I thought I would make a “big list” tips from the Class of 2020 (or anyone who had gone through the process before) to the Class of 2021.
Ask all kinds of theatre people (teachers, other auditioners, college kids, the internet) for suggestions to pick the schools you audition for.
Make up a big list and apply to them ASAP! Write all the 2million essays EARLY.
Print out the prescreen info for every school that needs them and keep all those papers together. And record those early!
Try to get around to scheduling auditions as early as possible so your auditions can be as convenient as possible.
Print out what each school requires for an audition and keep those papers together.
Write down all the account login info for each school's portal!
7 .Everything in college auditions is extremely subjective. Your acceptance/waitlist/rejection could be because of anything. It's too early for the adjudicators, they hate your outfit/hair, you remind them of a bad student, etc. This process isn't always about who is the most talented, but what that college prefers in their program. That could change year to year. Chin up, prepare early, and don't take it personally. It's usually not ever personal.
Of course, Please Copy/Paste and keep adding! Feel Free to reorganize them by topics… etc.
If you are a middle to good test taker, take the SATs or ACTs a few times if you can afford it. The best financial aid comes from hitting a certain number (often published on their website),
Don't feel like you have to have a top choice - even though everyone will ask you a thousand times what your top choice is. Your opinions on this matter may change during the three phases (application period, audition phase, acceptance phase). That's normal.
If you can afford it, use a coach.
Don't spend your money visiting schools until after you audition. Everything you need to answer "why our school?" Is on their website or available with research.
When deciding which schools to put on your list, look at the curriculum of the schools - the four year course requirements are almost always on their site or available by asking.
Don't get too caught up in the names of schools. Most people do at some point but pull yourself out of that when it happens and stick with what is right for you.
Have fun. The memories you make as a family traveling for auditions are something you will treasure.
Discuss ahead of time your family rules about having access to email accounts (set up one specific to this process), opening letters, how to handle not so great auditions, etc,
Make a family ritual to celebrate each and every audition. Whether it is an ice cream run or whatever it is in your family that you do to celebrate, do it! Some auditions are five minutes and then nothing in terms of feedback, others are incredible. Either way, closing the chapter on each audition is important.
To parents - let your kids change their minds a lot in this process. They will, it is developmentally appropriate, and it works out. Listen more than you talk and trust they will work through it and come back to center.
Keep a notebook/binder/spreadsheet with tabs for each college so you can track and document everything. Have separate pages for academic/audition info. with a spot to record passwords at the top.
As said above-do everything early! Know all deadlines and finish materials well before.The number of auditionees increases each year so spots fill up quickly-and you can't get that chance back once missed. We were lucky.
(Just our opinion) but audition at Unifieds if you can to consolidate time & travel. Was not sure if this was a disadvantage when we began, but I can confirm IT IS NOT! Our D got into the program she wanted at NY Unifieds after making it there by a thread before the blizzard-but that is another story. Haha! We foolishly changed plans and traveled to another school that was a top choice and changed her audition to an on-campus one there. It did no good, and she had a great experience and connection at the Unified audition, but not at the other school's on campus audition. Very wasted time and money. Lesson: You will make a connection with the faculty you belong with no matter where you are-it will just all come together if it is the right fit.
Your list does not have to be huge-just suited to you. Research programs now and the process will be so much easier. Make a list of what you want but be FLEXIBLE! Kids of similar background we knew had over 2x as many schools and received less offers. They did not know much-or anything at all in some cases- about some of the programs. My thoughts: They ended up not liking several schools and realizing they were not a great fit only after doing all the apps & paying the fees. Crazy! This process is so expensive and time consuming anyway, so why make it worse for no reason?
Use all the travel as teachable moments. My D learned so much about hotel, flight, & rental car booking and all cost related things. Also what happens & what to do when flights are cancelled and you must get there on time. Being early always.And how to start hoofing it until a taxi comes along when the subway passes you without stopping. Yes-that happened too! Haha! I am confident she can handle any situation now!
Enjoy your time together and share stories from their childhood. It will keep them distracted and reduce stress, and you will have some nice moments and great memories.
Best of luck to everyone. SO glad to be on this side of the journey! It was a long roller coaster ride but well worth it!
@mtmomofone I loved your additions and I could not agree more about saving money by doing unifieds! You are absolutely correct - the magic and connection will be there when it is right. And for my son the connection came after he was accepted and visited. And I love your thinking about teaching the life lessons along the way. So true!
