I would like to hear from some people whose child has been accepted to at least a couple schools that has NOT had a coaching service and has NOT attended a summer intensive before senior year. ( not counting your locally run theatre camps, I’m referring to summer college intensives such as CMU etc) . I recently has someone tell me that I need to get my D into both of these things or auditions won’t “go well” next winter… She is going to go to a summer program but not one of the major ones. Coaching isn’t something we are considering doing really.
I have just noticed after she brought this up to me, that there is a common denominator on a lot of the acceptance threads, previous years too, where the kids with multiple acceptances to several well know MT programs had coaches &/or had attended a summer intensive and a lot of them had done both. I also noticed that there is a lot of kids who already have done paid work on regional theatres etc & have professional credits etc. perhaps this is just a coincidence.
@theaterwork are you open to letting your child audition for a scholarship with a coach? My S did it without a coach and it is not something I recommend if you can avoid it. I did not realize coaches took scholarship students (even after years on this board), but I believe that is great information to have if you are cost sensitive. I’ve been on this board a few years and I believe the uptick of students with coaches escaped me a little during our process. This is 1 of my major regrets through this whole process.
@theaterwork I have a draft of my daughters story but I am waiting for her okay…in the meantime…
No summer programs other than pure dance intensives and most at her local studio.
No coaching except an hour long skype consult with a coach 3 weeks before Unifieds.
No professional experience.
I believed in her but was afraid that this process would overlook her. She ended up with acceptances, scholarships, choices and is thrilled with her final decision.
We did not use a coaching service or a summer intensive (though D has gone to theater camp every summer for many years). I do regret not using a coach as while she ended up with good options, I think we missed the mark on the “right” schools for her to apply to, to give her the best chance at success, and also on some of her audition material, which a coach could have helped with. (Coaches are not really a known commodity where we are on the west coast/nor is the true nature of the actual process). She has been working in Professional/Equity/Regional theatre for 8 years.
I agree that things like coaches/camps/intensives are common on CC, and seem to be getting MORE common in the last few years - but one has to remember, CC is a really small subset of the world. Lots of people seem to do ok without them. I was just on Mary Anna Dennard’s website, and looked through last year’s class to count how many kids there were. Moving quickly (and recognizing that not everyone would have their kid’s pic in there, not all the schools listed are bfa schools, there would be kids who got shut out etc) I counted about 150 kids. That’s not that many
I can raise my hand on that. Didn’t do any of those things. Did have a very good voice teacher that helped pick songs and obviously worked on them and a HS drama teacher that lent daughter a stack of plays to look through for monologues.
The other thing that I can add is that I (meaning me) did homework to understand the process. Asked questions. Got some advice from people here in CC. @theatrework, you certainly have been asking many questions and getting advice and you started way before I did. You’ll be fine if you remain open to some of the advice offered keep a handle on what works for you and what doesn’t.
You can do it without a coach.
BUT- if I were going to make any investment it would be to have a few sessions with a reputable coach who works specifically with college auditions (not a voice teacher, theater director, etc) use them to help pick out monologues and songs and review your list of schools. It will be $ well spent. Most are between $75 -$200 per hour. College auditions are unique and what works for local or professional auditions or for competitions is not what works when applying to college. Find someone who understands the difference and knows what the colleges are looking for.
I would pay for a few individual coaching sessions before spending $ on a summer program.
We did not use a coach for my MT S - but he did attend 4 summers at Stagedoor. He did fine in the audition season (offers, scholarships, etc) but as I have mentioned elsewhere, I regret in his case not hiring a coach to review and critique his overall audition package. I, like @vvnstar, would have cut elsewhere to pay for some coaching sessions; I was simply naïve early in the process. By the time I realized the value of a good coach, we were too far into the process.
I think I messaged you a while back @theatrework but our final numbers ended up 5 accepts, 1 wl, 1 priority hold, and 7 rejections. 4 of the 5 accepts were mid-upper tier programs(although none of them in the “trinity”). All have come with scholarships, some better than others. I will post the full story when her decision is final.
Again, we had no national coach (local teachers only), no summer camps/intensives but did do governors school one year, no professional theatre. D goes to public high school, has a strong resume of consistent work(school and community theatre), mostly lead roles but very little dance training. The lack of dance contributed to the rejections most certainly. Those dance calls kicked her behind!
