@mtmaybe Elon states that their decision date for prescreens submitted after the early decision date is January 17th. . It will be hard to wait that long!
I thought it said BY that date but not necessarily on it.
@mtmaybe last year it was on that date.
My head is spinning reading all these prescreen complexities. It has become un-manageable for students and families. Just my opinion
@Notmath1 - I can definitely see that prescreens create issues as well as solve them. Super glad that back in the “stone ages” of 2014 D only had to do One! 
@Notmath1 I agree! My daughter only has 6 schools with pre-screens but it was pretty stressful getting it done and I don’t think the final result is at all representative of her and her best work. I think it’s unfair to judge a prospective student on a video; it’s very two-dimensional and so many factors such as quality of equipment, etc. can play into it.
@collegemom2000 that is the reason BW dropped the prescreen this year.
Given that ever larger #s of schools are using them, colleges must think they are worth it. I thought it was really interesting that BW tried it and dropped it… and I would be fascinated to find out what CMU thinks of it this year. I know Michigan and Ithaca have used prescreens “forever” (in the MT sense… meaning 10 ish years) but would love to find out what colleges themselves think are the pro/cons. @KatMT … as someone on the “inside” - any pearls of wisdom to share?
I may be totally out in left field, but does anyone else ever think that colleges do things “uniquely” to DISCOURAGE students from applying to a plethora of programs? Not b/c they don’t want kids to succeed - but b/c having fewer schools in the mix of a kid they want would be beneficial to them
We didn’t have it too bad with only 3 pre-screen schools. One of them offers live pre-screen at unifieds with an on campus call-back which we opted into once we realized that their filming requirements were completely different than the other schools. The idea of having to do one long take that includes your slate, both songs, and both monologues was daunting after recording each separately for the other schools. (And doing MANY takes of each as my son critiqued himself and decided he didn’t like this or that.) On the day of recording, when we realized the difference, it was 6:30pm and we had been at it for hours. We just looked at each other and said - Nope. It makes the schedule for unifieds that much more complicated, but worth it to not do that extra recording.
It would sure be nice if the schools all got on the same page and required the same thing - for both pre-screens and in person auditions. IE: this one you can have a 90 second monologue, that one - 60 seconds, and the other one 2 minutes. This one - 32 bar song, that one 16 bar song, the other - no more than 60 seconds. It’s enough to make a person crazy! 
@toowonderful We were just laughing about that a week ago. My D got all of her prescreens submitted on the early side EXCEPT the one asking for a Shakespeare monologue. She finally got that completed and uploaded the day before the cut off deadline (ugh) haha. We were laughing that they probably added that requirement to weed some kids out? Who knows. She was joking around about “if I knew how to perform Shakespeare really WELL I wouldn’t need college”. We were both pretty clueless as it was a first for her!!! But she tackled it and learned from it. Who knows what the adjudicators will think, or what they are looking for. I am so curious! She passed the others but haven’t heard back from them yet. When a school asks for Shakespeare, is that indicative of their philosophy / and or program having a more classical bent or is it just so they can see another side of a kid for prescreens?
It’s crazy. D submitted 8 prescreens. She had 9 prescreens on her list but ultimately dropped Syracuse. They had an early’ish prescreen deadline and she wanted to re-shoot some of her songs and monologues so passed on the school. She ended up not being happy with most of her early videos and re-shot most of them. Neither of us are very technological; once all the pieces parts were filmed, S helped us get them ready to upload. He also loaded some software on D’s computer and taught her some basic editing skills. It felt like it took forever to get everything where it needed to be. It would be nice if the kids could upload a reel in Acceptd and invite schools to watch but I know that is a fantasy.
One of the complaints of the prescreens last year was some kids used professional videographers and editors (including, as I understand it, some high-end auto tuning). It was evident at callbacks that what was presented on the video was enhanced. Most of the schools now are very strict about uploading in-enhanced recordings.
My daughter’s voice teacher is an adjudicator for many schools and competitions. Apparently there are certain places within the screening process that are more favorable too. She said the early screens are more likely to get rejected because they haven’t had enough time to see what the year’s talent pool looks like. Then toward the end they have already gathered their “types” etc. and will screen out based on seeing too many of a particular type. After hearing this it seems to me that gives a slight advantage to the timing of things rather than actual talent, etc.
@artskids exactly! My husband actually own a high end digital recording studio but my daughter did her screens on an old Canon Powershot in my office. They are grainy and only use the camera’s mic and as a result probably sound and look terrible compared to others, but she didn’t want to do anything that looked too polished or edited.
@artskids - you know much more than I do about this process but why would it be a fantasy to have a single set of uploads to Acceptd? It’s like the Common App - so many schools used to require a slightly different version of the personal statement, now there’s just one and everyone accepts it. Given that the prescreens are online and are there for the convenience of the schools, the voice and acting and dance submissions really could be standardized! I am a newbie and (TG) will never go through this again, as my performing arts daughter is my youngest, but the prescreen process has been agonizingly difficult for us and it just seems like the end result really wasn’t worth all that work!!!
I am a newbie to this process and was lucky enough to find CC and all the resources that have been described here have made it so that I could survive this process without a coach. My S had a classmate record his pre-screens twice. The first set was a trial run and he found so many flaws that he chose to record in a new location… the school theater. It was not put together professionally and we did our best to follow all the guidelines. Fortunately he passed all of the pre-screens. It’s a lot of work and head aches.
@SAS0792 and @belleforbroadway we don’t see anything in D’s portal about a live audition on the checklist. Is this something that popped up later? I keep checking to make sure her SATs get there but there is nothing about an audition status, only that they got her prescreen.
@collegemom2000 I’m sorry - which school ? Too many to keep straight 
@SAS0792 ugh sorry…I type faster than I think. Rider.
@collegemom2000 It did not have it listed in my daughter’s portal originally and then one afternoon it showed up. A day or so later we received an email about it. Hope that helps! This process is excruciating. Finally heard from school number 9 on the prescreens yesterday and it was a yes. With all prescreens done and passed we are on to scholarship apps, auditions and the waiting…
We await only Syracuse (and Elon but that is not until January). I truly wonder what percentage of kids do not pass prescreens at most of the schools. It is a lot of hoops to jump through. My guess is that the majority or vast majority pass, and the process is merely to a) see if you are serious about the school b) are not in over your head from a talent perspective c) fit the program’s general profile.