Another parent here who would only do Unifieds and send in tapes. We did both Unis and on campus and it was too exhausting with all the trips without enough benefit. Agree try doing everything early if possible, hire a National coach to help with school list and audition pieces, would be great to have an early yes but not sure how you do that if only doing Unifieds.
There is a somewhat significant risk in concentrating the majority of auditions at one Unifieds session: illness. A bad cold, sore throat, flu, etc. can wreak havoc with the hopes of a candidate that does all or most of their auditions at one Unifieds session. And this risk is largely outside your control and just about impossible to mitigate if you concentrate a large majority of your auditions at Unifieds.
One approach that minimizes travel cost would be to do some on-campus auditions that you can drive to (if possible), including maybe a couple in the fall that might result in early acceptances, and then do the rest at Unifieds. My D split hers about 50-50 between Unifieds and on-campus, with two on-campus in the fall (both resulted in early acceptances, which provided a nice “mental cushion” for the rigors and tension of the January-March period). Another approach would be to attend two Unifieds sessions.
@EmsDad
Agree about the risk and agree that with three Unifieds you could plan on attending two and probably reschedule hopefully any you had to miss? Two would mean you could plan on fewer at each visit and maybe throw some walk ins? The on campus Fall visits are a good idea. We just ended up with all our schools a long way from our home so the travel was very expensive and we were not able to schedule anything before January, but this is were an early start would help plus an experienced coach might help. We also ran into the issue that my child fell in love with a couple of schools during on campus auditions and of course those were no’s:) In our case she is one of those for whom waiting to spend time. energy and money on visits after acceptances would have been much better. We were a long ways from any school and not within driving distance. We actually only did 8 auditions and found it crazy. We did 4 on campus and 4 at Unifieds. Still had the issue of only being accepted from the Unified auditions so still needing to visit:)
Thank you, all. This is a GREAT thread, and as a (pretty clueless) 2021 mom, I am so grateful that you all are willing to offer advice to the next class.
I urge most people to apply to a very diverse list of schools, as what a 17-year-old thinks they want from college can change radically in the 10 months between August and May. I know more than one kid (one was my own) who switched from a focus on small MT BFAs to preferring larger academically-selective BAs between the time applications were submitted and the beginning of audition season, so it’s nice to keep options open.
My tip is specific to Unifieds…(although my daughter used this for on campus auditions as well)
After researching so many schools for so long, details can get mixed up or forgotten so my daughter typed up 3-5 very specific things she liked about each school’s program. This could be the NAME of their 24 hour play festival, or the NAME of their student directed one act series, the fact that in October they have a departmental bonding camping trip…the point is something VERY SPECIFIC to that school and/or program.
She also included the audition requirements as well as the name of the pieces she was doing for that school.
She then printed these out, cut them down and glued them to a note card. Each morning she would put the note cards for the days auditions in her bag and head out. Before each school’s audition she would look over the card as a refresher as to what they had to offer that she liked, why she picked them, as well as quick reminder as to what pieces she was performing when she entered the room.
After the audition she would make a note on the back of the card if there was anything that struck her as note worthy.
She read these before each audition, and I cannot tell you how many times she came out of a room with a "They were really impressed that I knew the name of X! " or a "Wow, you’ve really done your research on us! " I think that is shows that you are really interested and gives them something specific to talk about regarding their program, which in turn lets you (as the student) hear them get excited talking about what they have to offer you! They then become real people and not just strangers in a room “judging you”. I can imagine that they also hate hearing themselves repeat the same things over and over through out 3+ days, trying to sell themselves.
Also, remember that just as much as YOU are auditioning for them, THEY are auditioning for YOU as well! Have questions to ask…they will ask!!
My D did something similar to @Mandy6045 's D, except she printed out a fact sheet that she created for each school (including details such as Mandy mentioned), and she put each day’s audition school’s sheet in her notebook for the day. If she had had to write a “why us” essay (or any other applicable one) for the app, she included that, as well, and she went over all of this the night before the audition. It was extremely helpful in keeping the schools fresh in her mind; otherwise, they would have been muddled together. She even did this for walk-ins, in which case, if she hadn’t already researched the school previous to Unifieds, she would research it with whatever time she had before the walk-in audition. Again, it was greatly helpful, and she thought many adjudicators seemed appreciative and impressed with it if it came up at all. She was also able to ask good questions because of it, and, again, people seemed to like that. Who knows if it had anything to do with acceptances (probably not, honestly), but it helped my D feel prepared and confident, which is obviously helpful.
