<p>My daughter will be a senior next year and plans to audition for drama and MT programs. As we've moved along this road I've started to wonder: Why not wait a year? </p>
<p>Instead of auditioning a few months BEFORE graduation, why not audition a few months AFTER. What's the diff?</p>
<p>Daughter nutshell:
She attends a large public school known for its active theater program. She has been cast in productions pretty much nonstop since freshman year. She has been in one show outside of school and will be in another this summer. Theater = joy, love, belonging, etc. etc.</p>
<p>She is a strong singer, sometime strong actor, and a decent dancer. She is a good student (3.65 unweighted GPA) and a bad tester (23 ACT after intense tutoring - she has a mild reading disability). She takes private voice lessons and just started with a monologue coach. Judging from my CC surfing, she ought to be on track to audition next year IF she stays on top of everything. </p>
<p>That "IF" is where my question comes in. D is positive, works hard, and is motivated and organized most of the time, but she also loves to have fun in the present in a normal teenager way and sometimes goes foggy when trying to think too far into the future.</p>
<p>We have watched other kids juggle the audition process, some successfully, some less so. The common thread I see is how thinly they are stretched in order to pull it off. Since the college app/audition process has gone bat**** crazy, why not buy some breathing room and sanity by lifting it off of senior year and letting most of the pressure fall after graduation?</p>
<p>These upsides come to mind:</p>
<p>-- Better focus on what presumably will be more challenging senior year school work.</p>
<p>-- Freedom to enjoy performance opportunities that are available NOW. (Let's face it, even if she gets into a good college acting program, that's no guarantee of a successful career as an actor. What if this is as good as it gets??!!)</p>
<p>-- More time to experiment with and prepare audition material, and one more year of maturity going in.</p>
<p>-- More time to research/visit schools. (When our older D was researching colleges it made a huge difference to visit during the school year rather than summer, but it's so hard to find good times to do that and stay on top of school and not miss rehearsals...)</p>
<p>-- More sleep. Freedom to get a bad cold, strep, whatever, without feeling like it'll put her whole future in jeopardy.</p>
<p>-- After graduation, she'd have time to get a job to help pay for her coaches and travel!</p>
<p>When I floated this idea to my D it surprised me how receptive she was to it. Now, please help me with the risks/downsides. There must be some, but I'm having a hard time thinking of them!</p>