<p>It does, these kids absolutely amaze me. I wish I had an ounce of their courage and bravery…I could never put myself out there, not sure I ever would be able to deal with the rejection and I know that I would lose all ability to talk if I ever had a spotlight put on me!!!</p>
<p>My daugther has had not that much involvement with the theater program at her school for a lot of reasons so many of the kids don’t really know her that well. They had a debate in her Criminal Justice class on an issue she feels passionate about. She just simply floored her class and her teacher by her ability to take the “stage” in the debate and make her points. So yes, there are some areas where the drama training comes in handy.</p>
<p>Well, I am sitting her laughing my head off both at some of the comments:) and also because when I first came to this site and sent my first post, I responded to each person that posted a response. I did this due to inexperience and the fact that I felt if you can take the time to answer my question I can take the time to thank you. Well, as I saw more and more comments I realized that answering everyone and thanking everyone everytime they respond is a FT job. </p>
<p>Therefore:</p>
<p>Thank you everyone for all of your responses previously and all of those to come:):):):):)</p>
<p>Yes, Photomom is right I am looking at programs with the least amount of academics if any at all possible. BFA at Universities and Conservatories.</p>
<p>To the person who provided names or schools other then the big ones, thank you. I spent last night looking up some of these and one of them Otterbein stood out as unique and a great option. I have heard of this program before through a whisper and only recalled it when you mentioned it. I also thought Coastal Carolina looked interesting. I actually think my daughter would do better in a smaller program, where she might have more opportunties, then in a bigger program with more kids. Could be wrong but we will see. Did your daughter take the ACT? </p>
<p>We did look at USC and actually were considering the summer program there but decided to pass on it due to the cost and having to get ready for college expenses. The BFA program looks good, I cannot remember the academic requirments, it is very expensive, and I heard hard to get in if you do not live in CA.</p>
<p>UArts which someone else mentioned has a summer program that is much cheaper and seems interesting and so does Columbia College Chicago. I am not sure where all these high cost programs are coming from. We did UNCSA last summer and they were not nearly as much as USC, NYU, or some of these other programs. Even the summer conservatories like AADA and NYCDA are expensive. My daughter is going to audition in March for the NYCDA New York program and see how much of a scholarship she is offered.</p>
<p>For the summer I am also checking out a small program in CA that is budget friendly called Theatre Arts. There is no housing so I am not sure. Has anyone heard of this program? They also have a two year Assoc degree program in directing and acting I think. </p>
<p>I wish there was a summer program out there that spent the entire 3-4 weeks on auditioning prep. That would be awesome! UCLA and Pepperdine have a one week camp but it really is only four days or less since you arrive on Monday and leave on Friday.</p>
<p>Photomom, I also looked up your daughters school and it looks great, however, I think it is more MT, please correct me if I am wrong.</p>
<p>Actingdad, I know you mentioned that doing the Unified auditions is something we should highly consider and since you have that experience and seem to know what you are talking about we are looking into that. I am however also contemplating going to indivdual schools even though that could limit the number of schools we audition for due to cost. Why that route you may ask? Well, I was thinking a number of things; Seeing the school and the area and what it is like. Other then Julliard & NYU (son went to summer program there/ son went to a ballet comp there), UNCSA (summer program), UARTS (son went to a ballet school down the street from there), CM and Point Park (Lived in Pittsburgh before), I would think my daughter might want to see with her own eyes, meeting the actual teachers and current students. Basically an eyes on deck sort of mentality I think. Thoughts on this are very much welcomed:)</p>
<p>UGADOG, did your daughter visit Otterbein or Coastal Carolina? Just wondered what she thought of the programs, campus, area, students, atmosphere.</p>
<p>ShaCherry. We did look at Chapman and it is an option. I need to read more about the requirements and courses. Is your son going there to audition?</p>
<p>stagemum, how long has your son been at UARTS? Did he ever do the summer program?</p>
<p>threed…Shenandoah has both musical theatre and acting (two different tracts). My daughter is in the acting program, though she loves dancing and takes tap and ballet. Most of her acting friends have nothing to do with dance, this is just her thing. My son, who also loves to dance, is also going the acting route, but is hoping to be able to take dance as well. Did you look at Hartt/University of Hartford? Also a strong conservatory without strenuous academics, I think (Gwen Fairfax can answer that better…).</p>
