What good musical theater programs offer best merit / talent scholarships to undergraduate students? “Generous” as in up to full tuition / full ride, if any?
And, here’s another related question, if anyone knows: do any programs offer substantial scholarships to international students? D’s friend from Germany is interested to study MT in the US…
Thank you!!!
Don’t know about International, but Wright State offers up to full ride for National Merit (in-state; up to all but OOS differential for non residents - about $9000ish). There are also very generous sliding scale merit scholarships for good scores/GPA/class rank. Talent scholarships tend to be modest, unless the student is “highly” desirable.
Thank you mom4bwayboy! Very helpful info.
This is a pretty good thread from a couple of years ago, though you’ll have to check with individual schools to make sure it’s still accurate. http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/musical-theater-major/1693629-list-of-bfa-ba-mt-schools-which-offer-full-ride-scholarships-tuition-room-board.html
UArts and Illinois Wesleyan both gave what amounted to a little more than full tuition scholarships to my D. The bulk was merit, some was talent, and some wasn’t designated as merit/talent money, just a general scholarship/grant from the schools.
@mom4bwayboy Is your son at Wright State? Joe Deer is a gem!
$10,000/year for talent is about the most my D was given for any of the schools she was accepted into. The problem is that even with that - a few of the schools remained about $55,000 to $60,000 a year (after scholarship). Since we have a school in-state that offers a BFA in MT, we only let her apply to top programs. Schools that are on the 2nd or 3rd tier may offer more talent money … I don’t know. Needless to say, unless you are rich, it’s insane to spend $200K+ on a performing arts degree. For a Musical Theatre grad to come out of school being in that much debt will adversely affect their entire life. My advice is unless the parents can afford to pay the bulk of the education costs for an undergrad degree, they should find the best in-state, public university option. My D could have gone to an instate program with basically free tuition (would still need to pay room/board). She instead is going to an out of state school that is going to cost around $30,000/year. Fortunately, we have been saving since she was born and can do this for her. If the student is really poor, they could get financial aid that would offset the cost. The kids who aren’t super rich or really poor are in a terrible spot … makes me sad that education in the US has gotten this much out of whack.
Yes, my S is a junior at WSU. Joe Deer is the best.
BTW, re: the question about the German student. I know that Davidson meets full need for foreign students, but not many schools do. We looked at Davidson as a BA program, and it’s a wonderful school but not a real MT-focused program.
This thread may help, it contains an extensive list that I compiled last year.
Superhelpful, EmsDad. Thank you!!!
Thank you, Jkellynh17
Bulk of my D’s offers were merit for academics and a bit was talent based She got a tiny bit of need based aid (grants or scholarships) from a couple schools but not much. She falls in the middle ground and didn’t have “enough” need for need based aid most places. But we don’t have enough to pay for all costs. She got very generous merit offers from several schools but as many start at $50-60k before scholarships, we still would owe quite a bit. something is wrong with college costs when a 30k per year scholarship doesn’t cover even tuition. It was very eye opening. Kids with more need may do better as they may get both need based money and Merit money if they have good grades, test scores, etc. we know some kids that fall into this category and they did quite well.
If your student has outstanding academic stats, you can also look at OOS schools that are “less rigorous” academic admits, but would like to increase their numbers of “academic merit” students. They are are often VERY generous to National Merit and other “high stats” students. Wright State is in this category. I never looked closely at the academic stats of these other schools, but when S was applying, Arizona, Alabama and Oklahoma University (not Oklahoma City) also offered up to full ride scholarships. I cannot speak to the quality of their MT programs, but WSU’s is excellent. The trade-off may be that the school is not particularly academically challenging. For my S this was not an issue in his decision making. As a BFA MT student, he barely has time to sleep and eat, let alone delve into rigorous honors academic classes that so far have never fit into the studio-heavy BFA schedule. He’s OK with pursuing his “intellectual” interests on his own time. Or he can take the money he saved from his “free ride” education and apply it to his next degree - should the cookie crumble in that direction.
Oklahoma university has a great bfa MT program and a good drama program too. The MT program is quite hard to get into - think they take 12 kids. Have also heard they are very generous with $$.
mom4bwayboy, thank you! we will definitely look into these schools. WS sounds like a great program. Do you know if they are willing to offer $$ to students with proven talent achievements, like known awards and stuff?
Since it was mentioned,by @mom4bwayboy, Oklahoma City University offers National Merit Finaliata dull tuition scholarships for 4 years. One thing we liked at OCU was that D could stack
Scholarships – she has academic, talent and leadership awards that are all
4 year scholarships. Some schools we looked at only allowed her to use one award. So make sure you ask if you are eligible for More than one scholarship and whether you can stack scholarships. Also be aware of their policies regarding outside scholarships. Some schools would reduce the amount they would contribute to D by the amount of outside scholarships received. Each school has different rules so make sure you really understand what your bottom line will be. I will say there were more academic/merit scholarships available rather than talent.
@actingbee - the talent scholarships at WSU are much more mysterious than the merit awards, which are posted in plan sight on the WSU admissions tuition/aid page (same goes for the merit awards at the other schools I mentioned). I am pretty sure that the talent awards are based on what they see in the audition room and how badly they want your “type”. I don’t know how much previous awards play into the equation. There are additional talent awards that a student can get in subsequent years - like a Tom Hanks Scholarship - based on their performance/attitude/work ethic/talent while in the program. Scholarships can be stacked up to the total cost of attending WSU - including books/fees. Since my S has a merit-based full ride, he is not eligible to receive additional scholarships, so we haven’t paid much attention to how they work
@actingbee Pace offers very generous honors scholarships and allows you to stack them. My daughter had good grades and ACT scores, but no where near National Merit numbers and still received the maximum in honors money, plus some other awards in addition to that. She received scholarships from other schools, the closest to Pace was Shenandoah, followed by MSM. Both offered significant scholarships overall. BOCO was the most expensive, despite the scholarship which I think was close to the maximum I have heard that they will give (for girls). PM me and I can give you more specifics. We also have a friend who received a full ride to University of Memphis- BFA MT.
Yes I forgot about Pace, … they offered a large academic merit scholarship to my D. Academically the school doesn’t have a great reputation, so they offer more to get good academic students.