<p>Hello! I'm a rising junior in high school and I'm in the midst of my search for musical theatre schools. I made this thread to ask about what (if any) schools with strong musical theatre programs give generous merit-based aid (talent or academic scholarships).<br>
I come from an economically stable home so I don't qualify for really any need-based aid. However, I do have academics on my side. My grades and test scores are all extremely good. And if it matters at all for anything besides Bright Futures, I'm a Florida resident.
Any information or prior experiences would be helpful.
Thanks! :)</p>
<p>Merit aid seems to be so circumstantial that I caution you against “counting on” getting anything based on what you read here on CC. I will share that my sons both had very strong academics and received generous academic-based awards from Rider and Pace, where they’ll be attending in the Fall. Among their other scholarship offers, they also received nice academic awards from Muhlenberg (they did not do the optional audition there), and nice artistic awards from U. Arts and Hartt. If academic or merit aid is of interest to you, you may want to investigate these schools. Break a leg!</p>
<p>The strongest choices in Florida are FSU, U of M, and UCF. Besides the Bright Futures, there are also various scholarships available in the state. If your grades and standardized tests are super high, you could qualify for more. FSU is dance heavy and competitive. It probably has the best reputation in the state. UCF is up and coming and U of M has the advantage of being in a large city with a pretty good MT program. I really think for merit, your grades and scores needs to better than good- they need to be outstanding. How is your talent- does it stack up? Do you currently take voice and dance and are there opportunities for acting? I don’t mean to be so blunt- just trying to be honest. It’s much more competitive for girls! You have time to still work on things and it’s great that you’re starting to look now. What you can do is make a list of the schools that interest you and then look on their sites to see what merit scholarships are available. Good luck!</p>
<p>@AmyKlaut, I would strongly recommend applying/auditioning at FSU. S#1 and S#2 will be down there in a few weeks as Freshman MTs. You would have the financial benefit of in state tuition and bright futures. Although they have an excellent reputation for dance, S#1 is working toward a MT BM, which is not quite as dance heavy as the MT BFA program that S#2 is pursuing. We are OOS, but they did receive excellent academic merit awards in addition to talent awards. The MT BM program is a bit more generous with talent awards. S#2 chose FSU over MT acceptances at BOCO, ALabama, and Point Park. From our experience, other schools with excellent MTprograms that provided generous awards were Oklahoma City (On their Website they list the test scores/academic criteria for merit based academic awards) and Point Park (please review some of the other threads that discuss issues related to how students are accepted). FSU is competitive (as most of the top programs are). The class is 9 (4 boys, 5 girls). They accepted 14 out of approximately 300 who auditioned. In our experience, Northwestern, BOCO, and Michigan were not generous with merit money.</p>
<p>One less selective auditioned BFA in MT to look at is Ohio Northern. It is a little gem of a program, and offered my daughter $30,000 in academic plus talent $$ and even includes 2K for out of state students to offset travel.</p>
<p>Check all the schools that you think you <em>might</em> have an interest in applying to – although there are no guarantees, many will list right on their websites the amount of merit dollars they are willing to give to high-stats kids (high GPA, high SAT/ACT, class rank, etc). Is there a chance you would be a National Merit Scholar? (Take the PSAT in October!) If so, several strong MT schools have traditionally been generous to students who are National Merit Scholars. </p>
<p>Check also regarding competitive academic awards – although another hurdle/potential campus visit, these can be quite helpful. University of Cincinnati has Cincinnatus, Elon has Fellows…</p>
<p>Finally, don’t cross a school off your list just because of the sticker price – my d found that, as merit and talent awards came in, some schools became much more affordable that originally thought.</p>
<p>Good for you for starting that research now!</p>
<p>D received great merit aid packages from Wagner, Point Park, Ball State, Pace, and Elon. Western Michigan, Coastal Carolina, and Florida State were good…O.K. deals from TCU and OK City (but if your GPA and test scores are high enough OK City gives full tuition.) Keep in mind that some schools are way more expensive than others so even a great aid package may not be enough! Also, some of the better merit aid awards are linked with interviews and essays. </p>
<p>I believe there is a post somewhere on cc about which schools give the best merit, non need-based aid. Good luck! There IS merit money out there!!</p>
<p>Believe me, I’ve done a lot of research since I started high school. It would be awesome to go to FSU, but I know how uber-competitive it is so I mostly made this thread to learn about other people’s out of state experiences. All of this information is very helpful 
There is a very good chance I’ll be a National Merit Finalist. I go to a very academically strong high school that does a lot of standardized test prep and we usually have upwards of twenty national merit finalists every year. I got a 200 as a sophomore on the PSAT and I’m positive it will increase significantly. And I’m not too worried about my SAT’s because my english teachers have raved about my writing and my math has improved.
Talent-wise, my greatest advantage is improvement. I’ve been taking voice lessons since march and I’ve improved a lot and my teacher is great so I know I’ll improve even more. But I’ve been singing my whole life and know a fair bit about music and I’m actually not a bad sight-reader. I sing in choir at school and whatnot. And I’ve improved so dramatically in such a small amount of time that it gives me hope. I’ve signed up for ballet and tap in the fall. I don’t have any formal dance training besides a bit of tap, but I’ve learned a lot through practice and I’m very driven and focused and ready to work. I’ve had very dance-heavy roles in some very dance-heavy shows like Hairspray and Thoroughly Modern Millie and Peter Pan. And acting-wise I learn mostly through practice via shows and thespian competitions, but I’m also much more naturally inclined towards acting than singing or dancing. That’s the part I’m least worried about
Again, thank you all for this information. It’s encouraging to hear that it’s possible for hard work in school to pay off :)</p>
<p>If you end up being National Merit Finalist, look at USC – very generous academic awards for Finalists. Even though USC is expensive, you might be eligible for a scholarship that could bring down your tuition / fees to very affordable range. Great program in heart of entertainment industry. No BFA in MT, but excellent BFA in Acting and wonderful BA acting program as well.</p>
<p>Emerson in Boston also gives up to $14,000/year for good test scores and high GPA…</p>
<p>I got really great merit packages (based on grades and SAT scores) from Otterbein and Webster (13,000 and 14,000 per year, if I remember correctly)- My understanding is at those schools, if you have a certain GPA or SAT score, you automatically get a certain amount of scholarship money. I also got a very large package from NYU Steinhardt, where I am currently going, but I have never found out how much of that is need based and how much merit based (the description says it’s a combination, and I know that I probably qualify for need-based, although just barely), and I’ve been told that getting a large scholarship from NYU is rare, but if you’ve got really good grades, I wouldn’t count it out!</p>
<p>For NYU, if you qualify for any financial aid, you can’t really divide it up into merit or financial aid components. Good merit aid only at NYU may be considered about $10K/ year. Which would leave you with about $50K+ more to cover on your own. If you qualify for financial aid, part of the award money may be shown as “merit” in amounts larger than $10K, but it is only offered as part of a financial aid package. So, in essence it is financial aid.</p>
<p>My daughter got a very large merit based scholarship from Webster as well. Made the school very affordable and they have a wonderful MT programs. (St. Louis, MO)</p>
<p>My D is in the MT program at Otterbein. The academic scholarships there are very generous and based on ACT scores. There are also very nice talent awards - not just for a select few like some schools do, but for all the students in the program.</p>