First-Timers: The Stressed Parents Thread

College Majors Musical Theater Major
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<p>Well done NMR. That was a perfect comment. I think the kids are worried and we do have to be the calming force in this chaotic process. We are the adults and have had more life experiences to help them. Haven't we all experienced rejection? Have we not all been unhappy? I am sure, yes...so hopefully we have the skills and the know how to provide some much needed calm. Calm under the storm or during it. Whatever.
I like the idea of the auditions through early March. Wish we had done that. Now the endless waitiing and waiting.
We have a safety plan as does everyone. I love to read all your notes as it helps me. My D. is acting but we are ALL in this together. And our worries are good ones. They deserve to go after their dreams. We provide the opportunities, they have the talent, and the rest is a little luck, good fortune and calm under pressure!!</p>

<p>Maybe a lot of luck actually. This is SO competitive.
I wish everyone the best and hope no ones heart breaks too completely or all at once.</p>

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<p>hi this is my first post. my daughter applied and auditioned only at western michigan university and she just found out she is on the waiting list. now what? how long does the waiting list last...up until the first day of school or longer? what are the chances that someone will not accept their spot and she will be called?</p>

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<p>It is impossible to know what the chances are of making it from a wait list to an acceptance. Students have until May 1 to accept or decline their spot in a program. Some students take the full time to consider all offers, others decide in advance. I would say that it would be possible to hear something by mid- to late April, but more likely early May.</p>

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<p>I have even seen people post on this list about getting a call to take them off the wait list in June.</p>

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<p>I remember a post by doctorjohn from some time ago that specifically addressed the issue of "statistical probability" of MT acceptances/rejections at the most talked-about schools, given that most students apply to around 10 programs, may get accepted at more than one, and of course they cannot go to them all. (I do not believe the issue of acting acceptances/rejections has been discussed in those terms.) The post should make everyone feel MUCH better, as, when all is said and done, the odds are not nearly as daunting as when you look at one school's apps vs accepts. I have tried to locate the message, but, of course, cannot--but it would be worth re-printing here if someone CAN locate it. I seem to remember that the odds of an individual female applicant getting in somewhere was almost 1 in 3, which should give everyone reason to be optimistic!</p>

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<p>I've read that post. Also recently another poster did a long analysis. I just don't follow it. My daughter is auditioning at 9 schools. That is approximately 90 openings for girls - and that takes into consideration that no one can be admitted to 2 schools so that is 90 different girls. There were about 600 girls auditioning for each school. If there were only 500 - that would be a 18% chance. If 600 a 15% chance. Reality is some of her schools weren't admitting 10 girls...they were admitting 5 or 7.</p>

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<p>MomOfAPrincess:</p>

<p>Your analysis is correct. Given that your daughter auditioned for 9 schools, and making the assumption that each has around 10 places (some more, some less), and with the additional assumption that the female applicant pool is around 600, then 90/600 = 15%. You're absolutely right. My point was that these are better odds than 10/600 = 1.67% which is what people were assuming. </p>

<p>I also was looking at the chances of finding a place in one of the 30 schools listed at the top of the forum last year. (The list is larger now.) Those turn out to be about 25% for women. If you include all the schools which offer Musical Theatre, there probably are enough spots for the entire cohort in any given year--if everyone were willing to go anywhere.</p>

<p>Here's my original post. It took several minutes to find it. It was #26 on the "Rejections: Class of 2007" thread, dated 1/14/2007:</p>

<p>"Just about a year ago, I wrote a piece about Numbers. (It's post #454 on the "Colleges for Musical Theater--Part 40" thread, if you want to see it in context and read responses.) I think it may be worth repeating here. I hope it provides some perspective on this issue of rejection.</p>

<p>NUMBERS</p>

<p>As we approach the week of the Unified Auditions, I've been musing about numbers. I've written about this before, but not in the detail I'm about to present. </p>

<p>It is true that the top schools take a very small percentage of applicants, in some cases less than 5%. That's especially true for women. Last year [in 2005], we auditioned 151 women for MT at Otterbein. We made initial offers to 4. That's 2.65%. One turned us down. We eventually accepted two from the waiting list. So that's 6 offers to 151 women, or 3.97%. Daunting. Scary, even.</p>

<p>But, as I've said before, the laws of physics dictate that even the most talented students can't enroll in two schools at the same time. Let's see what that means.</p>

<p>There are 30 schools for which collegeconfidential.com has created individual threads. Let's just deal with those, and not the remaining 92 on the Big List. From my reading, it appears that the average number of students accepted into those 30 MT programs is around 20. We're at the low end of the scale at 8; CAP 21 is at the high end with 60. That means that there are 30x20 or 600 spaces for MT majors at the 30 schools. 600 is a whole lot more than 8.</p>

