<p>I was blown away by the generosity of the Montclair State Scholarships for freshmen applicants:</p>
<p>
[quote]
Level 1 Award: $4,500 a year for 8 Semesters (sequential Fall & Spring terms).
Applicant must have attained a 3.35 GPA and a combined SAT score of 1800. </p>
<p>Level 2 Award: $9,000 a year for 8 Semesters (sequential Fall & Spring terms).
Applicant must have attained a 3.6 GPA and a combined SAT score of 1950.</p>
<p>Level 3 Award: Full Tuition, Fees, Room & Board 8 Semesters (sequential Fall & Spring terms)
Applicant must have attained a 3.85 GPA and a combined SAT score of 2100.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I don't know how competitive the talent side of the process is, but academic admissions are less compeitive than many of the MT schools discussed here. Average SAT is 1,025 & 57% of applicants are accepted.</p>
<p>University at Buffalo (SUNY) is another very good program with a BA in acting which requires no audition and a BFA in Musical Theater & Acting. </p>
<p>Both programs, especially the MTR programs are becoming increasingly more and more competitive to get into it. The upside is about 8 to 10 freshman and 3 transfers are accepted a year out of around 150-200 that audition. That number is a lot less than some of the other schools which have about 300-400 auditioners a year.</p>
<p>Also the school is really a steal if your a New York state resident and even if you're out of state, they have some great out-of-state scholarships and the tuition is still much lower than some of the private schools.</p>
<p>Brit - where are you getting your numbers from? I understand that about 75 people auditioned with about 25 accepted to get a class of ten. This makes UB perhaps a bit of an saftey school with a relatively high acceptance rate compared to the top tier schools. Is it true that in the last 18 months UB has lost three full time faculty and has no plans or ability to replace them? My main connection to UB retired last summer so I do not have current up-to-theweek info.</p>
<p>StickerShock: just saw your post about Montclair. I'm not sure of the percentages, but it is highly competitive as far as auditioning, and cannot be considered a safety school in that area.</p>
<p>Last year was the first year the MTR program was holding additional auditions in NYC. I believe it was 75 students that auditioned on UB's campus altogether, excluding the other number that auditioned in NYC. I dont know that number, but I know it was under 75.
When I auditioned in 2005 it was about 100 students. </p>
<p>About the full-time faculty that left- Saul Elkin retired and William Thomas (from the dance dept. and never came in contact with the theater or mtr students) left on his own accordance. He went to go work with a well known dance company, though I heard there were some politics going on in the Dance dept. that lead up to him leaving.
Both programs are still going really strong.
Mr. Thomas has not been replaced because he had left 2-3 weeks before classes began and that was during the hiring freeze.
Kate LoConti came onboard with the theater dept. just last fall and has been very active in the program since. She's been a real breath of fresh air, being a recent MFA graduate from Columbia's Acting program and worked in NYC a lot right before coming here.</p>
<p>I don't know of the 3rd person you are speaking off. From what I recall I don't know anyone else who has retired or left. Both of these people leaving hasn't made a big impact on the theater and mtr departments.</p>