<p>S will be attending #34 on Emsdad’s list and is thrilled to pieces. He decided to decline to audition at #3 after acceptances to #26, 29, & 34 - feeling that any of the three would be a much better fit for HIM. Really makes you wonder about all the ones that were never considered in the first place. Future classes - cast your nets wide and assume nothing is absolute. There are many paths to “Broadway”, and many paths that seem to lead to Broadway that veer to something else equally as worthwhile. Enjoy the ride - and get some sleep. </p>
<p>I believe some have more applicants because they go to Unifieds so more accessible to audition for… A few towards the bottom because they only do auditions on campus and they are not as accessible via auto.</p>
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<p>This is an interesting point. I think the lines between MT and pop music are blurring more and more these days. On a personal level, my daughter’s young career straddles musical theater and contemporary pop music. While she does perform in musicals and even writes/composes musicals for theaters, she is very involved in another part of her career as a singer/songwriter (not MT genre). The style of her original music for musicals is not that different than her regular original songs though. Also, several of the professional theater shows she has been in since graduating college do not have a traditional MT sound and some of the artists involved in these theater productions are not from a MT background per se! In one show she performed in NYC and abroad, the star of the show was a Grammy award winning artist, even though many of the young people cast in the show had theater backgrounds. My daughter was the standby for the star, but she happens to sing pop music and is able to cross over into that. My daughter is currently in a theater show 8 times a week and she sings the songs of a well known artist who is NOT a MT songwriter at all. Come to think of it, he is a Grammy winning artist. (yes, my D sings songs written and originally performed by a guy) And the next show she is cast in for fall, in which she will perform all the music in the show, has asked her to also write all original songs for this theater show. All I can say is that both her performance work in theater and in the concert world are blurred in terms of the music, and same with her songwriting and composing for musicals. It really is not the traditional stuff musically. She is not unique this way. I really think this cross over between musical theater and contemporary/pop music is stronger than ever. Recently a record company and a music publisher created a joint venture to nurture theatrical songwriters, including crossing over into the popular music genre. They signed my daughter as the first artist in this new music publishing venture (as she is involved in both theater and popular music…performing it and writing/composing it). So, that is an example of the industry trying to bridge these genres a bit. These music publishers are trying to get the theatrical songwriters/performers to be able to cross into a much broader audience with their music. </p>
<p>For those of you with kids just starting out, if they can increase their skill set beyond traditional musical theater and include pop music, even more opportunities could come their way. More musicals are using this sound. Morever, if you are skilled in pop music, it broadens your career opportunities to not have to rely only on being cast in musicals. There are a wide array of venues to perform in if you can crossover into contemporary music as well as theater performance. </p>
<p>Are we not an unbelievably biased population that truly thinks (because that’s how we see it) that much beloved Broadway performers that crossover to TV are drawing huge audiences? Crickets. Aren’t those of us that are also paying for the Broadway tickets the one setting our DVRs to enthusiastically watch those shows?</p>
<p>Meanwhile we get TV stars who were former movie stars crossing over to Broadway because they are being displaced by the Real Housewives of… whatever. Let’s just pray that the future that our kids are training for doesn’t include losing out on major theatre roles to Teresa Guidice, Kim Zolciak or LuAnn Delesseps etc. </p>
<p>Years ago I saw Marla Maples (anybody else remember her?) as “Ziegfeld’s favorite” in Will Rogers Follies. It was a performance never to be forgotten…</p>
<p>@halfokum I have to be encouraged by the seeming increase of MT type programming in today’s entertainment. New projects keep coming… Into the Woods film, Jersey Boys film, Wicked film, Pitch Perfect / PP2, Last 5 Years (OK, cast of 2, but still…), ABC’s Galavant, musical episodes of every series on TV, etc, etc. Hopefully the MT influx into the mainstream can keep pace with the Kardashians, Housewives, et al. Cable TV needs a Broadway channel… they have everything else covered… Who’s with me??? We could keep out kids employed for years!!!</p>
<p>^^^ Great idea!</p>
<p>And…Grease, Music Man, and Peter Pan are going to be TV musicals.</p>
<p>Also, it is not just a matter of PEOPLE crossing over between Broadway/musicals and TV, pop music, movies, etc. But the style of music in musical theater currently, includes a lot of crossover in style…pop and contemporary music influenced.</p>
<p>The whole Glee Factor thing was so apparent in my area a couple years ago when there was this huge excess of (really talented) people, but it has calmed down a lot this year and seems like it will continue to do so. Two years ago, there were at least six kids (that I knew!) from my area planning to do the whole BFA college audition thing. This coming year it’s more like one (me) or maybe two. I guess that’s just a fluke though…I keep hearing that the numbers are still rising nationally. Has anyone else noticed this in their local sphere? Do you think it will eventually plateau or start to decrease or what? I imagine the perfect time to be auditioning would be if/when the numbers start to go down…excellent programs that developed when demand increased still around, but fewer people competing for spots in them. Part of me wants to wait and see if that happens but obviously it might never. I could be an old woman by the time it does!</p>
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Too funny! 
