<p>Is an overnight visit to both programs a possibility?</p>
<p>
[quote]
I do not feel the money difference is a huge issue for us.
[/quote]
Then how about a compromise? If the difference is 12K/year, let her come with with 6K of it thru work & loans, you the rest. This gives her a personal stake in the decision and yet lets the decision ultimately be hers.</p>
<p>You parents can be really, really dense sometimes. The real issue here has nothing whatsoever to do with where the kid is going to school. Its all between mom and pops. Hope you work things out!</p>
<p>
[quote]
it strikes me that 17 year olds are not in a great position to decide how they want to spend their professional life......The corporate world is filled with artists and poets and dancers and musicians who, for whatever reasons, wanted to or needed to switch direction, and the lack of a BA can derail plan B very quickly.
[/quote]
I hear ya Blossom, I hear ya. As I said in another post a while back, I have been around the block enough times to know things can evolve. After all, there was once a time (only a couple years ago) that my D was once * not * interested in theater, right? :) </p>
<p>However, your point then also makes me wonder, if a BA is considered the safest option since it is more general and academic, then who exactly IS the BFA for? Why would one ever turn down the broadening effect of a BA for the training of a BFA? For some time I wrestled with this. Many actors over on the MT forum swear that a BA combined with a MFA is the most strategic combination of education and training, and I read their opinions with great interest.</p>
<p>In our daughter's case, academics were just never her strong suit. It took me a while to realize and accept that this kid would just never summon up any latent academic talent. So this is what I told her. I told her she simply had to work harder than those who had the talent, and she could get to the same place. Not having a bent for academics wasn't her fault, but not *choosing *to work harder would certainly be her fault. And I made it clear she was making a choice. You know, if someone asked you (or me) to learn the violin, you're going to say "no way, impossible". Now if you were offered a million dollars to learn the violin guess what, it's amazing how quick you're going to learn it. My point was, it was the same kind of choice with nothing stopping her but herself. so if she didn't choose to put out the extra effort, she had nothing and no one else to blame. So she put out the effort that was needed, and she got through high school just fine.</p>
<p>However at this point, she has to fly with what she's got, and what she's got now is clearly more talent and passion in this theater area than she has academic skill. I think most of the schools I mentioned are pretty discerning about who is committed and who is a flash in the pan and can spot the starstruck ones fairly quickly. And it could not have been her academic stats that got her into UCLA--the only other possible answer was her essays and portfolio that demonstrated her abilities and commitment. </p>
<p>She works 3-4 shows at her school each year. I can tell you we've complained pretty heavily about the hassle of going to pick her up from school at night and weekends, and I've never heard her complain once. She also designed her own independent study course on her specialty in her senior year and figured out exactly what she needed including the textbooks. She taught herself Protools and autocad (theatre tech software) and used it to create her portfolio. For her senior project she decide she will teach theatre tech to a group of 11th graders so that they will be able to inherit the senior class's jobs when they leave.</p>
<p>I've asked her, aren't you nervous in your work backstage, don't you get butterflies, what if you miss a cue during the show, etc? Oh no, she tells me--that's when I relax the most because I realize I AM IN CONTROL of the show, and THEY (the actors, etc) have to depend on ME. (I just don't think they can teach that attitude in school!)</p>
<p>So no, at this point I find it hard to imagine her switching to law, medicine, math, or science. She might however evolve into film, or other creative areas that utilize her tech specialty. She might also one day want to start or join a small company specializing in entertainment and media, in which case she would want some business knowledge, or she might get into the engineering aspect of theater acoustics in which case she would need physics. At that time I'm sure the "million dollar effect" will kick in and she will WANT to take these classes.</p>
<p>Now I don't have a crystal ball for the future and I don't think anyone does. There is never a guarantee. In her case I feel that the BFA is made for someone like her, and the BA would be like forcing a square peg in a round hole. But at least PSU is still a full-scale university, and the opportunities are clearly all around her "just in case" she decides to evolve from theater to something else.</p>
<p>dmd77
[quote]
Is an overnight visit to both programs a possibility?