So for her, it was about half and half. Not bad for not having a coach or summer program on the resume, but as I think I mentioned to you before, the coach might have helped deciding which schools were the best fit. We wasted a lot of time/money on programs with too much dance emphasis. Do your homework and make good choices, you will be ok:)
When we first started looking into the audition process for my D I thought coaches were an extravagance and that we could get through this on our own. We survived with 2 acceptances, 2 waitlists, 1 redirection, and 7 rejections. However, If I could do it again I would definitely work with a coach to review the school list and suggest songs and monologues.
D goes to Public High school and is the first from there ever to pursue a BFA-MT. So her school coaches and counselors had no idea of the process. In fact the guidance counselor tried to talk her out of applying to 13 schools, saying it was too many. She has a wonderful Voice Coach who is still a working actress and unfortunately was unavailable during the majority of the audition season. D was pretty much on her own to put her audition package together. Luckily she’s always had good instincts and knows what fits her voice and type well. But looking back her school list was very unbalanced, not enough mid-tier or “safety” schools. We also discovered to late that some of the schools just weren’t good fits regardless of their reputation. And she didn’t know enough to customize her audition package for each school, using the same materials for all auditions. Basically we were flying a little blind with this process.
So this can be done without a coach but be prepared to do a lot of research, and potentially second guess yourself when results start coming in.
PS: The advice you get here on CC is great and definitely helped save us in a couple of instances.
@theaterwork My biggest fear when my D first started considering MT programs, was that while her family, friends and local teachers all thought she was very talented, I did not want to make false assumptions on how she would fare when compared to her peers on a national level. I felt it was essential to try out the waters beyond her local circle. Her local theatre circle included a number of students who had appeared on Broadway, so we had some realistic bar to work with, but still, I did not want to be kidding myself about what her talent level was.
To me, that is the importance of competitive summer programs and coaching on a national level. You will have a much clearer assessment of where your child stands in the talent pool. You will have a more realistic list of where to apply and a clearer understanding of your child’s strengths and weaknesses. You will have a more realistic idea of what songs and monologues best highlight her type. And you will learn about schools, and their strengths and weaknesses from people connected to the industry. And how to customize audition material for each school.
The proliferation of so many MT programs in the last 8 or so years have to a certain extent muddied the waters. Students are able to get into smaller and more local programs that do not draw from national pools of talent. Some of those regional students may be extremely talented and will be enormously successful. Some of the smaller and newer programs they attend may be truly amazing. But some students accepted into regional MT programs may only be mediocre and they may only be getting mediocre training. I would not want my child to find this out after completing college – when they compete to be cast within a much larger talent pool and do not find success.
College is such a enormous expense, that in comparison, the total you will spend to have some coaching sessions will be negligible. And you may make it up by being directed to good programs where your child may get more scholarship money because the coaches could predict where she would be most successful.
@theaterwork Like others, I’m also planning to post a detailed “final decision” post soon. But the short version is: no summer intensives, local coach only, no dance training, and a high school with no theatre department. I’ll know for sure in a day or two, but I think he’s going to end up in a great program that he’ll be really happy with.
My D attended a public HS with a mediocre theatre program, one non-audition summer theatre program (loved it, lots of fun, a little training with a show at the end), no national coach but took private acting sessions with a young,just out of UArts acting graduate for about 10 sessions (mostly helped with monologue choices) and about 10 private vocal lessons (definitely helped with song choices unbeknownst to us for which she received compliments.) Accepted to three audition BFA and two audition BA programs. Three came with scholarship monies.
I had been lurking around CC for sometime before registering though. Best free coaching available!
