How do acceptances work?

I see several acceptances already with some students to certain programs (Congratulations!) and was wondering about how it all works. Does the student need to respond to the acceptance or do they (can they) wait till after all auditions are over to accept? And if a MT program extends their offer, does the school consider that spot taken and therefore look for other talents and types to fill their class? Is it better to select earlier audition days that are offered because programs will be giving out offers and spots. Generally speaking, how many spots are offered out once January comes and all the Fall/early auditions have occurred. I’m thrilled for students who are already getting accepted but it is a little nerve-racking knowing my DD has some audition dates in March.

To your first question, students have until May 1 (National Reply Date) to accept an offer of admissions and put down a deposit to enroll.

Second question: only some schools accept students on a rolling basis (as they go along the season with auditions) or may have an Early Action round. Many schools do not accept anyone into their BFA in MT program until ALL auditions are completed. In most cases, other than schools that offer an Early Action or Early Decision round, there is no advantage in terms of odds of admission to auditioning sooner rather than later. These programs would not bother holding auditions in February or March if they were not interested in possibly admitting students from that audition date. I can tell you in my own child’s case, at several well known BFA in MT programs, she auditioned on the final audition date and was accepted.

As an aside, many believe you should not audition at your favorite schools as your first auditions because often an applicant can improve or become more confident as the audition season wears on. My daughter did not get into her first quarter of auditions and was successful in her last 3/4s of auditions, as one anecdote.

@3Blessings I think @soozievt is correct about not getting an advantage in auditioning early for schools who make offers in the spring. I think the only exception to that would be getting prescreen auditions in early. There IS an advantage there because many colleges only hold a certain number of in person audition spots. Colleges have said not to wait until the deadline to send in prescreen auditions because there may not be very many available audition spots left.
You mentioned seeing posting acceptances but I do not see an acceptance thread here. Where did you see that?

A few acceptances have been mentioned in the ongoing class of 2023 thread, such as for Baldwin-Wallace, Belmont, and OCU. The majority of programs have not offered any acceptances yet.

Agree to all the above. The majority of programs we found make their offers in late February-March and then they trickle in April. There are a couple of major schools that do all of them late. You can search here in this forum under “notification date” to see the patterns in discussion threads. Sometimes schools will only make a couple offers early for a couple students they think they want to try to commit and lock in, but then make the rest of their offers much later. Making an early decision can save a lot of time, money and stress to enjoy your senior year, but you are not required to commit before May 1. It is a courtesy to decline offers ASAP for those that are already not under your consideration so the schools may make other offers to other qualified students.

If a school offers admission early, is it a full package offer with all possible financial aid etc. Or does any of that come later?

@CanaDad For academic admission, the financial aid offer is usually included with the notification (or the letter/email/portal will explain next steps.) And the artistic admission is an entirely separate track. The combination of outcomes from the big three components can get pretty wild. You have until May 1 to accept or decline your place.