<p>CCM, CMU and Tisch report that they audition between 700-1000 students. But that doesn't mean that they collectively see 3000 students. With cross-applications, it's probably more like 1500. My guess is that the 30 schools are seeing around 1800 students total for their 600 spaces. 600/1800 = 1/3. Not bad odds.</p>

<p>We have to modify this a bit for gender. Our statistics show that 67% of our MT applicants are women. Let's assume that's the pattern across the country. So of the 1800 students who are auditioning for MT at the 30 schools, my guess is that 2/3, or 1200, are women. They're auditioning for half the slots, or 300. 300/1200 = 1/4. That's 25%. Not quite as good as 33%, but much better than 3%.</p>

<p>If my analysis is anywhere close to being right, women have something close to a one-in-four chance of being admitted, eventually, to one of 30 schools. I say "eventually" because the top 10% of students are going to receive the first-round offers. But they cannot choose more than one school. So eventually 300 of the 1200 women will be placed in one of the 30 schools.</p>

<p>If you look at the Big List, and make similar assumptions about the entire group of 122 schools, they have 122x20 = 2440 spaces for MT students. I think that means that there are spaces for everyone who really wants to do Musical Theatre. I find that a hopeful thought as I approach the audition season."</p>

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<p>Thank you Dr John for confirming I wasn't missing something. I was feeling pretty dumb....wanting like anything to believe the odds were better than I thought...but I just couldn't see it. I love YOUR odds unfortunately auditioning for 9 schools....even maximizing by using Unifieds...not living on the east coast...it has cost probably a few mortgage payments to accomplish this. Although I'm not sure how someone would even endure or have time to go through their Senior year and audition for 30 schools let alone 122. I know we are very close to the maximum 7 days of excused absences right now and she has had several of her teachers comment they haven't seen her this year. How she manages to keep her 4.0 GPA I don't know...but these kids are amazing.</p>

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<p>Mom,
So what are they going to do if your child misses over 7 days? What is the absolute worst? Suspension?--hey, that should be absolutely accepted by the colleges we are applying to -- and they won't expell her, so go for it if she wants to!</p>

<p>We have had SO much grief this year about attendance, and I'm just SO OVER IT!</p>

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<p>happymom08, there were some posts about this very same issue not too long ago; it is amazing how this "absence thing" works. </p>

<p>My D received a form letter, advising her she was jeopardizing graduation if she missed any more school! Mind you, same as momofaprincess, her grades were in tip top shape, she communicated with her teachers and turned work in early, but the school just referred to the handbook, you can't miss school for "college visits" (there is no guideline for auditions at our non performing arts oriented HS). </p>

<p>It turns out that she could be "sick" without any repercussion, and so she was "sick" for the remainder of the days she needed off for auditions.</p>

<p>You live and learn...:)</p>

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<p>Don't think it is only a non performing arts school thing- even at our PA school, we had problems with a 4.0 kid...and 8 auditions and a few real illnesses......who ended up with <em>sick </em> wink wink days*........ya gotta play the game......:)</p>

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<p>We were at WMU on the 8th, wasted a perfectly good vacation day to auditon for this school. I asked the chair how many they were taking she said 14. I then asked how many offers are you sending out (knowing that not everyone will accept), well she staired me down and said "14". I then asked well what if someone doesn't accept? She then gave me another look and said "well most of our offers are accepted but if they are not we go to the wait list". At this point I think her nose was blocking all the sunlight in the room. She then proceeded to warn everyone that if you are sent an offer you have to accept it by March 7th! (I swear I am not making this up!) I pulled the admissions administrator aside and said "what if we don't hear back from some of the other schools we've auditioned for"? She said give us a call we can postpone it a couple weeks. To add insult to injury the auditions were brutal. There were 85 kids and they did the singing and acting first, if you were good you got a dance ticket if not you were sent home. The scene was like American Idol with the kids coming out with joy or completely shattered! It goes without saying that if we get an offer I will enjoy sending it back with warp speed with a big "NO" on it. </p>

<p>There are still schools doing auditions through March and even into April, Millikin, Univ of South Dakota and AMADA have MT programs that are still auditioning. Best of Luck.</p>

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<p>What is WMU?</p>

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<p>Western Michigan University. I heard elsewhere that that program was asking kids to confirm their acceptances by early March, and recall others on this board saying that other schools, too, asked for early confirmation. Don't kids officially have until the National Reply Date of May 1 to let programs know if they are accepting their acceptances? It seems, well, wrong to me to ask kids to lock in their acceptances before all the results are in, not to mention before all financial aid offers are out there. What can kids do in this situation? Anyone know?</p>

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<p>PPU puts some pressure on kids to send in their deposit early, saying that, as deposits are received, the class is put together, and, if you are late, you may NOT get a spot in the class, for the number in the class is capped. Thankfully, you may request your money back, provided you make the request prior to May 1st. It doesn't seem quite "right," but it IS what you must do. I imagine that WMU operates the same way. . .</p>

