WOW, what an a**hole the auditor was. I think that some of these schools believe their press a bit too much and let their egos get in the way. my son had a similar experience with Syracuse - hear great things about the program and the university from family who attended (not-theatre majors) and went in to the audition with the school a strong first or second prefernce, walked out and told me that he would not go there even if given a full ride.
You were accepted at schools - many auditioners were not, so you have talent. your NYU auditor sounds like a snooty f*ck who made a snap decision based on your nerves, and decided he had the right to abuse you. At 17, you are expected to be nervous when faced with an audition at your dream school,. A broadway casting director told me that you can get great training at many schools, you just need to work, and that the “top” 5 schools that everyone wants to attend graduate many folks who you have never seen or heard of because they don’t get parts (He pointed out that NYU takes in 5 or 6 times as many kids as other schools, but burns them out, turns them orr and only graduates a handful, on par witth the grad rates at schools that start with fewer students, and some of them are working at the top of the industry, some are not ever cast in good roles.
it is about you not the name on your sheepskin.
No school - not even Juilliard or a Yale MFA- offers a guarantee of success. No school - or lack of school- prevents it either. An actor’s life will be full of people running auditions - who may be warm and welcoming or total jerks. Gotta learn to deal and move on. Every successful actor has a set of “nightmare audition stories”- part of the biz
I think many people have schools they just don’t click with. Looking back, there was really no way I could have known which those would be. My cousin auditioned for the school I’ll attend in the fall on the same day I did, and he said that the audition was over very quickly and that the faculty seemed cold. Whereas I chatted with the people behind the table for a solid 10 minutes and thought they were some of the kindest I encountered throughout the process! It all depends on so much. Auditors have bad days too. I did a workshop with the MT head at Emerson and during the mock audition, he tested us by acting like the worst possible auditor! It’s so subjective that there’s no point dwelling on what happens in the room. And remember, these people are educators, and if you don’t enjoy the first 15 minutes of knowing them, the next 4 years likely won’t be an improvement.
On a lighter note, Josh Gad’s disastrous Juilliard audition experience.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=IvdtqYVM-VE
@MilouForever That was great. I liked Tina Fey’s!