[/quote]
That was done with PSU when we visited last week, not yet with UCLA. UCLA is having an all-day theatre open house later this month which I am going to insist she attend so she can sit in on a class, meet other students, talk with faculty and see if the BA would be so terrible. I already know what the answer will be, but at least she can say she gave it "the ol' college try" (sorry...irresistable phrase, you know) and then maybe lay it out for her Dad with a side-by-side comparison. By the way, she is already quite familiar with the campus, being LA natives, and she's taken a summer course there so she knows the culture, layout, etc.</p>
<p>mikemac
[quote]
If the difference is 12K/year, let her come with with 6K of it thru work & loans, you the rest. This gives her a personal stake in the decision and yet lets the decision ultimately be hers.
[/quote]
No problem with that idea. I will propose that she shoulder the Stafford loan ($2.6k), work part-time and apply most of her earnings towards the tuition bill, the rest to personal expenses. She seems like she wants to work anyway, and it appears she won't lack opportunity for theatre work anywhere.</p>
<hr>
<p>We're going to have a family meeting tonight, probably to discuss the counseling and her UCLA day. We've been having these about every 2 weeks to talk about college. They are usually rather strained and this one may be more so. Husband is still mostly venting to me about his feelings and hasn't yet directly brought them up to her. We'll see.</p>
<p>TaraMom, I have to say again that YOU, personally, really have it together! You have analyzed the situation for your daughter without emotion and know her very well and have kept to the issues. I hope your "meeting" goes well and sticks to the side by side comparison and issues as well, less on emotion. Good luck.
Susan</p>
<p>Well that helps because these days I feel like a true dimwit and DON'T have it together. Or maybe I do have it together but everybody else is falling apart.
It's really all you folks who have been so great, I thank everyone again for their thoughts and "what-ifs", and the bangs on the head too.</p>
<p>Susan - that was very well said
TaraMOM - I truly hope your family meeting goes well - you have alot of good ideas to consider - and - yes - you DO have your head together on this - keep it up and it will turn out out ok.</p>
<p>Taramom--from what you wrote about your D, it sounds like she is very capable and knows exactly what she is doing. Very impressive young lady. No wonder she did well with the acceptances to these schools!</p>
<p>I second what MSTee said in the sense that your daughter really impresses me, not just cause of her skill level and passion in her field, but on her reasoning and maturity about her goals and her way of achieving them. I really think she has thought this out thoroughly. I hope it can keep to that kind of discussion cause it is a discussion that is on track. Parental input is good too. I just hope the discussion is on the issues at hand. </p>
<p>Mom, you really have it together...you don't see it cause you are in the middle of all this stress but your post oozes intelligent thought as well as understanding of your kid. </p>
<p>By the way, my inbox is full and I am just not up to going through it and prefer using email anyway, and if you wish to email me (I see your tried the PM), just do so at SoozieVT at aol.com. Admittedly, I am very very very behind on several weeks of emails which are also overflowing due to my child's situation but eventually I will get back to everyone. </p>
<p>Susan</p>
<p>I just wanted to share my own story of how a counselor helped with some college choice issues in my family (although it may not have much in common with your story). I was an only child and my mom was overprotective and very anxious and always convinced that something was going to go wrong in my upbringing. I admit that the road through high-school was not completely bump-free, but my mom tended to panic more than necessary. When I was a senior, my mom and I would go to meetings with a counselor. I was from Los Angeles and I wanted to go to Smith, in Massachusetts. My mom was convinced that something would go wrong and there would be nobody to take care of me, so I should go to college only in a location where relatives would be able to check on me regularly. I, on the other hand, was dying to get away from the constant scrutiny and constant assumptions that I was too weak to exist in this world. Well, it turned out that the counselor persuaded my mom to let me go to Smith. The counselor also nixed my mom's idea of calling my head resident at Smith so she would know ahead of time to handle me with kid gloves. Well, I went to Smith and ... everything was FINE!! I think the counseling is a good idea, and I am glad you are going to do it. Too often in family discussions, things just go around and around and people are too worried about being heard to listen to anybody else.</p>