(and possibly correct in “stage years” which can be like dog years.) </p>
<p>Had to do a quick edit to get that laughing smiley guy out of there that I accidentally created with the extra “)” in the basic smiley I thought I just typed. Laughing guy is sort of creepy.</p>
<p>The crossover between theatre and tv/film is really not a new thing. It’s possible that some may recognize it more these days but it’s been happening for a long, long time. My family has had connections to the theatre world since the days of my grandparents and it was thus even then. </p>
<p>I just looked for some data (engineer alert) and it looks like a lot more kids go to college now, so it makes sense in general that more kids are also studying MT.</p>
<p>“Enrollment in degree-granting institutions increased by 11 percent between 1991 and 2001. Between 2001 and 2011, enrollment increased 32 percent, from 15.9 million to 21.0 million. Much of the growth between 2001 and 2011 was in full-time enrollment; the number of full-time students rose 38 percent,… snip… Enrollment increases can be affected both by population growth and by rising rates of enrollment.”</p>
<p>I think the resurgence of great Disney movie musicals set the stage (if you will) for the Glee factor, at least among many families I know.</p>
<p>It also seems like (at least at D’s school) many more foreign students are coming to the US to study theatre than there were when I was an acting student 100 years ago, which adds to overall demand.</p>
<p>So, in short, I do think there are more kids pursuing MT slots now than in the past, and I also have the impression that the overall talent/training level of applicants is much higher now, though my view may be biased by where D grew up and has studied and worked since. I think there has always been a large (if not huge) pool of “truly talented” who opt not to pursue MT in college, so there’s not really a finite amount of talent to draw from (though I’d love to be wrong about this 
).</p>
<p>It would be fun to hear how various seasoned department chairs in college MT programs would answer the questions in the OP!</p>
<p>I’d think MT department chairs might find it awfully hard to downplay how tough things were for them when they themselves were coming up through the ranks vs. today. Probably for good reason.</p>
<p>Actually, things were a lot easier when I was in school. We didn’t know you needed to audition, and the few programs that were “audition only” it really wasn’t that big of a deal. I’m sure that wasn’t true of every school, but it was true of most. There were no national auditions, no BFA audition coaches, no pre-screens. You found a school, found some good faculty, and worked hard. There are likely the same amount per-capita of students going to school for theatre/musical theatre. But they are by far more prepared. Which is a good thing. </p>
<p>Things were definitely different- but I am not sure about easier. I think our kids are far more prepared for the rigor of a challenging bfa program BECAUSE of the preparation that is more common these days. I was at CCM in the late 80s- and freshman year was a bloodbath, b/c kids had little concept of the work involved (maybe they hadn’t watched the “fame costs” speech enough times @halflokum… I have nearly finished my binge watching of the dvds you sent- GREAT memories</p>
<p>I love this forum and am learning so much! I have a question: it’s been said that you have to balance the list with schools that are more and less competitive academically and also artistically. My question is: how do you know which schools are “more” and “less” competitive artistically? Academically, sure: you can see the average grades and test scores of the admitted freshmen. But how do you know, for example, that Point Park and Rider are “easier” to get into artistically (as a previous poster said)? Where does that info come from?</p>
<p>I’m a numbers girl and I know I will get a lot of disagreement, but I believe those schools that only take 6 kids are much harder to get into than ones that take 100. JMHO When I started this journey I saw that some schools only accepted 5 or 6 girls out of thousands and other programs took a significant number more. My guess that it would be harder to snag a spot at Otterbein than NYU or BU (if your grades are there). But I know I will get an argument here. </p>
<p>I think it is also about ratios… How many actually audition vs how many they take. Obviously, the NYU’s and UofMich’s of the world will have vastly more people apply than, say, Wright State or Western Michigan. So, even for programs of roughly the same size, the odds can vary drastically.</p>
<p>I agree- you have to look at the number of people who audition (which may or may not be reliably available) vs the number of people who are accepted. If I am correct (and may not be) NYU, and CMU see the highest numbers of kids. And of course, while a number of kids are accepted at Tisch - MT represents only 1 studio, so honestly, I don’t think odds in ANY particular studio are better than they would be for any other BFA program. - NYU is just a school with 6 BFA theater programs (7 if you count playwrights horizons -and I am only counting studios that accept freshman) instead of one. </p>
<p>Agree that it is not about the number accepted. It is about the percentage accepted. The size of the program doesn’t indicate competitiveness. If a big program accepts 4% and a small program accepts 4%, that is the same in terms of odds of admissions. </p>
<p>However, there are other factors that play a part in how selective a program can be. Reputation can play a part. The competitiveness of the applicant pool OVERALL to a school (top candidates will apply to an array of schools but the concentration of top applicants to certain schools may be stronger than to less competitive programs). There are also all the factors you can’t control as to the needs of the program and your type, etc. But I do think there is some general idea of which schools tend to be more competitive to get into than others artistically speaking, but it is very rough and often you will find kids who are accepted at what is considered a “top” program and rejected at what many consider to be not as competitive and so it is not clear cut of course. </p>
<p>As one example, when my D was applying to BFA in MT programs, she had many friends from around the country who were also applying. These friends were overall, super talented and indeed got admitted to many programs, including ones that most consider top programs. These particular kids, for example, were not in the applicant pool to Millikin, SUNY Buffalo, Illinois Wesleyan, Wright State, Wagner, Shenandoah, Marymount Manhattan, or Roosevelt. Those are all very good programs and I have recommended them to others. And there are top talented kids in every program. But there are some top talented kids who are not even in the applicant pool to some MT programs and the applicant pool to those programs may not be as saturated with the kids who end up at the most renown programs. This is no different than saying that the applicant pool OVERALL to Harvard is not quite the same as the applicant pool to University of Vermont, Fairleigh Dickinson, Hofstra, etc.</p>