would be that much more painful…ugh…cue the mom anxiety!! After Pace, he said he really liked the vibe of the school, but looking around the waiting room, didn’t think he was what they were looking for. Our final weekend we were able to head to Wagner the night before and saw their show, and leaving that he said it was so good, if he didn’t get in it would suck…again, what…crap!
Putting the new found ranking discussion aside, we decided to focus on the fact he had 3 great yeses, regardless of the outcome of the last 4 schools to hear from…but oh the waiting! The next 2 weeks were tortuous! And it seemed like all 4 schools would announce the same weekend, so there was nothing to do but wait, and wait some more. Finally, Friday, the 13th…my kid is a HUGE horror flick lover, so it’s kinda his day…it was set up to be fantastic - the Wagner letter was supposed to be in the mail, and Fordham and Pace were both going to update their portals!
First, nothing in the mail from Wagner, bummer, but probably tomorrow. Next, Fordham emailed to check the portal – it was a no, but that’s ok because frankly that price tag was nuts! Finally, Pace updated, and that was a no too…ok, so Friday the 13th wasn’t the best day, at all, ugh! Moving on, still nothing in the mail from Wagner the next 3 days, but Emerson emailed with a portal update, and it was a yes!!! Thank you sweet baby Jesus, he said it was his top, now just please let the aid package be good, because, again, the price tag! Just one more result from Wagner and then it would be time to start deciding, and we felt good about this one; more importantly HE felt good about this one…but then 3/20, the final result was in the mailbox and it was a no. Much to my surprise, he didn’t linger on the disappointment, he actually sat right down and started looking at his 4 yeses – he was so happy it was finally time to decide!!! He made the obligatory pro/con list, with COVID-19, revisiting campuses was out, so he looked up student videos on YouTube of the dorms, he joined all the Facebook pages to connect with incoming and current students, and he compared the curriculum, not knowing which list was for each school. In the week he did all this, the Emerson financial aid came in, and it was gut-wrenching…now the continued hope to possibly attend there was relying solely on the dreaded appeal!!
So what would it be? The long time first choice of AMDA? The little known program that he had never heard of, but who made it crystal clear from day one they wanted him at Dean College? The newest front runner, Emerson College? Or, the out of the blue, to this day, we aren’t even sure how they got on the list, but the vibe was there the minute we walked in the building for the first time on audition day at Marymount Manhattan?

Final Decision: After 15 long, exhausting, amazing months, he is joining the Class of 2024 as a BFA Theater & Performance major at Emerson College

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Congratulations @theatrekidmom ! Love your editorialized version! We definitely feel the ups and downs and have our parent versions/interpretation! Time to celebrate!

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@theatrekidmom Congrats to your son! Emerson has such a great vibe as a school!

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Copying from my Acting Final thread…

Programs Applied to (all Acting BFA, no MT): DePaul, UMN Guthrie, Texas State, Nebraska Wesleyan, Oklahoma City, Otterbein, UNCSA, Evansville, Baldwin Wallace, SUNY Purchase.

Passed Prescreens: TXST & Otterbein. Not passed: DePaul
Accepted to: Nebraska Wesleyan, OCU, Evansville, BW
Rejected from: UMN, Otterbein, UNCSA, Purchase
Wait-listed at: TXST
Coach: None

Background/Training: 4th grade S announced he wanted to take hip hop. He quickly added jazz, tap, ballet and played children’s roles in regional ballet company productions. He was really into acting aspects of ballet.

In 7th Grade he began participating in summer MT, added school theatre and choir. The summer after 8th grade he was cast in a competitive HS summer MT production directed by established college faculty team from outside the area. In 9th grade he began acting classes with local acting studio consisting of HS, college and adult ages. As his love for acting technique grew, he felt limited being labeled “the dancer” in HS theatre. He was frustrated with how slow MT peers picked up dance but was also finding it harder to relate to the mostly introverted dancers at his ballet-based dance school. And he was falling behind in dance due to theatre schedule while his dance peers were moving into ballet company ranks. S came to realize he is not a big smile/jazz hands kind of guy and not drawn to most MT. After 9th grade he decided to completely drop dance and announced he wanted to become a professional actor. He went against the grain, picking and choosing between school and community theatre productions instead of being dedicated to any one program.

