<p>I know some schools factor in grades highly and some don't at all. if anyone has any info on the following BFA's and how they factor gpa/sat/act/audition</p>
<p>USC
UCLA
NYU
BU
U of Illinois At Chicago
Carnegie Mellon
University of Miami</p>
<p>Thanks</p>
<p>CMU – all audition; NYU advertises 50-50; My impression is that BU may be even more fussy than NYU about grades. Don’t have any first hand knowledge as to the rest. </p>
<p>Miami is fairly strict about grades, too, though maybe not as demanding as NYU or BU. </p>
<p>BU says at the audition that you have to be admitted by the university before you can be admitted to the department. If you don’t have the grades/scores for the university a killer audition won’t help.</p>
<p>toowonderful is right about a killer audition not helping if your grades are low, but just to clarify - the SOT has the first say as to whether or not you will be admitted. You audition first, and if you pass the audition, your application will be forwarded to the university so that grades/scores/essay/etc. can be evaluated, along with the recommendation from the SOT. If you don’t pass the audition, your application is denied by the School of Theatre; the university will not even look at your grades - no matter how stellar! So actually killer grades won’t help either, if you don’t pass the audition. In other areas of BU, if you apply to one school and the university doesn’t feel that school is appropriate for you, they may offer you admission into another school (for example, you apply to the College of Engineering, but they offer you admission into the College of General Studies), but if you apply to the College of Fine Arts, you will not be offered any other colleges within BU. </p>
<p>@marbleheader - thank you for the clarification. That is not how I remember them explaining things at Unifieds. Our group was told that when you auditioned you were “ranked” 1-4(?). Then later, Grades etc were processed by the university, and the SOT got a list back of who had “passed” admissions, and pulled their group out of people with a #1 ranking. (he said they had enough people applying that they never had to go to the #2s). It seemed fairly random (how would they remember kids that much later?) The way you are describing it seems much more logical. </p>
<p>You know, you may be right, because BU did change how many kids they chose this year. Last year, they offered admission to a large group and 55 kids accepted. That is a LOT! This year they didn’t offer admission to that many kids. Coupled with the fact that they just announced a new musical theatre track, they may be looking ahead at how they are going to do things. One more change - Paolo DiFabio, who has done the audition process for the last few years, has left BU, and his replacement is a woman with a large musical theatre background, who also runs an audition prep company for college auditions. So, perhaps she has had input on how she would do things. I’ll bow to your explanation, 2wonderful, since your info is more current! </p>
<p>Can anyone speak to the grades thresholds for some of these schools? </p>
<p>For example, I know Michigan and Northwestern (BA programs, I know), have similar academic requirements to an Ivy. </p>
<p>BU and NYU don’t necessarily have THAT high of a standard, but the academics are a consideration for their BFA programs. Does anyone have experience with what the range of GPA / ACT / SAT scores are? Which is more important GPA or test scores, etc? </p>
<p>marbleheader - it was Paolo giving the explanation, but he did mention that there were changes b/c of the large class in admitted in 2013. The idea of an MT program there is interesting and exciting addition, it’s already such a cool program (always one of the tops on D’s list)</p>
<p>2019theatremom , michigan is not even close to the standards of an ivy and they are a BFA program, not ba. I’d day michigan is just as hard as NYU and BU academically. Northwestern on the other hand, is similar to an Ivy. and is a ba program</p>
<p>Wow BU news with respect to MT is so interesting. Historically I think they made close to 100 offers to fill the BFA class. (My notes from Paolo’s talk says that). I don’t think they expected to net 55. 2013 was a big year in a very cool school. I hope Paolo landed well wherever he went because he was impressive.</p>
<p>I can say that in 2012… you had to get through the audition first and then they’d review your academic fit. My daughter was an easy academic fit, but was rejected. It had to be the audition and/or they could smell that she was really on the hunt for an MT program because her resume pretty much screamed of it. We and she loved BU so much that it was the one and only straight acting BFA she applied to. Kind of awesome to think that they will be adding MT to the offering because there are so well positioned to do it well. </p>
<p>It could certainly be a heavy hitter right away…</p>
<p>what? @toowonderful </p>
<p>BU is an incredibly strong straight acting program, always ranked among the best… but they have always been “only” straight acting (though the program has always done musicals). If they have a MT major one assumes it would start strong, I know lots of people MT (Like halfolum’s D) loved the school, but wanted to focus specifically on MT. I think it would get a LOT of applicants, even as a brand new program</p>
<p>In the article it looks like the MT track is an add on to Performance? They will do a musical every other year. VERY generous endowment from BWAY producers. Looks like a great addition to a strong program.:)</p>
<p>Below is part of the article. Up until now, BU put one a musical every other year. It looks like they will be doing an annual musical now. The casting for their musicals, BTW, have been open to the entire student body, and lots of music students have been cast, as well as kids outside the CFA. I will be curious to see if that stops once they have a pool of MT students. Lots of straight acting kids that are attracted my BU’s straight acting BFA are not interested in doing the musicals, like my son (who does do musicals - Les Mis next week!), and would prefer to focus on plays. Soooooooo many plays that they kids get to see during the year at BU between the SOT and theaters that are part of their professional connections initiative.</p>
<p>BUToday article - “With the gift the School of Theatre will consolidate and leverage the progress of recent years by offering an elective track in musical theatre as an option for both acting and theatre arts majors. This track will use elective credits that are required for both programs, offer a musical theatre minor within either major program of study, and add two brand-new course offerings: Musical Theatre Performance Skills I and Musical Theatre Performance Skills II. The fund will support the hiring of an additional adjunct faculty member, and the production of a large-scale musical as part of the School of Theatre’s annual programming.”</p>
<p>very cool!</p>
<p>When we were at UCLA auditions about 6 years years ago we were told that if they really want you they could probably “force” the acceptance with a 2.0 from high school. NYU is not Ivy League caliber and again, if they really want you they are flexible academically. USC and UMiami are not particularly challenging academically. </p>
<p>NYU is absolutely not Ivy caliber selective. Is that what you mean? Agreed. Neither are most schools. </p>
<p>Disagree with the rest that implies USC and Miami are not academically challenging. How do you know? In fact how does anyone really know the relative academic challenge of one school vs. another unless they attended both or someone close to them did? </p>
<p>I don’t know either but nor do i pretend to. But in the last year or 2, year, my kids applied to and we’re accepted at UCLA, USC, U Miami and NYU and those schools made the list because academics are not ignored and know to be good. Not sure where you are coming from nor why the suggestion just sat there @madbean etc.</p>
<p>@halflokum…agreed, I would think any human (theater or not) would be proud to have any one of those schools on their resume…all nationally known, well respected schools. @amtc- did you mean in terms of the classes theater majors need to take, or classes in general? Even actual “Ivies” have a fairly good sized swing in terms of qualifications for admission (not based entirely on grades- who hasn’t heard a story of a 4.0+ 36 ACT kid NOT admitted to an Ivy), so I’m not sure exactly what the caliber is.</p>