<p>I felt I owed a wrap-up here...It's been several very difficult weeks since I last posted and last week reached full crescendo for us in terms of stress and the May 1 deadline looming....but its finally over with.</p>
<p>As previously agreed, we went to the UCLA theater open house and their BA program was explained in huge detail over half a day. My husband came away more convinced than ever that this was the best place for his daughter. My daughter left knowing that this was the most ill-suited program she could possibly choose. One of the main things we learned was that the BA tech students mainly assist with productions. The MFA students do the actual sound & lighting design and the major part of the technical and creative work. So it has this sort of caste system going. Problem is, D has already been doing all of this at her school the past 2 years. So at UCLA she would learn little beyond what she already knows, and she knows she will be bored after the 2nd year (which is the first year she can do anything in a theater). She will be very aggravated being held at the operator/assistant level for 4 years. If there are any design opportunities, she would be competing with MFA students who naturally will be interested in building their own portfolios and take the lion's share of the responsibility. Finally, this would mean she wont have much of a design portfolio of her own when she graduates from UCLA and starts hunting for grad school or a job. </p>
<p>So to both her and me, it made Penn State appear that much better. There they have no MFA program in her tech specialty (sound) so as a BFA she has an unobstructed path to expand her skills, and take total responsibility for a show. In fact shed have to. She could design for as many shows as she feels she can handle. It would be more like drinking from a fire hose. There she can also opt for a minor in acoustics which is engineering-oriented, or go more heavily into music and music theory. Either would be an asset as a sound designer, depending on how left- or right-brained she wants to become. She could not mix courses like these into the BA curriculum at UCLA.</p>
<p>Of course both D and I tried explaining the above to her father. To recap, his attitude is still that she will likely never get work in this area and all this labor will end up being a waste of her time and our money. He still sees the BFA as a "vocational degree" and that even if she gets a job, a theater won't let her do much more than menial "roadie" type work. He sees it as a male-dominated field where shell continually have to prove herself and never be allowed to get the plum jobs. He believes that at least with the BA from UCLA she has a shot at a job after college--in or out of a theater, can pay her light bill, and if she's still so in love with it after that, then she can study it all she wants in grad school, on her dime.</p>
<p>The family therapy sessions sort of bombed. The counselor asked my husband to tell his story, and from his account seemed to agree with him (that UCLA was probably the better choice). A few days later he saw me and my daughter, asked a lot of questions---of course we had to educate him all about theater and the schools because my H didn't do thatbut then also seemed fine with her decision and told us he didnt see any problem with her logic. So stalemate.</p>
<p>Dad then makes last chance offer: That she try UCLA for one or two years and then if she still doesnt like it, she can transfer to Penn State. Sounds reasonable? I guess so from a purely logical viewpoint. But we had major issues with it. And I know this next part will sound really melodramatic to some but heres how it felt to me as a Mom: Her friends and teachers at school, GC, and relatives all supported her 100% in her liking for Penn State and for her amazing rags-to-riches college journey. If she changed, they would pity her and my husband will be seen as the bad guy for making her go to a school she hates. (Of course he doesnt carewhen they pay her tuition bill Ill care what they think). Im afraid her graduation day which was to be so happy, would be nothing but a day of misery for her. She would go to UCLA with a huge chip on her shoulder, and nothing but resentment towards us. She would get very little out of her first year and say I told you so. Yes, transferring the UCLA credits to Penn State should be no problem. But then she enters Penn State as a sophomore and finds shes behind the others whove had a whole year of plays to work on plays and develop their skills. Shes not guaranteed housing and cant choose her dorm for 2nd year, so shell miss having started out with her homies in the community dorm that the other theatre students live in. The rest of her time at Penn State will be spent playing catch-up, and her resentment for appeasing her fathers wishes wont be waning either. Now obviously, if she had a more positive attitude, almost none of the above would matter and she could make it work out. She could get something out of the UCLA experience and maybe even like it enough to stay (fathers fantasy again). And of course if only pigs had wings, we all know they can surely fly. I wish I could give her an attitude transplant but I cant.</p>
