<p>I know that women outnumber men in Acting/Theatre B.F.A. programs, just as they do in many undergraduate departments, but I would love to gain some insights - anecdotal, if not statistical - regarding the ratio of male to female applicants. Girls certainly outnumber boys in school productions, camps, community theater corps, etc. Are the acceptance rates generally higher for men than for women? Have any seasoned applicants observed a noticeable imbalance at group auditions or campus tours. My son is just embarking on the journey now, for 2012 admissions, and we'd like some rough sense of the admissions environment for a young, good-looking (although a bit vertically-challenged), straight, white male, with a strong theatrical background, solid (600-700/1900+ composite) test scores, and inconsistent grades from a respected private boarding school. We plan to apply to a broad spectrum of schools: as competitive as NYU/Tisch to as uncompetitive as Columbia College Chicago, but want an idea of how broad a net we should cast in terms of other audition programs (e.g.CCPA, Cornish, Point Park, Santa Fe, et al). I don't want to sound politically incorrect, and apologize in advance if my query rankles anyone. I guess I'm trying to approach this as a "numbers game." I also know that many programs consider applicants for admission to a repertory, and want to see how somebody will work into their projects.</p>
<p>Hi, Stagemum -Based on what we saw during the auditions this past season, there are significantly more girls than boys applying to these programs. And, you should also know that not all schools accept an equal number of boys and girls! CMU, for example, has been explicit about the fact that they accept more boys than girls because their intent is to have all of their students employable immediately after graduation, and there are many more jobs for men out there than women! Don’t know whether any other school takes this approach, though. Others may have additional information. So in terms of gender, the odds are definitely in your son’s favor.</p>
<p>Grades are a different issue. While acting students applying to auditioned programs often do not have to have grades/scores quite as high as regular applicants to a given school, they do have to be academically “in the ballpark.” You will need to keep this in mind as you consider various schools. Good luck!</p>
<p>One tough mommy I was curious about the grades thing. My grades are high (as and bs) and I am in four AP classes (five next year) I am a little afraid that I won’t be able to get my sat scores QUITE as high as the norm at my dream schools. You said “in the ballpark” do you find that to be the case at most schools?</p>
<p>Boys do have a clear advantage over girls in both the audition and non-audition schools but that still doesn’t mean it’s not incredibly tough to be admitted. I know that for their MT program Northwestern takes more boys than girls for similar reason to CMU (2010 audition class was 17 boys/13 girls I believe, this year’s isn’t out yet), don’t believe that’s what they do for straight Theatre (non-audition 50 of each I believe).</p>
<p>Laurenkes - it sounds like your stats are fine for most programs.</p>
<p>Purchase usually takes 10 boys and 10 girls.</p>
<p>LK - I am not the authority on the grades issue, since my D was kind of off the charts on that. But representatives of some of the schools e.g. BU are pretty explicit that this is the case. The general sense on these boards is that after the auditions, there’s a negotiation between the theatre dept and the admissions office as to who will be admitted: some grades/test scores will be below average for that school but still within the acceptable range, but others will just be too low for admissions to accept. Of course, it’s not just a reputation thing - they don’t want to accept students who may have great acting potential but won’t be able to do the academic work successfully.</p>
<p>I agree with amtc that this shouldn’t be an issue for you at most schools.</p>
<p>It is very, very dependent on the school. Some schools give much greater weight to the audition than academics. Some schools give 50/50 weight to academics and the audition. Some schools require applicants to meet the same academic requirements as other liberal arts majors, some relax the academic standards for BFA programs compared to other majors. Some schools have high academic standards, others much less so even though their BFA program is excellent. At some schools, the admissions department gets the audition results and blends them with the academics and admissions makes the decision, other schools, admissions decides on the academic admission and the department decides on program admission. Some schools, the department can influence a decision on an academically marginal student, others it can not. There is no simple rule of thumb. It is important to thoroughly investigate the admissions process at each school under consideration to understand how it works and the relationship between academics and the audition as well as between the admissions department and the theatre department.</p>