If you read my post #28 on Final decisions: class of 2020- you will see that we did not use a coach or do any summer programs. Ended up with scholarship acceptances to hartt and u of Miami. Acceptance to nyu which will be her home in the fall!!! But I regret it - I would have used a coach! That said, you are a big step ahead of me by knowing that this site exists- I didn’t find it until we were into audition season. Probably can forego fancy and expensive summer programs… Just my opinion
@theaterwork We also did not know to customize material for schools! D changed up her pieces here and there, but pretty much used the same 3-4 songs and 2-3 monologues. It would have been nice to know what the particular schools were looking for. Too bad their websites don’t just tell us! She did follow the dos and don’ts if they were listed and researched overdone material, ect. Had friends in MT programs and professional theatre weigh in on her choices. She did SETC auditions last year and actually got some good feedback there as well. I think it was overall a good package but still, I am sure there were mistakes made. Inside advice would have been great. You can probably piece together a lot just being on here, we were not and missed a lot of great advice!!! BTW- at the Umich info session, the dept head specifically advised parents to stay off this website, LOL!
My D did Unifieds 4 years ago. At that time there was quite a discussion on this site about using coaches/not using coaches, etc. etc. My D did not use a coach (except our excellent high school drama director who helped my D prepare for Unifieds), had no professional credits, but was involved in an excellent high school musical theatre dept (we’re on the west coast), lots of experience in school choirs and NATS competitions, and private voice (6 years) and piano lessons (10 years), and did ballet/tap lessons since she was 4 years old. We are very blessed to live in the Seattle area where there are many opportunities for excellent private instructors, dance schools, and many high quality school, community and professional theatres for students to become involved in. So we tried to take advantage of as many of those as we could afford, which wasn’t always easy!
My D was accepted and offered scholarships at Boston Conservatory, Ithaca, Point Park, waiting list of Ball State, priority hold for Texas State, and her top choice school was Carnegie Mellon where she made it onto the waiting list but never came off of it. I guess no one said “no” to Carnegie that year, although we were sweating bullets worrying about how we were going to afford it!
Moral of the story: you do not necessarily need professional coaching to get acceptances. I suppose if a person lived in an area where resources like I mentioned above weren’t readily available, some professional coaching might be a wise investment. I would never tell someone that coaching is not of value, because everyone has to do what is right for their own situation. I just don’t like it when people are made to feel that if they aren’t getting professional coaching they are somehow less prepared or will not do as well.
D used a coach and was never advised to change her material for a given school. She used the same package throughout except she used different cuts or types of songs based on what a school specifically requested in their audition materials. The coach did not provide any “inside track” for any particular school. Our coach provided invaluable advice on monologue/song selection based on D’s type and great advice on choosing where to apply.
@stmama That is so interesting that Umich said to stay off this website!! If that is the case, I would have NEVER even known that “coaches” exist. I would have never known that there were overdone monologues and songs. I would have never known that some schools are very hard to get into. Seriously, I have learned SO MUCH on this forum and only found this site a few weeks ago. LOL
I still have not made a decision on coaching. We honestly do not have the extra $$, and of course I feel like I may be short changing my daughter. However, sometimes I wonder if maybe, just maybe, the auditors might like seeing someone who hasn’t been coached… I wonder if there is such a thing as being too coached? Obviously their needs to be some raw talent with these kiddo’s, but it is as if we are asking these kids to be professional and perfect before they go to college to develop their skills. Doctors do not start school knowing everything… I am hoping that surely the auditors are looking for raw talent with the potential to develop their skills. I could be completely wrong here… just thinking out loud. My brain is in overload!!!
I do think some kids may look too coached for certain schools or auditors. However, I also think it is hard to pin down what actually helped or hurt in a particular audition. After going through it we all decided we may never know for sure. My D didn´t have a coach, but does work with a director with a lot of knowledge of this process and what certain schools look for. I think that would be the one benefit of a reputable coach - to get a feel for different programs. But a coach isn´t going to make it or break it in the long run in my opinion. I agree with several of the above that perhaps a few sessions to help work on a list of schools and specific songs or monologues may be the most helpful. BAL and good luck - it is a rollar coaster.
IDK what auditors think - but in Chicago 2 years ago there was a group of kids who had all worked with a particular coach. They all looked remarkably similar. (the jewel tone a line dress/nude heel look) I overheard some comments saw some eye rolling among the check in people at one of D’s auditions.
The head of the program at Syracuse said to be careful with CC too. He warned about the tendency to overanalyze, and said that people build up certain program or trash talk others without much merit to what is actually happening at the school. Having seen all those things happen on this forum, I think that is a fair warning. Doesn’t mean there is not a TON of information and support here - you just have to take opinions with a grain of salt and make sure to do your own research etc