High school course requirements for theatre admissions

College Majors Musical Theater Major
1

Hi - We’ve been looking at what high school courses individual colleges require for admissions, particularly for the colleges we’ve heard are a little more academically difficult to get into. I have some questions I’m hoping someone here can help me with. By the way, asking for a HS junior, not senior, with eye on course selection for next year.

  1. If the student fulfills the college's listed requirement even if it's the minimum, is that fine? Will it affect the student's competitiveness at all if their grades and test scores are good? For example, if the college requires 2-4 years of foreign language and the student has 2, will that make the student any less competitive for any MT/Acting program?
  2. Does it matter how many AP classes they take? If they took some but not all/most offered at their school is that fine? (I'm used to older kids applying to purely academic, nonaudition programs where rigor of schedule is very important.)
  3. If a college doesn't specify which sciences are required, does it matter if student doesn't take physics?
  4. And super picky question - is AP Environmental Science considered a lab science?

Thank you all so much in advance!

2

Where admission to the university is considered separate from acceptance to a program and it’s considered an “academic” school, then these things will matter and you really need to talk with an admissions advisor for each school: Northwestern, NYU, FSU, TCU, Elon, UCLA and USC and a couple others it will matter. Most it will not.

3

@ctaylors6 - my D never took physics in HS (at least, not AP Physics). she went to NYU :slight_smile:

4

As a previous post said, you should talk to your high school counselor for specific advice on college academic entrance requirements.

For artistic admissions, I am not an expert, but I would offer the following:

Q. If the student fulfills the college’s listed requirement even if it’s the minimum, is that fine?

A. It depends, for some schools yes, for other schools, maybe not. For the more selective academic schools, you may need to fall somewhere in the range of the typical academic entrance qualifications, which are likely to be above, and maybe far above, the minimum requirements. However, there are many MT programs at schools with relatively high academic acceptance rates (i.e., lower academic requirements) where meeting the minimum academic requirements will be enough. Post #1 lists some candidates where academics within the typical ranges for admission are likely to be required Northwestern, for example, seems to be extremely competitive for academic admission to the theatre department. As a counter-example, CMU is famous for not requiring MT/Acting students to meet typical academic requirements. Michigan may be somewhere in the middle, where MT/Acting students may need to be above minimum entrance requirements, but may not need to meet typical academic entrance requirements which are required for some other disciplines (this is pure hearsay on my part, by the way).

Q. Will it affect the student’s competitiveness at all if their grades and test scores are good?

A. Good grades and test scores probably don’t significantly impact artistic acceptance at most competitive MT programs, and, at many programs, will not factor at all for artistic acceptance. However, it never hurts to have solid academics and it may help gain an artistic acceptance at some programs under certain circumstances.

Q. For example, if the college requires 2-4 years of foreign language and the student has 2, will that make the student any less competitive for any MT/Acting program?

A. This would probably not be a factor for most MT/Acting programs for artistic admission.

5

Thank you all so much. This was very helpful. If there’s a school she’s particularly concerned about after reviewing their requirements, she’ll contact their admissions dept and ask directly.

She’s definitely NOT going to apply to Northwestern. Not sure if she’s applying to NYU but it’s good to know about the physics @toowonderful :slight_smile:

We have checked academic requirements for NYU, FSU, TCU, Elon, UCLA and USC, (thanks @loribelle for the list) along with Michigan, Syracuse, Ithaca, CMU. I know those are super competitive to get into artistically so this exercise may be moot, but I guess it’s better to have the academic info ahead of time rather than when it’s too late.

@EmsDad Thank you so much for the detailed answered. By the way, I enjoyed reading the CMU requirements by school.
School of Drama: 4 years English, 2 years Foreign Language, 10 electives
School of Engineering: 4 years English, 4 years Mathematics,1 year Chemistry,1 year Physics,1 year Biology, 2 years Foreign Language, 3 electives

6

@ctaylors6 Regarding your question about AP Environmental Science, it probably varies by school, but my daughter is a freshman at TCU (not a MT major) and she placed out of one semester of lab science based on her AP Environmental Science test score. So, that’s 4 hours of lab science that she was able to check off the list! :slight_smile:

7

Thanks @bookworm68 !! I’ve been looking at the admissions side, not the credit side once you’re in, so that’s a great reminder for us to look at the academics from that perspective too.

And I’m glad your D was able to get some academics out of the way with AP credit, especially if it’s the classes she wouldn’t have wanted to take in college anyway. I know with my older kids and their friends, there’s been a huge range in how they’ve been able to use AP credit - if at all.