How Many Schools Should We Visit?

College Majors Theater/Drama Majors
1

<p>Ideally, we'd like to visit every school with a BFA program :) </p>

<p>But what would be better and more economical is to try to visit as diverse a group of schools as possible. Here is what we've seen so far:</p>

<p>NYU-Tisch
Juilliard
Rutgers (although we just saw the overall campus, not anyone connected with Mason Gross)
Fordham (self-guided tour of buildings, no scheduled visits available, stopped by office and given a typed handout)
Columbia (BA with theater arts major, looking less attractive and less likely)</p>

<p>Spring break is coming up, and this is the proposed trip:</p>

<p>CMU--Pittsburgh fly in on Friday, tour Saturday, fly out Sunday
Emerson---performance Sunday afternoon
Emerson---tour and student roundtable Monday
BU--- info session, tour, lunch Tuesday fly to Cincinnati
CCM--tour Wednesday Fly to Chicago Wed. night
day off in Chicago Thursday
Northwestern--tour Friday Fly home (atl airport) Friday night</p>

<p>So we will have seen schools in NY, Boston, Cincinnati, Pittsburgh and Chicago. We plan to take a "college day" off from school and drive up to North Carolina and possibly South Carolina. </p>

<p>Is this a good cross section of schools? Is it too "name" heavy? </p>

<p>We used to live in Florida and our son, a red-headed, very fair boy, suffered in the summers and went to camp in the NC mountains from a very early age, so he is really not interested in the FSU and SMU programs because of the weather there.</p>

<p>Any suggestions? I am open to changing this itinerary and anyone has any suggestions to squeeze in more schools, we game! </p>

<p>Thanks in advance for any replies..... :)</p>

2

<p>Hi ... it sounds like you've planned an ambitious, but fun and certainly do-able trip. In fact, I made a similar trip with my own kid last year during the March break ... </p>

<p>However, flying every day or every other day seems a little stressful to me. If you'd like to have more control over your schedule, you might want to instead consider renting a car in Cincinnati ... </p>

<p>For example, for our Midwest trip last year, we rented a car in Cincinnati and after touring/visiting CCM, drove from there to visit Baldwin Wallace and Otterbein on the way to UMich. If your son is not interested in BW or Otterbein, you could head directly from CCM to UMich (it's about a 4 hour drive and very easy I know 'cause I did it myself with my kid during this last audition cycle), but I definitely think it's worth it to include BW and/or Otterbein along the way if for no reason other than to compare small versus larger campuses and programs. </p>

<p>Even if your son is only interested in Acting he may want to visit UMich because UMich does have a small, very select BFA Drama program and beautiful facilities. Northwestern is an easy drive from Michigan and you can fly home from there. </p>

<p>This is exactly the trip we made last year. </p>

<p>If you do visit UMich, I highly suggest the Hawthorne Suites hotel where you can get a 2 bedr, 2 bath suite (with full kitchen and even a small, working (electric) fireplace) for a very reasonable rate. It is VERY close to the north campus which houses the BFA Drama and MT programs.</p>

<p>I also liked having a car so we could explore the neighborhoods surrounding each campus. We also had fun trying restaurants in different cities, which is much harder to do without access to a car. (Not to mention much better than always eating airport food!). But having control of our schedule was key 'cause with flying around the Midwest in winter, you just never know.</p>

<p>The only thing you really need is a GPS (most rental companies offer them), and then the driving is pretty brainless ... Honestly, I'm geographically defective and I had no trouble at all.</p>

<p>Finally, please remember that your son will have other opportunities to visit BFA programs even during his senior year. My kid did a mix of on-campus versus unified auditions which worked out well this year, and then once accepted, there are more opportunities to visit during scheduled preview days for accepted students - - typically in April of senior year.</p>

<p>I hope these suggestions help ... best of luck to you and your son! Enjoy every minute of this crazy process! It really is a wonderful, special (albeit stressful) time.</p>

3

<p>My H and S also did a college road trip. Flew in to New York, to visit Syracuse, onto Pittsburg to visit CMU, Ohio (to visit family), then Decautar, Illinois to Milliken, wanted to interview at Webster but not available, and then on to Chigaco to interview at DePaul. It was a really good trip. Just be sure to get unlimited miles on the car. Flew home from Chicago. Gave them time to visit the campuses and talk when they were traveling to the next college.</p>

