<p>Ya I was feeling my list was a bit barren to so I added 2 more schools in the US to make it 9 and am trying to schedule one day at unifieds with only 1 audition so I can do as much walk-ins as I’m able to fit in.</p>
<p>theatreG14 - just be aware that not all school allow or have time for walk-ins and some charge an additional fee to do a walk-in</p>
<p>Auditions scheduled for Elon, Florida State yesterday. Essays almost done, and I can’t believe the complexity of college applications over what they were 35 years ago when I had to go through all this!</p>
<p>I’m so stressed out about the entire process. I’m a strong actor with a strong voice, (my dance is so-so) but I started late due to a lack of opportunity in my area and earlier parent-approach of “you are not allowed to do this with your life” (now they’re supportive). I’m trying to involve them in the college process, but they don’t seem very interest, but they’re going to help me out financially at least partially, so I’m not complaining. I’m finishing up at a community college this year, so on top of playing catch-up and applying and researching schools, I still have my classes to attend. I know a few other students trying to transfer for an MT BFA. I’m the most proactive of all of them, so I’m the one who’s helping them. On top of this, I have work, so I can make money for a vocal and acting coach, but I’m up until two in the morning doing my homework and up early the next day.</p>
<p>I’m on my own as far as researching colleges, (no parental help) which as stressful as it is, I’m kind of glad I’m being forced to do it by myself. It’s given me a new proactive, aggressive, almost obsessive approach to getting what I want. I’m not entirely sure this is a good thing, but this has taught me that if I want something, I’m going to get it by sitting on my butt. I’m exhausted all the time and I might get gray hair by the end of this, but it’ll make me a tougher, more determined person in the end.</p>
<p>My son submitted CMU and Michigan yesterday. Since you can’t get an audition without applying first, he wanted to get that in early. Now he’s just waiting to get a reply and schedule the audition. He needs to spend more time on the essays for the other school’s supplements. He seems to be on schedule. SAT this weekend, I’m sure for many of you, too!</p>
<p>I’m not* going to get it by sitting on my butt.</p>
<p>Yes - good luck to all SAT’ers this weekend! Then a few weekends left to prepare for the ACTs at the end of the month.</p>
<p>We’re hanging in, but S is starting to get testy whenever I ask if he’s finished this or that. But we only have a few weeks before everything is due for early decision and early action for merit scholarships.</p>
<p>Keep going, everyone!</p>
<p>It seems to me that EVERYTHING is a struggle. When schools ask you to upload a resume, the formatting comes out all wrong. It takes about 15 or 20 minutes to reformat on their page, and by then you’re either: 1) timed out; or 2) the submit button just won’t work. Other schools had forms up 2 weeks ago (filled out and submitted) which have subsequently been replaced with a different version (dop we submit new form or go with the old one?). Yet other schools say don’t apply until you hear back from the pre-screen, but BTW, you aren’t eligible for scholarships unless you apply by November 1st. Are we the ONLY ones having these problems??? Almost every school has some bizarre quirk on their website/application, or it is almost impossible to find certain information. I feel like starting a new company that helps these schools have an easy application process. Or is this an intelligence test? My favorite one so far is the school that asks you to print out a non-writable-pdf, fill it in by hand, scan it back in, then send it to them, but not as an attachment. It has to be in the body of the email. I don’t know about you guys, but my (year old) computer doesn’t do that. (And yes, I googled it, and tried the tricks people suggest, but when I practice emailing it to myself, it comes out as …you guessed it!..an attachment.) I"M GOING CRAZY!!!</p>
<p>
I think what they are asking for is pretty much impossible unless you somehow use OCR to copy the text in the PDF…or retyped the contents of the PDF, integrating your answers. I wonder why they would require such a thing.</p>
<p>Monkey, I totally hear you, and for the record, it’s almost as bad doing this stuff for teachers. At our school we have to submit all recommendations via Naviance, and they have to be on school letterhead. Every fall, the office sends us an electronic letterhead that we have to copy our letters onto and save as a PDF, then upload…and guess what, if you use a Mac (as many of us do) it has been impossible in past years to make the file size small enough, as Naviance will only accepted a limited size. So you have to e-mail all the various parts to yourself and open them on a PC (school computer, approximately Soviet-era) and re-paste and save as a new PDF, then get onto Naviance on THAT computer and upload…blah blah blah. The only up-side I can see is that it saves our college counselors a lot of time and money (no postage), but having first gone through the college process in the Olden Days with my daughter 10 years ago, I can testify that the Naviance/online CA is a lot tougher for kids and parents, too. In the fall, our seniors get an average of two e-mails a week from the college counselors here, asking that some form or another be updated, and the kids get very mixed up about Common App and Naviance (not to mention why they have to create separate accounts on each). ARGH. </p>
<p>Re: prescreens, my son uploaded his one and only prescreen on the first date possible, got a confirmation e-mail from the website (“Acceptd”) and then heard…nothing, for over 2 weeks. We double and triple checked that everything was uploaded. Finally he checked for the umpteenth time and THIS time the site said that his resume had not gone through, so he had to do it all again. He just found out today, over a month after the initial upload, that he passed the prescreen (hurray!!)…so now he is enmeshed in the application and supplement and audition scheduling…and this is just the first school. </p>
<p>Hope you get your “attachment issues” sorted out–it is SUCH a pain–thank goodness we can vent here in safety! :D</p>
<p>Times3, congrats on getting a pre-screen in…and making it through! I imagine it is just as bad for the teachers as it is the students. In fact, my D did not ask her favorite teacher for a rec b/c he is elderly and not computer literate. She knew the system would be impossible for him to navigate. What a shame. </p>
<p>My D only has 5 auditions confirmed; 1 we can’t do b/c the site won’t accept her resume; others we have to wait for the pre-screen (which, unlike you, we have not submitted yet). And even with only 5 auditions confirmed, we are already running into scheduling conflicts! We had to take the last date possible in March for one school, and now we find out that another school ONLY has auditions on February weekends, which are all already booked with other auditions. How is this even possible? And we have to fly to Florida for an audition over February break, which means plane tickets will be astronomical - if they are even available. I hear there’s lots of room on American Airline flights, though. 
