It's pretty darn close to the 11th hour

College Majors Theater/Drama Majors
1

Is anyone else’s child teetering here at the 11th hour? My D got into her first choice, the school she’s wanted to go to since early in her junior year. She’s 90% sure, but she’s clutching to a few other schools. Her top choice checks all the boxes and she loves it, but it’s also the school that offers the least hands-on experience. The other schools all offer something that she’s having trouble giving up. One has a professor that she hit it off with and does the kind of theater she’s most interested in. Another would offer her the chance to direct and codirect an unmatched number of shows, work with about 15 to 20 guest directors over the course of 4 years, and is $10,000 cheaper. The final one she’s still considering is a purely romantic option. It’s a small LAC with a great theater program and is a breeding ground for creativity. She applied on a lark at the last minute and had no expectation of getting in. There’s no question that it’s appealing to the intellectual in her. The decision would be so much easier if she was comparing apples to apples. But, she’s comparing an apple to an orange, a strawberry, and a banana.

Unfortunately, she’s stage managing her school musical and has no time to think, talk it out, or talk with the different programs. I’m not much help because I can make compelling arguments for all but one.

Anyone else in the same boat?

2

We were in the same boat last year. My D did not get off her top two schools’ waitlists until April 29/30. We sat her down at a table and made a HUGE pro/con list. I wrote as she, my S (an MT) and my husband through out things for her to think about. The schools were very even on many fronts but for her, the choice became very clear.

3

We did the checklist 2 weeks ago, and it was pretty clear, though not a slam-dunk.

4

Make sure that your D is not romanticizing her ‘top choice’ Sometimes when a school has been the dream for a long time, it is hard to let go and see potential other choices as perhaps the ‘real top choice’.

5

Take the one with all the opportunities! You are there to grow and learn! And it’s cheaper!!!

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@bisouu, if it were me I might take the gamble and go with opportunity over training. I think it’s her willingness to see the potential in other choices that is causing the problem. @wisteria100, she’s definitely not romanticizing her top choice. In reality, it’s the more practical one (as far as theater schools go). But, she is definitely romanticizing the LAC.

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@pinkbulldog is it $10,000 overall or $10,000 a year. A $40,000 savings is amazing!

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@bisouu, $40,000. Enough to make me nauseous. It begs the question, though, how much is location, reputation of the program and faculty, network, facilities, and peer talent worth?

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@pinkbulldog - you ask how much those things are “worth,” and I assume you mean how much they will help your D in her theater career goals. I think that is impossible for any of us to measure.

My D was also struggling and on Sunday she chose her own romantic, more academically challenging (in her opinion!) LAC choice.

That was after we spoke with my H’s cousin and his wife, who met and fell in love while working at an Upstate NY summer theater festival. The wife earned a BFA at a southern school and the cousin studied playwriting at a Boston university known for theater (but NOT for a BFA). They are now both working to earn a pretty good living to support their home and two teenaged kids and are NOT involved in acting at all.

The wife is multi-talented - she can sing & act, she runs half marathons, she says she stinks, but I think she can draw like a pro (especially her cartoonish drawings OMG!) and she is a very high level executive at a cable tv station in NYC. I met her at her office one day and she gave me a tour - what an incredibly FUN place to work! But, I digress.

The cousin is also very, very talented. He is hilarious and imo has a wonderful sense of comedic timing that always catches me by surprise. He has a job working with a cable co. writing for shows that he does not love much at all. He openly says he does this to help pay the bills and he’s good at it, but he is not terribly proud of it and never asks family to watch those shows. In his spare time he writes songs and plays and is always trying to get someone to produce one of his - VERY FUNNY - plays, and so his “dream” is done on the side. (We are always invited to attend his readings and performances.)

They both strongly agreed that training at the undergrad. level doesn’t really matter for MOST people who want a career in acting. They said no one looks at an actor’s resume and makes a decision based on where they went to school or whether or not they earned a BFA. The ONLY time they say it MIGHT make a diff is if the person doing the interview went to the same school and it would then onlyl be a small part of a conversation. They also said any actor will continue to receive training the rest of their career, so anything missed at the undergrad level would easily be made up later. They agreed, it would not be “the same” sort of ensemble relationship that kids who go through a small, exclusive BFA program get to experience, but they said that excellent training is always available.

They also said there are two career paths for “actors.” Those who just want to be on a stage and maybe want to become a part of an ensemble at a regional theater and those who are trying to “make it” either on stage or film. BOTH are hampered by the need to make money. They both knew people who boggled their minds, since they were always able to go to every audition, no matter what. They didn’t have to worry about keeping a day-job. They were jealous of that apparent financial freedom for their friends, however even those friends did not “make it” as working actors. Money is a HUGE part of the acting career and frankly any career in theater/film.

Cousin & wife encouraged my D to think about the expereince she would most enjoy over the next four years, because whichever school she attended, that was the one time she will get to have 4 relatively care-free years like that. The future of an actor is filled with balancing practicality (earning a basic living) with auditioning (and if lucky, working now and then at what they love!) They both have good friends people who are currently famous and who we all have seen starring in very-long-running, hot tv shows who STILL don’t get called back after some auditions. They have “made it” and yet can’t always get the work they want/crave/need.

