<p>Christie I agree - one of the counselors at our school told us “don’t go visit until you get your acceptances” – that is just nuts. </p>
<p>Okay, it’s not nuts. It really depends very much on where you live I relation to the schools and what kind of budget you are willing to allocate to sightseeing. It also depends very much on the student and whether “fit” is a very big deal. After a while, a campus is a campus and unless you are accepted liking or not liking it is irrelevant, anyway. </p>
<p>My bad Flossy – sorry about that. I was referring to my child, who hasn’t a clue really what type of college, conservatory she wants to attend. She just knows she wants a BFA MT program, but the type, school, everything is endless. </p>
<p>Our approach was a little bit of both. We saw a few schools that were easy to drive to during spring break in S’ junior year and over the summer between junior and senior year, just to get a feel for various types of campuses, overall vibe of the school, whatever we could glean from tours. But the rest we reserved for on-campus auditions (which admittedly doesn’t give your S/D a great overview of the school if they stay mostly in the audition building, but at least they experience the faculty, students, theater facilities, etc.), or for after acceptances from the schools he auditioned for at Unifieds that we hadn’t already visited. </p>
<p>Like anything else in this crazy process, you have to know your own kid! Whichever way you go, enjoy the ride and the view along the way!</p>
<p>If your child is very serious about MT, and you have limited time in the NYC area, I would definitely substitute Montclair for Wagner. It is easier to get to from midtown and is a much more rigorous program. My daughter was accepted to both and we researched both extensively. Montclair is BFA; Wagner is not. Montclair is a conservatory-type program; Wagner is not. If your child wants to be near NYC it is MUCH easier to get into midtown from Montclair than Wagner. The Wagner campus is beautiful and it is a great school for the kid who really wants other opportunities besides MT and wants a very well-rounded liberal arts education. But for the hard-core MT kid, Montclair wins hands down. </p>
<p>Thank you Calliene! It was not on our list but will be now. Appreciate the info.</p>
<p>We are also on the west coast and all of our schools are Midwest or east. We did a west coast driving trip last year where we visited a number of college campuses with another girl/mom that were not MT focused but gave my D a good sense of the size of campus she wanted and the type of location. This spring we visited the Chicago MT schools. In October we will visit the NYC area schools and that is all we can do. She is applying to schools in Boston and Philly and upstate but those will have to wait until after the auditions are over. </p>