I’m actually considering risking it. I simply do not know how the kids who don’t have parental support are doing this. I need a drink…</p>
<p>And Glassharmonica, I too, wonder why they would require such a thing. I can understand fearing attachments and viruses, but it is 2012. Make it a fill in the blank form that can be uploaded directly…why a non-writable pdf? That’s why I started getting paranoid and thinking, “Maybe this is an intelligence test…if we can’t do this, my D will not get accepted…”</p>
<p>monkey13, I’m wondering if you have been shut out from specific audition dates because schools have those date already filled, or is it more due to your own scheduling conflicts.</p>
<p>My S is still trying to finish up his essays so we probably won’t be able to get any apps in before next week at the earliest. Just hoping we won’t have similar scheduling issues.</p>
<p>Pelky, no worries, it is definitely our own scheduling conflicts. For example, we booked auditions every weekend in February, all over the country. Then we found out that one of our top schools ONLY has auditions February weekends, which are now booked with other auditions. So now I have to juggle. Similarly, with another school we had to take the last date in March b/c all the other dates they had available we had already booked with other schools. Most schools have around 5 audition dates. And, they tend to overlap a lot with other schools’ audition dates. However, that being said, if I were you I would definitely schedule the few that you can schedule without first completing the application. PM me if you want to know which ones…</p>
<p>Monkey, I’m incredibly impressed that you have so many auditions scheduled. If my S gets the date he wants for the just-passed-the-prescreen school, that will be the third one scheduled. He still has 5 on-site auditions plus 3 at Unifieds to set up, and for a few of those, the application must be submitted first, but I guess it’s time to get on the stick with the others. Hopefully he can start pushing out those applications next week; the supplements are the main hang-up (his main essay is mostly done, thanks to our English department–seniors are required to work on them during the first trimester in English 12!). Here we go… and thanks, Monkey, for lighting a fire under our butts! (hmm, I mean for inspiring us!).</p>
<p>LOL! Glad to be of service, Times3! Now if you an only calm me down, we’ll be even. I feel woefully inadequate only having 5 done. I have a D, not a S, and she is applying to more schools than your S is, b/c she needs to. Our school also makes the seniors write their essay and resume for English class. The thing that killed us was the supplemental essays…even the schools that used the Common App required supplemental essays. My D actually went catatonic writing them. There were just so many!!! So, it took a lot longer than we expected. And now we are behind our self imposed schedule for getting pre-screen DVDs out, and I really wish we could all go out for a drink together and commiserate b/c I am really, really nervous…sigh.</p>
<p>I am confused about something. We have been getting auditions set with some schools this week. With two schools neither said we had to have applications already in to schedule an audition nor did they say they had no spots available. Another three schools said something similar i.e. they accept auditions up till a couple weeks before the date. Then we have two that will be done at Unifieds where scheduling will be relatively easy, and taht leves one school we’re applying to that could potentially be a conflict. Maybe it’s the schools my D is applying to but we certainly haven’t run into any issues a fa as being closed out of auditions. In fact most programs indicate they are fairly open within the confines of their specific dates.</p>
<p>The CC wisdom handed down from year to year is that you may find audition spots becoming very hard to find at the most competitive schools around Thanksgiving and it is best to get it all done no later than Halloween. Anyone have different advice about timing?</p>
<p>A few schools I remember allowed students to set auditions before aps were in (NYU/Tisch was one, if I remember correctly) while others you had to write SO MANY ESSAYS (plus a prescreen) before you could get a date. Talk about stress. I remember pacing around, muttering, waiting for D to finish those essays so she could get the ap out so she could get an audition date! I feel for you all, I really do.</p>
<p>JeffandAnn, if you are getting your dates set now, that is great and you should have the pick of the crop. But woe to those who wait until Thanksgiving. Get this done, people! Spit Spot! </p>
<p>(It would be interesting to note here, which schools in recent years filled up their auditions slots and by what date did this happen? It will be also interesting to see if the application numbers continue to go up as they have been over the last several Gleeful years.)</p>
<p>jeffandann, the only schools on our list that required an app before scheduling an audition were CMU and Michigan. And, of course, Michigan requires a per screen video. The others would schedule and audition without the app. Several needed a pre screen without an app.</p>
<p>I recall that the majority of schools that my daughter applied to last year required an application before scheduling the audition. Some that didn’t require that didn’t even open their site for scheduling until as late as January. Like many of you, we also discovered that the school specific essays took longer than expected and despite best intentions, completing applications and essays lingered into December. </p>
<p>Many schools that require prescreens won’t even give you the results for quite some time so there is no way for any of their dates to be booked until they do. Based on our experience last year anyone that is scheduling auditions right now is very much on top of things and will find that their options are still wide open all through October as classicalbk is suggesting and likely well into November and even into December at least as far as on campus auditions go. I do not know it that is true for Unifieds or not but I would expect it would be. Even if not, Unifides is a concentrated group of schools in one location so there are more ways to tweak the schedule than what you’d have if you are also factoring in travel to campus. </p>
<p>A large percentage of kids finish their applications during December break. You are all reading each other’s posts on CC but don’t forget you are kindred spirits… who are on it early. There is a whole other world out there that will also be auditioning and getting dates etc. and some of them haven’t even started their applications yet.</p>