So - as we all know, it’s a pretty tough career path and every kid will hopefully make the best choice for them. We’ve all heard it many times, right - there are many different paths to this acting career. My best advice for my daughter is to make sure she enjoys moving along that path, always keeping her goal in mind and in her sights, but allowing for enjoyable deviations that are tempting her along the way so she has a life well-lived regardless of where she ends up. My hope is that when she is my age, she looks back with fondness and few regrets - I’m guessing that is what we all hope for!

10

@LuvsLabs, thank you for your thoughtful response. Though my D is pursuing a directing concentration, rather than acting, it is indeed a tough road ahead. But I’m not sure that couldn’t be said for most college students today, regardless of major. Two nights ago, I sat with my son in the living room of a neighbor who is a successful attorney. He mentioned my D’s plans to go to theatre school and then derisively commented that his niece, “a brilliant girl,” was a theatre major. He then questioned the wisdom of a smart kid pursuing a theatre degree. “What will she do with a theatre degree if the acting doesn’t pan out?” Meanwhile, I’m sitting beside my graduating-from-a-great-school-Phi-Beta-Kappa-history-major son, who has no idea what he’s going to do after graduation. Were it not for all of the political networking he’s done outside of school, he would be completely unqualified for anything other than law school. (I exaggerate, but I’m sure you get my point.) On the other hand, I can make a compelling argument for why my D will be qualified for lots of jobs the day she walks out of college. She will have communication, presentation, organizational, project management, and personnel skills (to name a few) that will take the standard college grad several years to develop. My D could try to force herself into computer science, which seems to be the major that most consider practical and acceptable, but it would be inauthentic and most likely lead to misery and, ultimately, failure.

Life is hard enough. If you can do what you are passionate about, your chances of success, not to mention happiness, increase exponentially. My H is a journalism professor. At the beginning of every semester, he tells his students, “Find a way to get paid for doing what you would do anyway.” My H found a way to get paid for reading the newspaper. My D, somehow, some way, will be paid for making theatre. My work as a lawyer was what I did; my H’s work is who he is. Theatre is who my D is. I suspect every one of you can say the same about your child.

My question about worth is ultimately rhetorical. You really can’t quantify it in this instance. In the end, I think it comes down to a gut check. Yesterday, @bisouu pm’d me and we had a really helpful exchange. By the end of it, the answer was pretty clear to me what D’s choice should be. It allowed me to ask her the one question that put her indecision to rest: Despite all of the possibilities these other programs offer, how would you really feel if you let your top choice go? That cleared the fog of doubt and this morning, before school, I queued up the admissions portal, let her press “ACCEPT”, saw her off to school, then paid her deposit to DePaul.

@bisouu, thanks for your ear and advice. It really helped me help my D. Sometimes, what seems so obvious to others gets jumbled in our own minds. Despite all of the possibilities/opportunities that the other schools presented, DePaul is, in every important way, the right fit for my D. Financially, it will be difficult, but as my father-in-law always said, “It’s only money.”

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I am so glad I was able to be of some help :slight_smile: Helping your daughter make this very critical decision is not easy. I’m so happy she has made her choice. Let the fun begin! :slight_smile:

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Thanks so much, @bisouu. I went to Northwestern and spent 11 years practicing law in Chicago. We left 22 years ago, and I have missed it every day since. I’m not going to lie, I’m pretty happy that I’ll be spending more time in the Windy City.

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@pinkbulldog I really enjoyed reading your post. I agree completely. We have told our S for years that being successful at something can look completely different on different people. I think this holds true for the schools as well. My S narrowed his acceptances down to three schools that would offer their own unique advantage. One of them was a Directing program with great money at a great school that he fell in love with everything about it…except the fact that after a year into it the performing would stop. As much as he loved this program, he had to be honest that giving up performing would ultimately be a problem. The other school was more of a creative play ground for both performing/directing and we loved the faculty, but the program is young and still figuring itself out. Ultimately, he chose the program with the most rigourous curriculum because it fit his long term goals of where he would like to see himself being “successful” in this field. He would have been happy at any of these schools so there wasn’t a wrong choice just the right one for him. I’m so proud of all these kids!

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@Ouiser, lately, I’ve been listening to Little River Band a lot to remind myself that, indeed, there are so many paths up the mountain.

I’m curious about your S’s path. Did he go through the audition and interview process? I’m thinking about starting a thread for non-acting theatre students to do a post-mortem in the hopes that it would be valuable enough to future families to be pinned. It was so difficult to find out information about theatre programs with strong directing components.

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@pinkbulldog He did go through both the MT audition process and Directing process @ multiple schools. I agree a thread for the non-performance majors (specifically directing) would have been VERY helpful. Most of the directing programs that we found are very specialized and do not allow time for performance opportunities, but maybe there are some out there. What we did come across more are programs that allow/encourage student performers to direct/design.