Summer Programs: MT productions through summer before 11th grade; local acting studio scene work; Interlochen Shakespeare Bootcamp summer before 12th grade.

Reflections on Auditions: S struggled with the DePaul prescreen specs and was not completely comfortable with one of the monologues for that prescreen. In retrospect S was drawn to DePaul’s rankings and film/TV exposure but school/program was not a fit. NWU is a wonderful program… he was sad to release that spot. S connected with OCU acting faculty, just felt that the overall U is MT focused and acting takes a backseat. UMN was likely not an academic fit, but also would have required blind dedication… he likes to pick and choose auditions. He felt he had an amazing audition and experience at TXST however S feels the climate and distance would be a hard adjustment. Otterbein was his first audition at Chicago Unifieds and was shell-shocked by the environment, so bad audition. I believe Otterbein requires MT and Acting majors to audition for all shows, so not a fit. It was clear in the UNCSA 30-minute group intro that he was not what they were looking for. Evansville and Purchase were both amazing auditions. Interestingly those were the 2 auditions where singing was required. Went to BW on the Sat following Chicago Unifieds. Because S had a headache the entire day and was exhausted, he assumed it didn’t go well. (Hubby and I were so worn… kept asking him if we really needed to drive all the way to Cleveland for another audition.)

Final Decision: Baldwin Wallace. Evansville was close because the faculty was great and S liked how it is a small program for actors who can sing. However, S felt the best connection with the BW acting teacher (interestingly a former ballet professional turned actor). BW came right out of the gate with the best financial offer; the acting program has formal relationship with Great Lakes Theatre Company & related Shakespeare festivals; it’s an easy drive to the Cleveland theatre district; U is surrounded by metroparks and water (S needs nature to thrive); S appreciates being around high level, classical performing arts and BW has an incredible music conservatory and a dance program. Bonus – we have friends and family nearby.

Final notes: S’s instincts were spot-on throughout the entire process; S announced he’s going to add dance back into his life.

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@Prairie thank you for sharing & congrats

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Love hearing these stories. Keep them coming!

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@theatrekidmom - Wow! I felt like I was riding the roller coaster with you! Great story, happy ending - congratulations to your S!

@flippedout and @MT85 - a little late to the party but loved your journeys and your kids seem to have found their perfect fit - so happy for you all!

@prarie - I already congratulated you on the Acting thread but I am just as happy for you over here :wink: !!!

This really is the best thread - every year but especially this year.

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Congratulations @prarie ! Loved your story. I found it so interesting about your S with dance. My non-MT D is a ballet dancer and has struggled to relate with the kids as she has gotten older. We wonder where she will go with dance becuase of that. Best of luck to S at BW!

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Congratulations @theatrekidmom and @prarie ! I love stories of how all our kids are such individuals and are finding their own great paths.

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Posted on Acting Final Decisions too, but since I applied to a lot of MT programs, I feel like it makes sense to post here as well <3

Programs Applied to: Adelphi Acting BFA, Fordham Acting BA, NYU Acting BFA, Ithaca MT BFA, University of Michigan Acting BFA, Carnegie Mellon MT BFA, Pace (Acting BFA, FTVC BFA, MT BFA), Northwestern Theatre BA

Prescreens: Ithaca (redirected to Acting BFA), Michigan Acting, CMU MT, Pace (Acting BFA, FTVC BFA, MT BFA)

Accepted to: Adelphi, Fordham, NYU, Ithaca, U. of Michigan, Pace Acting, Northwestern

