<p>^ Marbleheader
Seriously???
I just cried over these parents.</p>
<p>I can understand parents being confused about performance majors and how much more is required, but just regular applications, in general. Gosh, I hope these kids have a good counselor or parent friend or someone to help! Yikes.</p>
<p>I, too, feel bad for those newbie uninformed parents. Which is why I have to thank this amazing community for posting so much wonderful information and helping us make this crazy process a little smoother!</p>
<p>We just got the first academic acceptance. âBig dealâ said daughter, as she tossed the acceptance letter to the side. Until I picked it up and saw a large scholarship offer in the 2nd paragraph. Hopefully a sign of good things to come once the auditions start rolling.</p>
<p>Thatâs great about the scholarship, hopesmom. And I will join you in thanking all the folks who give us help here on the boards! </p>
<p>I also feel bad for parents who donât understand the whole college process. At our school, and probably at a lot of yours, we have a Metco program that brings in kids from urban settings - in our case, Boston - to attend our school, rather than an inner-city school. Many of the kids, even though they are very smart, didnât go off to college. A few years ago we found out that in many cases it was because their families just could figure out the college application process and also didnât know where to go to apply for scholarships, or how to fill out the scholarship applications. We now have volunteers that will help the kids and their parents with all this bloody paperwork. It is so overwhelming for them!</p>
<p>Anyway - keep at it everyone. ED is weeks away . . .</p>
<p>We visited an MT program earlier this week. The adcom started out pretty miffed because well over half of students who signed up for the tour and class observation were no-shows. There were only five kids there; 4 seniors (3 MT, 1 ME) and 1 junior (VP). Out of the four seniors, my kid was the only one to have her application complete (ACT scores, transcript, all that) and have already scheduled an audition. THE DEADLINE IS NOV.1!!! I was freaking out for these kids. We sure didnât know much when we started this journey last spring but we have made damn sure we learned quick!</p>
<p>Good luck to any 2013 applicants out there who are applying ED or EA to schools! </p>
<p>I know there are at least a few MT/theatre programs that offer an early option (Northwestern and Yale were the two I remember offhand from Dâs list), and for those pursuing that option this is crunch time, so good luck to you!!</p>
<p>Hello from Hawaii,
While I am a new member on this website, I am not new to it. I have been following all of your postings for some time and felt it was time for me to get on and get whatever advice I can.</p>
<p>Being that we live in Hawaii we are at a huge disadvantage from a location standpoint. Because of cost of travel and time to travel, our only option is to attend a Unified Audition. Originally we were planning to attend LA as it is closest, however, after some research and phone calls to schools we came to realize that Chicago was a better option. Chicago has more schools participating and I am told LA does not participate in choreography. My daughter is a strong dancer and choreography is important to her audition. Although it appears that some schools donât participate in choreography altogether at Unifieds. Can anyone give me a rundown on how choreography is handled at Unifieds?</p>
<p>I am also of the understanding that my daughter will be auditioning for each individual school so for her that will be 9 separate auditions? Is that correct? I would love advice on how exactly that is handled. As we are in the process of scheduling audition times with schools now, we are finding that most require a four hour block. If the auditions only last for three days and each school requires four hours, how do you fit nine auditions on the schedule? I read in some postings some time back that it was possible to fit that many in but not sure how to do it given the amount of time required for each school.</p>
<p>We have a very long road ahead of us and lots of pre-planning to do for this one shot deal. Not the least is which we own nothing by way of clothing for Feb in Chicago. The only closed toe shoes my daughter owns are dance shoes. So add wardrobe to our list of costs for this excursion. My point here being that I welcome any advice on this whole process. The more we know now, the less stressful this whole thing will be (if thatâs at all possible). I look forward to meeting many of you in Chicago and sharing stories. Aloha!</p>
<p>I am not sure it is possible to fit in 9 musical theatre auditions at Unifieds? Others will chime in with specifics. It may depend on the 9 schools, since some schools require you to block out a day or part o a day, while others schedule you in a more specific time slot.</p>
<p>Yes, she would have 9 auditions,and each one would need to be scheduled separately with each individual school.</p>
<p>Is it possible for you to schedule some on campus auditions before and after Unifieds? Still doing it as a one shot deal, but extending the time over a week to 10 days?</p>
<p>There is a young woman from Alaska in the program where I teach, and I think I remember her saying that she took time off from school to do auditions this way.</p>
<p>You could do NY unifieds on Feb 2nd and 3rd and then go to Chicago for Feb 4,5,6 or do Chicago first and then do LA on Feb 9th and 10th on the way home.</p>
<p>I know that when my D did LA Unifieds, she did 4 in a day on one day. While some schools may require 4 hour blocks, not all do. I would check each school website to find out their requirements. If the specifics are not listed on their websites, definitely call the MT programs to get the specifics. Maybe it has changed, but when my D did the La Unifieds, she definitely did some dance calls- othere than Penn State, I donât remember which schools, but definitely several. This was in 2010, so maybe it has changed. Again, it should tell you on the websites for each school.</p>