<p>This is similar to the situation in which schools ask students to LIST and RANK the schools to which they have applied/auditioned BEFORE they have heard anything. Similar, that is, in that it poses a dilemma. What does it look like to put that school anywhere but at the top, and how does this ranking affect their perception of the student or decisions about the student as they relate to acceptance offers or talent awards?</p>

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<p>NMR....</p>

<p>I (along with some others) discussed this topic/situation on a Point Park thread. Here is the link. Go to page 10 and start reading posts from #144 on. It has come up on CC a few times and so it may be easiest to read that discussion, rather than write it all out again...</p>

<p><a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/point-park-university-mt/98521-point-park-10.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/point-park-university-mt/98521-point-park-10.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

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<p>I'm confused about something...let's say a student is on the waiting list of "deferred" for a favorite school. If another student has been accepted to several of the tops schools and doesn't make a final decision until the last minute (say, May 1), doesn't that totally mess things up for the wait-listed kids? At that point, do they have to choose another school by the deadline? Then, might they be notified after May 1 that they now could be accepted to their favorite school only to have it be too late? If a very talented student is accepted to quite a few of the schools, maybe they don't feel a need to "rush" their acceptance...maybe they want to go visit the schools again during Spring Break and take their time deciding. How does this work?</p>

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<p>MakTay, I think that all students who are accepted at a school or schools have the right to wait until May 1 to respond as to whether that student plans to enroll and to come or not. At that point, schools who find that some of their accepted students have chosen to go somewhere else will contact the kids on their waitlists and ask if they want to come to School X.</p>

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<p>Following up on Mak's questions. I think I have read on here acceptances going out after May 1st from the wait lists - even June? How much time do they usually give you to accept in a case like this...I'm thinking if you would need time to make flying arrangements, etc and visit the campus if you had never been.</p>

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<p>MakTay...</p>

<p>A few things...</p>

<p>First, a deferral is not the same as a wait list. A deferral is an outcome during the Early Decision or Early Action process or during a Rolling admissions process where the acceptance decision on the applicant is not made early but "deferred" to be made with all the Regular Decision applicants in spring, or in the case of rolling BFA admissions, until all auditions are completed and decisions for all go out by April 1. However, with a deferral, an admissions decision will be rendered by about April 1. </p>

<p>A wait list is when admissions decisions have been rendered and a student is neither accepetd nor rejected but is offered a spot on the wait list when final acceptance and rejection letters go out by about April 1 at most schools. It is not like a deferral where a student receives an admissions decision by April 1. With a deferral, a student can be accepted or denied when final admissions decisions go out by April 1. With a wait list, the applicant is on hold IF a spot opens up after all those who have been given offers have responded to the college and if not all the slots have been filled. Those who have been accepted have until May 1 to respond with their intentions to enroll. After a school has received all of their responses, they may or may not have a need to utilize their wait list. Some schools accept more students than slots and allow for the fact that they will not yield all who have received an acceptance. Some (particularly very small programs) only accept for the number of slots available and then utilize a wait list if not all slots are taken. They can't go to the wait list until they hear back from all those who received offers. Those students have until May 1, the National Reply Date to make their intentions known. So, many schools who may go to a wait list, may not end up doing so until after May 1, unless they have already learned sooner than that that they have slots to fill. </p>

<p>You ask what a student should do on May 1 when they must reply to accept an offer of admission at a college when they are still on a wait list at another, possibly preferred college. What a student MUST do by May 1 is to put a deposit down with intentions to enroll at a school and cannot wait until they hear from the wait list school (which will likely be AFTER May 1 when those schools get back all of their letters of intent). However, IF a student gets off of a wait list after May 1 (this can happen during May, June, or even July), they can take that offer and then they lose their deposit at the original school. That school then may offer their slot to someone on their wait list (which is why some wait list spots open up in mid summer because a student backs out who has gotten off a wait list some place else). But the important thing is that you must pick a school to enroll out by May 1 and decide among the acceptances and the wait lists have to wait until after that point. If a student gets off a wait list after May 1 (which is again, the likely time line for that to happen), they are allowed to back out of the school they put the deposit down at prior to May 1 but they forfeit the deposit. If you do get off a wait list, it may vary how long you have to let them know but I don't think you would have very long because they can't hold that spot forever and so if you choose to remain on a wait list, you have to have visited and have in your mind a decison as to whether you'd take that offer or not. </p>

<p>At CMU, there is something called a Priority Wait List and it is apparently short. My daughter was offered that and she had to let them know if she wished to remain on the wait list or not but if she did, and was called to get off of it, they were giving the candidate 48 hours to reply and accept the offer and put down the deposit.</p>