Rejected from: Carnegie Mellon

Wait-listed at: None

Coach: None

Background/Training: Baltimore School for the Arts

Summer Programs: American Shakespeare Center Theatre Camp

As crazy as this entire process was, I’m glad I went through it because I learned a lot. It’s good to be forced out of my little bubble and see just how talented so many people my age are… I also learned to take everything people say with a grain of salt. I ended up not applying to a lot of L.A. schools because someone told me they didn’t give good aid… but I soon learned it doesn’t matter where the school is, but what the specific school’s policy with financial aid is. But about my process: Adelphi was my first audition. It was a really cute college. However, I had a couple strange interactions with the people there. One of which was when the upperclassmen kinda kicked the head of the department, the prospective students (including me), and the freshmen that were with us, out of the space we were in because “they’d reserved it”… The second was during my audition when I could hear the freshmen who’d been with us loudly talking and laughing outside of my audition room. The walls were thin, which I guess they hadn’t realized… It didn’t really throw me off too much, but needless to say I wasn’t really feeling the school afterwards. I loved my Fordham audition. The teachers I interacted with and did explorations for reminded me of my favorite teacher at my high school. I literally cried during the tour because I loved everything I ended up seeing from the building to the staff to the students. At my NYU audition, I didn’t really vibe with the school. The guy I auditioned for was great, and one of the main reasons I was still considering it afterwards (besides the fact that it’s NYU… lol). Michigan and Ithaca were both pretty chill auditions and I got a positive vibe from the schools. My Carnegie Mellon audition was straight up cursed, lol. I did vocal warmups the morning of, but I guess I should’ve been doing extra warmups in the bathroom with the rest of them, because when I went in for my audition, my voice was not cooperating… It was cracking and pitchy and it was the devil… Gary, who I sang for, was super sweet though and made me feel good regardless, but my audition was not cute. Then in my acting audition, I wasn’t super connected to my monologues, and when my guy asked me to do a weird exploration, I was thrown off and I know it looked like I didn’t know what I was doing, lol. Later I went to NY to audition for all three performing arts programs of Pace for two weekends, lol… My MT audition was fine, and the accompanist complimented me afterwards which was nice. The dance call was brutal… especially since I’m not a dancer. For FTVC I was definitely off in my audition, but it was ok. Right after that I had my BFA acting audition, which was great. I made a good connection with the teachers, and I even got to do one of my monologues to one of the teachers, and she was reacting along with me. And then there was the school without an audition… Northwestern. I didn’t even know if I was going to get into NU because my essay was very silly lol. I figured they’d either love it or hate it, but I guess they loved it?

Once I got my decisions and financial aid packages, things started changing. I appealed to most of my schools, with some good and some disappointing results. I decided against Michigan, Pace, and NYU, because I don’t want to make myself or my parents have debt because of a theatre degree. That’s just very scary to me… My options then were Adelphi, Fordham, Ithaca, and Northwestern. I turned down Ithaca and Adelphi since I didn’t think they were the right fit for me. Then it came between Fordham which I loved and the unknown Northwestern. A big determining factor was how much I wanted a traditional college experience. Since I went to a performing arts school, I didn’t have a traditional high school experience, so I had to decide if I wanted that for college. I did a ton of research on the programs, their alumni, and I talked to many many many students. In the end…

Final Decision: Northwestern BA

I think/hope this will be a good program for me! I was drawn in from what I’d researched and learned from the people I talked to. Even though I loved Fordham so much, I wanted to have a completely different experience than I had in high school, so… Go Wildcats!

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@2231Starcross3 - congrats from a fellow Wildcat. You made the right decision. NU will change your life. Best of luck to you!

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@2231Starcross3 congrats !!thanks for posting here, always love the ones by the students themselves ( which seems to be fewer and fewer over the years, for some reason??)

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@2231Starcross3 - wonderful choices and I’m so glad you’re going to get that traditional school experience you missed out on in High School. I think you’re going to adore NU and it will be a great place for you to grow and thrive as an artist. Congratulations!!!

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@CaMom13 @NYYFanNowMTdad @StanfordAI2019 Thank you!!

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@2231Starcross3 Congrats on your NU decision! I have heard amazing things about the school. Hope it’s all you want and more. Thanks for sharing your story!

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Congratulations @2231Starcross3 ! So happy for you.

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@MTSongbirdMom @MTSthistime <3

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@2231Starcross3 congrats and thanks for sharing! Nice to have a student’s perspective here in addition to the parents’ versions.