4

<p>We did a week long trip last summer and had a fabulous time. Even more than getting to see the colleges, it was a great opportunity for some M/D bonding that can't happen any other time than on a road trip. We flew into Minneapolis to visit Macalester and U of M, drove to Northfield MN to visit St. Olaf, flew to Chicago to visit Northwestern, and then drove down to Illinois Wesleyan, on to Webster, over to Evansville, and then drove back up to Chicago to fly home. I would also highly recommend driving over flying if the locations are reasonably close together -- it was so much less stressful for us and gave us more freedom over our schedule to stay at places a little longer or move on. She auditioned for 11 schools, so this trip was really more a "representative" sample of different types of schools (acting only at a big university, a couple of small non-audition liberal arts, high academic non-audition, conservatory, smaller liberal arts with BFA) to see which of the "types" appealed. We figured that we could then visit any that we missed if she got accepted.</p>

5

<p>A word of caution -- it is great to visit these places, but try to keep your kid from getting his or her "heart set" on a school. My D actually said that one of the things she didn't like about going on the college tours was that she didn't want to like any school too much so that she would be terribly disappointed if she didn't get accepted. While we tried to keep that in mind, she did really like Minnesota (but got rejected). On the other hand, she found a couple of non-audition schools that she liked, and a couple of audition schools that she would consider attending even if she didn't get into the BFA program.</p>

6

<p>This is a really difficult question. All I can share is one of my D's favorites before visiting she was "no way" after visiting and others she wasn't as enthused about shot to the top after visiting.</p>

7

<p>I don't think we physically have enough time to drive anywhere but from Cincinnati to Chicago. I completely forgot about DePaul ---thank you, that's one of the reasons I posted here! ---and we can fit that in. But can we see anything else??... we have to get back on Saturday 4th because he will have a TON of homework that has to be done before school starts that Monday.</p>

<p>His senior year second semester will be very taken up with a senior project and thesis, which is an important part of his prep school curriculum. He has to submit a preliminary plan for it in September, and is thinking (naturally) that it will be theater-related. There will be a two-week period where he can go off campus and spend the time on his project. Unfortunately, by the time his project has to be designed and okayed he won't have any acceptances, so basically we have to plan for NO time his senior spring year to visit any schools. It's something we just realized a few weeks ago, and so are madly trying to see what we can while school is still in session. Summer visits seem pretty worthless, according to what we've heard at the schools themselves so far.</p>

<p>I don't think we have time for a dedicated Midwest trip, and he has pretty much decided that he doesn't want to audition for the California schools (I don't know why, but am happy about it nonetheless as we are in the south, although paradoxically it wouldn't bother me if he ended up in London). </p>

<p>So I guess I need to work out a schedule that includes flying to Boston and Pitt, then perhaps driving to Cincinnati and Chicago and perhaps Michigan. And of course that all depends upon the programs having tours on those days (and a few have dedicated days when theater students do the tours). </p>

<p>I will try to add UMich to this list, but just don't see how we physically add Otterbein and Baldwin Wallace. :( I guess we could do a fly up and back in a day to see a school in the spring if it was absolutely necessary.</p>

8

<p>I wouldn't totally discount the summer. It is not ideal, but like your S, my D just couldn't fit in a significant college trip during the school year. Yes, the campus is largely empty -- few students around, none of the normal hustle and bustle, and we couldn't sit in on classes -- but we did get the tour, meet with the admissions people, meet with the theatre people, talked to a few of the theatre students who were there for the summer, and generally get a feel for the place. Because its the summer, we just had to plan ahead to make sure that some theatre faculty would on campus that week. The good news was that the director of one theatre program came in the day of our visit just so that we could meet with him.</p>

9

<p>Skipsmom: I PM'd you with some thoughts regarding your son's Senior Thesis Project. I hope you find them to be helpful ...</p>

10

<p>I would go to the Unifieds, then visit schools that accept your child!</p>

11

<p>My D also had/has a time intensive senior project/thesis this year and though she wanted to stage a show we convinced her to make it about casting/auditioning. She was able to intern for a CD for film and another for theatre. Every time she went to a coach for voice or monologues it counted toward her hours. Every audition counted too as she wrote a one-page report of each one. Her final presentation will be to showcase her monologues and songs that she used for all the auditions. Since she is doing WAY more than her peers it seemed only fair that all this extra work would count toward her senior project. There is no way she could have added anything extra.</p>