<p>There are more gory details after this but we will modestly pull the curtain over the cozy family scene at this point, fade to a calendar with the pages flipping in the wind and bring you to the present. Her father apparently saw she is steadfast in her wish to go to Penn State, and decided not to press his case any further. He was fairly unhappy for a couple days but seems to have made a lot of progress in the last week. (Which confirmed my own suspicion that he would get over not getting his way a LOT sooner than D would get over it). I also told him I would support him in going to further counseling perhaps with someone else and he agrees there would be more benefit in continuing a dialog with us together.</p>
<p>So, last week she went online and... <a href="all%20you%20UC%20transfer%20hopefuls,%20please%20cover%20your%20eyes%20now">i</a>* hit the please withdraw acceptance button on her UCLA SIR with great joy. This week, shes wearing the PSU hoodie, proudly.</p>
<p>Sigh .as Eleanor in Lion of Winter said, What family doesnt have its ups and downs?</p>
<p>Thanks for the update! Great ballast job!</p>
<p>You're right. Most men don't have that long term grudge factor.</p>
<p>Thank goodness.</p>
<p>You can also tell your husband that I got my MBA with a woman who had come out of film editing to get an MBA so she could get more clout. She thought she would go into producing, but instead would up going back into film editing and last I heard she lives very well. Now, I know theater isn't film, but should your D decide she wanted to live well, sets are sets and lights are lights and talent is talent.</p>
<p>Horay! :) Best wishes to your daughter and your whole family! Thank you for sharing your tale - wow. Fathers Day is coming up. I might not try out the Penn State sweatshirt on him yet, but I'l bet you can think of something to smooth all this over.</p>
<p>TaraMom,
wow are you a great writer.....I felt like I could feel the calendar pages fluttering as I read your summary post from today.....you did an excellent job of opening the curtain just a tad on some of the family dynamics that are abundant in many homes across America... it seems to me that your daughter is a gal on a mission....she knows what she wants and she has found a place that speaks to her...... I think she is lucky that you have the patience and fortitude you have to straddle this family divide so gracefully.....Soozie's comment too changed the discussion completely when she highlighted the specific program at Penn State that was calling to your daughter....</p>
<p>the only consolation I have for your hubby is that your home will appreciate as much as the delta in costs between the two schools... over the 4 yr period......so, while this option costs more...he is building equity as she learns her "trade"..... perhaps her "points" from her first show can buy dad his ski condo? or fishing boat? because based on your description of her commitment to her passion for sound, she will stand out BECAUSE she is a woman with talent in a male dominated field. Just don't encourage her to go to tooo many Green Day concerts cause there was one here last week that was extremely LOUD and don't want her to hurt her hearing!! </p>
<p>Congratulations on such a joyful resolution to your family conflict.</p>
<p>Sounds like your D made the right/wise decision, hard as it was.</p>
<p>I am VERY impressed with the way you handled the whole situation. Daughter was well-informed, rational about what she wanted and you really did a great job as her advocate - because it sounds like you were able to objectively (or as objectively as a mom can!) judge the situation. I think your role in this whole process was crucial in keeping everyone on track. Although, I must say that it sounds like a little more counseling for you and hubby might be in order - to get over any lingering resentment and to now deal with the next major hurdle: her leaving home. I never saw this mentioned (or maybe I just missed it) but are there other kids? at home? already out of the house? or is she an only? (which would definitely be a major factor)</p>
<p>Taramom:</p>
<p>Thanks for being brave enough to post such personal dialogs online. Reading the posts has helped me in clarifying some of our thoughts as we allowed DD to choose the school we did not prefer.</p>
<p>There may be many people out there helped by this conversation.... 2200 more views than posts!</p>
<p>Taramom:</p>
<p>It has been such a stressful process! But it looks to end well. You and your D kept your heads throughout. Good for you and congrats!</p>