<p>You can do 9 auditions at Unifieds, but Kat is right, it depends on the school. We are left-coasters too so my girl did 12 (+ 1 walk-in she was havinâ so much fun!) and she had two auditions with half-day-blocking-out requirements. I know there were other kids there who didnât schedule a lot of auditions, but then kind of wished they had scheduled more. However, that being said, it really depends on your Dâs personality and how she deals with stress. I think my D did better not having a lot of down time to dwell on upcoming auditions or to perseverate on perceived âmistakesâ. </p>
<p>I have a feeling that if alibabba808 (another mom from HI) sees your post she will reply too. You may want to search using her name as Iâm pretty sure she explained how they arranged it all.</p>
<p>When my D auditioned 2 years ago at the Chicago unifieds, some of the schools that required a 4-hour block did not actually require that you be there the full 4 hours, and would work with you if you needed to leave for another audition and return. For example one had an informational session at the beginning, then the rest of the time was for individual auditions. So check with those schools and find out how they actually schedule the block; you might have more flexibility than you would think.</p>
<p>Hawaiimtmom: If you are looking to schedule a number of auditions then I would recommend going to the Chicago Unifieds then flying to the LA Unifieds. We managed to do 13 auditions over both time frames. 8 in Chicago and 5 in LA. Multiple destination flight from HNL to Chicago to LA back to HNL was actually cheaper than flying just to Chicago and back to Hi. The only potential problem is taking a full week off school. If you would like any more information then just PM me - happy to help!!</p>
<p>ParadiseMT also came in from Guam last yearâŠyou may want to PM her, but alibabba808 gave you great advice from another Hawaii mom. Also, FYI, NY Unifieds unofficially start 2 days before the actual Unifieds. We have auditions scheduled all day on Friday before the Unfiieds start.</p>
<p>What do parents typically do during auditions, unified or on-campus? For the four hour blocks especially, do parents stay and wait, or do they leave and come back? Thanks!</p>
<p>Parents do everything. Sometimes itâs too cold to do more than find a cozy chair and snooze! Plenty of parents available to chat with although I often preferred to keep to myself. Sometimes the chat can be sort of troublesome. Other times you make friends for life. I donât think I ventured far as I felt a need to be on hand for emergency sewing repairs (Iâm a costume mama) but that never happened. Actually did help some others in need, however. Now in NYC I absolutely went shopping in garment district! âYouâre on your own, kid!â</p>
<p>Most parents at LA Unifieds just sat around and talked while our kids were auditioning and really just made sure our lids had snacks, lunch, drinks, someone to watch their things if they stepped away. Just be present.</p>
<p>My D DID have dance as part of her audition for 3/5 schools over her two days at LA Unifieds. </p>
<p>Consider if you put all those eggs in one Unifieds basket and your child gets sick or injured, you may have problems. A few on the MT blog have talked about their horror stories. Trying to do two Unifieds and maybe some of the colleges that piggyback in those areas would at least help in that regard in a worst case scenario.</p>
<p>Thanks for all the info re: what parents do during auditions. Very helpful, thank you both!</p>
<p>Okay, wow. Alibabba, how did I miss your post right above Katâs? I definitely need to get my eyes checked. </p>
<p>During auditions, my role was to carry stuff . . .haha. Water bottle, dance stuff, dress, shoes, iPod player, etc. depending on the day and whether she had time to run up to room to change. </p>
<p>I didnât socialize too much . . . there wasnât a lot of time as my D was pretty busy going from one room to another so we moved quite a bit. And to be truthful, I was so tired after the busy and stressful months of prep, it was just nice to sit, watch the kids interact in the halls, and take it all in. The people that I did visit with were really friendly and kind though. It was funny to see the difference in the energy levels of the kids and the parents . . . if not by age, you could have recognized my exhausted fellows by their 1000-yard-stare. haha.</p>
<p>kksmom - it was really weird - I actually posted after you but it ended up on the board before you - donât worry - you are not going crazyâŠ</p>
<p>Alibabba808, thanks for the advice. I actually tried to PM you but apparently Iâm too new to this site and have to post a few more times before it lets me PM. Iâll keep trying, however, because I would love your insight as to how you did this whole thing. It makes my head spin just trying to piece it all together. Iâm assuming you had to call airlines directly to plan out the flights to multiple destinations. Canât imagine doing that task all online. Oh, since I was referred to you by another post I did look up some of your past posts and saw that your daughter ended up at Northern Colorado. That just so happens to be my alma mater! How did you manage that audition? I checked and they donât to Unifieds. Did you send a video?</p>
<p>Thank you to everyone else for your input, as well. We will look into the possibility of doing two Unifieds or some regional auditions in the area depending on who is where and when. We do have plans to visit a campus just after Chicago Unifieds which we will also have to try to squeeze into all of this. Its very important we get to this campus as it is one of my daughterâs top picks and we were not able to get there last summer when we did our campus tour trip. Not going to be easy to get her out of school for so long either.</p>