As far as Unifieds vs. on campus, we attended NY and Chicago Unifieds (with my D loving both but preferring Chicago’s) and on-campus auditions starting in November. It was nice to spread them out. (And, a fortunate early acceptance took the load off a little.) D liked them all and actually got energized from it all, but, after the let-down of Unifieds ending and just having a couple days to catch her breath, she realized she was tired and satisfied with what she had done up to that point, so she cancelled her Western Michigan audition that she was supposed to have the week or two after Unifieds. Funnily enough, she actually wanted to do another audition a couple weeks after that audition would have been because she liked auditioning for programs, but ce la vie!
@myloves brings up a great point. If you can avoid it, if you are auditioning for lots of schools and doing lots of traveling, don’t leave your most important audition for the very end of your audition season. D was tired and sort of burned out by the whole process by the end of February. I do think there was a let down. And a desire to enjoy the quickly ending senior year.
While you can absolutely never predict “best” audition dates (otherwise everyone would be at that one) I subscribe to the general idea of not doing your top school 1st or last if you can help it. I like the idea of “warm up” auditions with places lower on the list to get a feel- though there are PLENTY of stories of kids falling in love with that 1st program, esp if you get an early admit and some love from the school. That happened to,a classmate of D’s - they had done an early audition b/c it would give quick feedback (they would notify within a couple weeks) and that early acceptance became their eventual choice. Same person saved their “dream” school for the last audition in the season b/c they hoped to be “fresh” in the committee’s mind when it came to,decisions. Which is a valid thought, but it didn’t work. Who knows if the kids was burned out, the college had already found 3 people just like them, or if it just wasn’t meant to be- but I know it was a tough blow when the rejection came a few weeks later
I agree with all above - especially not to feel you must visit all schools before applying. My D had visited a few over the years, but we said that we would wait to see where she was accepted and then visit top choices at that time. Once accepted, we started with a visit to her top choice knowing that if she didnt like it we would visit others. She loved it and that was it. Traveling to auditons costs a lot so that was a priority over visits. We live out west and travel to the east is costly. If we lived closer and could drive, it may have been a different story. Many schools have info sessions at Unifieds or talk to kids during auditions and they get a great feel for the program and staff there.
Additionally, many schools have callbacks on campus or accepted student weekends in the spring which allows for visits and staying in dorms, sitting in on classes, etc.
I would also caution kids to try NOT to have a top choice as hard as that is. It really plays with the mind if not accepted there or feeling down about an audition. And top choices can change - my D is living proof. Hers changed during Unifieds after realizing a program she almost didnt apply to had exactly what she was looking for.
And while I know illness was a risk, my D only did NYC Unifieds. We took lots of meds with us and still had to buy more while there. For us, one Unifieds was best in terms of costs, time, etc. she did a couple on campus auditions while in NYC. We organized and plotted out which school we wanted when and it actually all worked out. But to do that you must apply by early November at the latest. I would suggest sept or October to get your choice of audition time.
Be organized in your planning. I saw several kids take a slightly more relaxed approach and didnt get to audition for several schools applied to.
@Sammy8028 - Having a good philosophy and attitude toward the entire process really helped. My D and I really focused on the “everything happens for a reason” philosophy and she would end up where she was meant to be. The travel was very hard so we rested at the hotel a lot, instead of overloading on activities at each school. She did a good job of focusing on schools that were a good fit, instead of what everyone else thought were the best schools. She had a very clear picture of what she wanted - a BFA MT program that had strong acting classes and lots of opportunity for dance. She found schools that fit her to put on her list. My D also didn’t pick her "top"choices, she put 14 schools on her list she would have been very happy to attend. She had a back up plan throughout the whole process that she would see as an opportunity instead of a failure. I told my daughter (and myself) that a “no” from a school just meant she wouldn’t be happy there. It worked, we only had one “stress” fight throughout the very long process. Lastly and most importantly FIND A BUDDY! I was lucky to have a great friend who was going through the audition season too so we leaned on each other for the highs and lows. My D found lots of support from her peers too. This process is very stressful. There is no rhyme or reason to where you child gets accepted. They can do everything right and still get a “no.” They will however get a yes from the school where they belong, even if that yes comes during their second round during a gap year.