I’m a huge fan of MTCA and their coaches and have heard only great things from our friends who used the Moo Crew, but for sure there are no insurance policies or transformative miricles that any coach or book can give a kid going through this process. Couldn’t agree more. But what @rocsocks points out are the huge upsides of having a community that cares and supports your child (and you) through the process and gives helpful advice and guidance through it all, and I know I felt (as did my kids) we got tremendous value from our MTCA experience and made life long friends. Coaching programs are also helpful about opportunities that you might not know about like newer programs and walk ins. All of that said, if it isn’t in the cards for a coaching program for whatever reason, there is plenty of ways to get information, including here. My free advice as someone who is a three time surrivor of BFA programs audition process:,have a long list, an open mind and a well stocked bar! Good luck!
D is part of Moo Crew, attended Moonifieds and Chicago Unifieds. She made what I think will be lasting friendships that way. She has found the Moo Crew kids to be a constant source of support along the way. They communicate via private FB page and from exchanging numbers privately along the way. Moo Crew kids were never a horde. They didn’t travel in a pack, their coach did not shepherd them at Unifieds, their coach did not meet with them in common areas of the Palmer House. In fact, my D had just two conversations with her Moo Crew coach all through Unifieds, and that was in a private room. My guess is that the kids who were in the larger groups were more likely from PA high schools. I don’t know for sure, of course, but I did hear of groups of kids traveling together to Unifieds so it just makes sense that they probably hung together too.
Oh, one more thing… D skyped with Mary Anna Dennard on several occasions and flew to Dallas to meet her in person just once before Moonifieds. It wasn’t really necessary to meet her in person, it was personal preference, and we found good airfare, and the timing was right. But we found the services she provided to be just what we needed. We had a good local team to support D on a weekly basis and Moo provided the over-arching support and knowledge of the programs and the process.
Some/many PA high schools travel to Unifieds as a group and naturally congregate in the lobby areas. This provides great support for the students involved, but can be a little intimidating for some singular student/parent pairs or students who attend alone.
Likewise, students who have attended summer programs sometimes congregate when they run into each other in the hallways or lobby areas, sometimes somewhat loudly.
For those without such support, it is something to get prepared for.
This:
It never fails to amaze me how small the performing arts community really is. And if they don’t know each other personally, you can be pretty certain that they have at least one friend in common.
;))
Chicago unifieds appears to get the largest group of PA high schools (really the boarding schools) traveling together to unifieds. As parents aren´t there with them, the directors do meet with them and go around with them quite a bit. Several of these schools bus kids in for Chicago unifieds -even some from the east coast, which is odd they go to Chicago vs NYC.
I hear this happens less so in LA and we didn´t see it at all in NYC. Of course, many kids that go to public PA schools may be traveling on their own with parents and happen to know others there. This was our case as my D goes to a public PA high school, where many kids go to unifieds. But we didn´t travel in a pack. We met for lunch or the parents hung out, but that was it. And the kids hung out, but often with people they knew from nationals or other high schools, too. We all went to auditions on our own. And none of their directors were in attendance.
When my d started the audition process, she found that many kids did seem to know each other, through school, programs, ect. Again we were naive about most of this process, didn’t know much about coaches/summer programs. But she quickly made friends and kept up with a lot of them throughout the process. And I made some friends too! In retrospect, and after reflecting on this thread in particular, it really depends on your kid - to use coach, summer programs, ect. It can be done without for sure! We did it. But, we also had a really great “home” team, she was meticulous about her material and had me to help with all the crazy research. A coach would have saved me a few gray hairs, and a lot of mother-daughter bickering! I am not sure it would have changed the outcome though, right now we are pretty happy with the result. With finances coming together, it looks as though the program she will choose is comparable with her twin sister’s instate university. It’s a huge relief. Best advice is get good grades and test scores! She ended up having a nice variety to choose from, but the scholarship money has made the biggest difference in the final decision making.
My D started this process last summer thinking MT, but switched to acting. We did not use a professional coach or go to any summer camps EVER but did send in her package via getacceptd.com and used their online coaches. We picked on Conservatory coach and one University coach. We were very happy with their feedback on her monologues, headshot, and resume. It gave us a sense of where she stood. It was only about $50 per coach. We also bought Mary Anna Dennard’s book-I read it, she didn’t really-lol.
She had great success this year-got into several “top” acting programs-surprising all of us! I personally like the prescreen process because it gives you an idea of where you stand at THAT school. She did wind up getting a callback from a school for MT at our state thespian convention-she auditioned with only monologues. He looked her up on Accetpd and offered her an on campus callback for MT.-she didn’t get in, but was really OK with that. I might use a coach if she wanted to do MT. I think one of the main benefits is the inside knowledge about schools?