How to research "safety" schools?

<p>The idea of not trying for talent scholarships or merit awards in order to let other kids get the money is not something I have run into much before. For most families I know, even if they do not qualify for need based financial aid, it is a challenge to come up with $200,000 for each one of their kids’ college educations. They still seek and relish merit scholarships. I suppose if someone is very wealthy, this may not matter but for most everyone else they welcome any scholarship help their kids can earn.</p>

<p>amtc, in the first instance, your response to the “particular question” concerning “safety” was incorrect by your own standards. It was in fact a “blanket statement” which in reality is not accurate nor applicable to all students. As soozie points out, whether a school is a “safety” turns on the particular academic credentials of the applicant. I won’t belabor that point; soozie made it well in posts 54 and 60.</p>

<p>Moreover, Muhlenberg is not simply a metrics driven school. They give significant weight to many other factors to determine more holistically if a student is a good match. In addition, they give significant weight to the interest a student shows in the school. My daughter visited Muhlenberg 3 times, once to visit and tour, once to audition and once for an interview. At the time of her audition, she was strongly advised to schedule an interview and it was made quite clear that the admissions office takes the interview seriously. It was also clear from her interview that the admissions office was aware of her prior audition. While the audition is not mandatory and a student is not penalized for not auditioning, there is little question that a very favorable audition experience can assist in the admission process, not simply because of the “talent” but because the audition is yet another opportunity for the school to get a feel for how you would fit into the community. Anyone who is interested in theater at Muhlenberg should both interview and audition.</p>

<p>As to “taking money away from those who need it”, I suspect that Muhlenberg offers talent money as an enticement to more than the exact number of students it expects to matriculate and is pretty good at predicting yield. A person auditioning is not necessarily going to preclude the offer of talent money to another. I would be far more concerned about demonstrating a high enough level of talent to be offered the money than whether I am going to be knocked out of the running because the person before me hit the numerical ceiling on talent money. If a student who is accepted decides they don’t need the money, the student can always decline it when the admissions packet arrives.</p>

<p>I also agree that even if you don’t need talent money, as an applicant, one should take advantage of every opportunity to demonstrate who they are to admissions. If an interview is offered or encouraged, one should do it. If an audition is optional, one should do it. These are all opportunities to showcase oneself beyond your stats and beyond your written submissions. Admissions is holistic. Why not take advantage of showing every side of yourself, plus demonstrating interest in the school? Small liberal arts schools care about your level of interest in attending. They also look beyond “stats” and in fact, Muhlenberg is test optional! I would encourage any kid to take advantage of every interview and audition or any other similar things a school offers. This year, Tufts allowed applicants to submit a video (of anything about themselves…wide open) and give the adcoms a link to the video online. It was yet another way for a student to demonstrate who they are. Many of those vids are on YouTube and some are quite interesting and show the student in another light beyond the paper application. I am an alum interviewer and can say that one main purpose of the interview is to get to know the student on a personal level beyond their “credentials.” I also seek out the level of the student’s interest in the college. So, Muhlenberg’s interview with admissions and its audition day with the theater director are such opportunities. I would never pass those up.</p>

<p>Do you recommend auditioning at Unifieds or visiting Ball State directly? My daughter, N will be starting this process next year. Thanks for any advice you can give. I have been checking the past threads to understand this whole process.</p>

<p>Lulu…welcome to College Confidential. This thread is about safety schools. </p>

<p>You may wish to visit the forum on Ball State Musical Theater which is located on a list of forums at the top of this Musical Theater forum. (I realize you mention “acting” but this is the only forum dedicated to Ball State’s BFA programs)
Here is a direct link to help you find it:</p>

<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/ball-state-university-mt/[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/ball-state-university-mt/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>However, for any college, the odds of admission are the same whether you audition on campus or at Unifieds. There are pros and cons of each choice but the admissions chances don’t differ. If your daughter has never seen Ball State, auditioning on campus would give her a chance to visit the school first hand. Unifieds is a chance to audition for several schools in one weekend.</p>

<p>Thanks for all the feed back on Ball State. Just wanted to get some feedback on the program. Academically it isn’t suited for my daughter but I thought by having her audition at some schools with lower academic criteria it might be a “safety school”. I realize there is no such thing as a true safety but also felt since they were at Unifieds it might be a no brainer. Just a little overwhelming to figure out where exactly to have her apply next year. Can anyone give me insight as to what a good number of schools to audition to is? It seems our list is quite large. Many of the schools are at Unifieds which helps but I don’t want to stress N out with everything else that goes on Senior year. Thanks.</p>

<p>Just apply to Yale and be done with it.</p>

<p>Lulu63- I don’t really understand checkbooks comments, but I can give you a little of our story. The majority of the schools my D applied to fell well within her academic range, with her most academically competitive being a non-audition school. She also had a more academically competitive school that had a weak arts programs so it was sort of her artistic safety. Basically her its consisted of school schools she was well with in the academic range for (typically upper end of 50%) but none would be considered academically exclusive. We (DH and I) felt it was most important that she woudl be a strong academic student and able to get academic scholarships to the schools she applied. Maybe we under sold her but that is what safe felt to us.
BTW - D was accepted every where she applied academically and artistically. In almost all instances the great majority of her scholarships were academic, not artistic. She was able to select from 4 schools that she loved and provided enough scholarship money to make it affordable. I think that safety, like much else, is relative.</p>

<p>Thanks Keepingcalm, I appreciate the feedback and I will just ignore that other remark. I want to make sure N is challenged academically but not have all of N’s schools be reaches. I am seeing how competitive it is to get in to these programs and do not want to be naive in thinking she will have plenty to choose from. We are just starting the process so it can be all consuming. Thanks again.</p>

<p>Lulu63, if you put together a well diversified list of schools, there is no reason to have more than 6-8 audition based programs and 2-4 non-audition BA programs. 6-8 well selected audition based programs should be enough to provide a reasonable opportunity for an acceptance and 2-4 non-audition programs should be enough to have at least 1 true academic safety and a match. Keep in mind that no audition based school should be considered a safety regardless of the level of the academic criteria.</p>