<p>Threed, we have not visited, yet. Our interviews begin next weekend and run through February 23. We will be visiting/interviewing/portfolio reviewing at Virginia Commonwealth, Shenandoah, Otterbein, Wright State, DePaul (which I accidentally left off the list), and ending at Point Park. Webster and Evansville will be auditions at our Thespian Conference. If things go well with those two, we may squeeze in visits over spring break. </p>
<p>ACT: horrendous, really, really horrendous…but with her accommodations she did manage to score “just” high enough…just horrible… 
Having said that, though, there is a list of schools that are test optional. Give me a bit and I’ll find it for you. After researching the websites, she picked DePaul for her test optional school. </p>
<p>What I have learned about this process in the last year is overwhelming. It really is a two step deal in most cases. We’ve had a lot of academic acceptances, which obviously are important, but we are anxiously awaiting artistic acceptances. I spent a large part of my summer researching the course requirements for all the schools she might be interested in attending. We really tried to limit applications to those schools that were “light” on academics.</p>
<p>Here is the website for test optional schools. It takes some time to go through and see which ones offer programs your D would like, but I think it’s worth the effort.</p>
<p>[SAT/ACT</a> Optional 4-Year Universities | FairTest](<a href=“http://fairtest.org/university/optional]SAT/ACT”>ACT/SAT Optional List - Fairtest)</p>
<p>I was thinking about this last night. If I had one piece of advice for parents heading into this process, I would say Unifieds, Unifieds, Unifieds!! I so wish we had planned on doing them. It would have cut some of our travel down and made things a lot easier. I just didn’t understand the whole process, and by the time I did, it just wouldn’t work for us. However, I HIGHLY suggest others just starting this journey really look at Unifieds.</p>
<p>Unifieds has completely changed the way we do things. For our daughter, we were clueless and limited due to travel and time restrictions (schools and shows). For my son, Unifieds has opened up the auditioning process to quite a few more schools…although I have a feeling he will end up choosing the school he auditioned for onsite.</p>
<p>Threed, to the extent I know what I’m talking about (and that remains a questionable proposition), it is only from reading this Board for a couple of years. One of my friends once said of me that I’m often wrong but never in doubt so please keep that in mind as well. </p>
<p>I grant you that there is a ton of benefit and visiting each school and we would have done on Campus auditions at each school if it was feasible. But even living reasonably close to a number of schools (U of Arts, Rutgers, Purchase, NYU & Juiliard), there was no way we could do all 15 schools my daughter applied to without doing some schools at Unifieds. We are down to 13 schools now (she dropped 2 after getting accepted at U of Arts and Hartt) but still doing CCM, Ottebein, Depaul & NCSA at Unifieds. </p>
<p>As to the 4 schools, we have not visited any of them. We gave up on the idea of trying to see all the schools in advance as just not being doable. Our thought is that once she finds out what the limited numbers of schools are that she gets accepted at, we can then plan to visit other schools.</p>
<p>I think for people outside the NYC area it gets even crazier to try to attempt a large number of schools without doing unifieds.</p>
<p>Threed,</p>
<p>I found CC very early. My son is in 10th grade. He is a professional child/teen actor so as close to LA or NY is a major requirement. Chapman is on the list right now. Another LA school with an acting BA that seems good on paper is Loyola Marymount U right on the west side of LA. He is okay with trading off a bit more core classes in exchange for being close enough to casting offices to audition when something great pops up.</p>
<p>Hey, Threed, I’m one of the crazies who has both taken my kid to visit campuses and auditioned on campus as much as possible (7 out of 8 auditions will have been on site, and the 8th one we were able to visit over the summer). As I’m sure the other parents will attest, knowing your kid is the key to making this decision. Mine is not the type who can learn much from–or base decisions on–marketing, curriculum, and reputation. Curriculum matters but, for him, people and overall atmosphere are crucial and must be experienced first-hand. Just what works for us, and it’s definitely not easy (or cheap!) but we’ve managed. I’m probably influenced to some extent by seeing many former h.s. students over the years who’ve ended up transferring from their colleges because they just didn’t know what they were getting into. And I think for theater programs, a strong sense of fit is vitally important, so whatever helps YOUR kid assess the school is the right thing to do. Transferring is also an expensive nuisance… I’ve found that the audition process, stretched out over several months and many miles, has helped my son clarify his goals and preferences. Do what you can, and best of luck. It’s a fun process!</p>
<p>threed - My son is a freshman, in his first year at UArts. He did not participate in any summer programs there.</p>