NYU vs. BU

<p>skipsmom, there are a lot of kids at Tisch and I don’t know the norm but I think the students get to work with industry professionals both as faculty members and those who are brought in to work with the students. Further there are connections with one another…D has friends going into directing and has also worked with those in the Graduate Musical Theater Writing program and has gotten work through these people outside of school, in school, summers, and for pay as well and hasn’t even graduated yet. The fact that my D was hired for professional work by a faculty member who is well known in the theater industry…not sure the norm for that but it is not like she is the ONLY student by far to do so! As far as the industry nights (showcase), she surely is not the only one in that either, nor the only one to secure an agent from it…many friends have done so even if not every student. Where she goes from here following graduation…don’t know! But the claim that they just throw you to the wolves and have no connections in the industry is quite laughable with regard to Tisch. Even the mere fact that it is in NYC has meant many opportunities in the field in and out of school and with much networking. So much of what my D has done so far is due to Tisch. But it is not necessarily unique to Tisch and is possible through other BFA programs, as well, to be sure! For instance, getting an agent from the showcase is not unique to Tisch. Going to an audition in NYC and having the casting director recognize you and comment about their thoughts about you having seen you in showcase, is not unique to Tisch. For that matter, it is not unique to my daughter. My daughter has not yet graduated or hit the audition circuit as she chose to wait until she finished her education. But she has many friends at Tisch who did audition while in college and left either temporarily or permanently and have been cast on Broadway, National Tours, and in film. Tisch may not be for everyone but “lack of connections” is one thing that is not in the “con” list for Tisch! The opposite is true. :D</p>

<p>I thought there was a current BU acting student on CC but now I cannot find her (him?). Perhaps my son and I were remiss in not obtaining a copy of the curricula for the Acting and Theatre Arts BFA programs at BU. He talked to a lot of students and faculty during his visit but did not think to request that.</p>

<p>It has been my understanding that the academic requirements for BU BFA acting are rather slim…certainly less than those at Tisch. My son does not mind that.</p>

<p>I did find the following 9/9/05 post from “caromom”: </p>

<p>“My daughter is a freshman in the BU acting program this year. It’s a fabulous performance-oriented program but there is little liberal arts education – one arts and sciences elective a semester and one fine arts elective a semester. The BFA in Theatre Arts has a little more room for humanities classes, but not much.”</p>

<p>Probably the requirements have not changed…</p>

<p>I’d have to look up the requirements for BU myself as I can’t speak intelligently about them. If it were my kid, I’d want him to do so as well before comparing that with Tisch (the days of the week are not the relevant point). </p>

<p>However, based on carosmom’s post…BU sounds similar to Tisch. Her words are there is an arts/sciences course per semester and a fine arts course per semester. Same at Tisch…there is a humanities/science class per semester and a Theater Studies class per semester (in general terms)!</p>

<p>Can you explain how the BU academic requirements are less than Tisch? It would help me to know what you mean as I have had students apply to BU and I have not read the requirements there.</p>

<p>Soozievt, I feel like an idiot but the “less academics at BU” was just a general impression. It didn’t seem important until my son brought up the topic yesterday and my mention of it here sparked this discussion.</p>

<p>I have not been able to find the BU BFA in Acting and Theatre Arts curricula via their website. Probably we can call or e-mail tomorrow and request them.</p>

<p>One thing that I don’t exactly understand about Tisch…at the general info session at auditions, they gave us the impression that a lot of the academic requirements are in fact electives having to do with theatre. (My son liked the sound of those electives.)</p>

<p>I know the BU freshmen in the performance core take a dramatic literature class. My son sat in on one of these classes and enjoyed the lively discussion of Turgenev. What I don’t know is whether that class counts as the “fine arts elective” that caromom mentioned. (Probably not - I assume it’s a core requirement…and if not, perhaps BU’s academic requirements are <em>more</em> than Tisch’s, lol.)</p>

<p>I have now searched BU’s site and can’t find the requirements. I cannot tell you if the academic requirements are more or less than those at Tisch. I just want to suggest that you make an INFORMED decision and first you mentioned that Tisch has academics for two days and BU doesn’t but that is merely the scheduling. You have to look at numbers of classes in theater and liberal arts and credits and hours in class. At Tisch, my D is very immersed in theater 7 days and nights per week. </p>

<p>Then, you mentioned that Tisch has more academic requirements than BU. I don’t know to be honest with you but you then said “one arts/sciences and one fine arts course per semester” at BU and I’ll tell you what the Tisch requirements are and indeed Tisch does provide this on THEIR site. </p>

<p>If your son attends Tisch, here are the requirements outside of the studio training (studio training itself is about 25 hours/week of classtime, and of course there is all the production work and so on):</p>

<p>7 Theater Studies courses which include two required ones Freshman year (Intro to Theater Production and Intro to Theater Studies) and so five of these are self selected courses in a very wide range of areas in theater </p>

<p>8 Liberal Arts courses which include two semesters of Writing the Essay required of Tisch freshmen…then 2 courses are self selected from Humanities, 2 from Sciences (very broadly defined encompassing many departments including ones such as Political Science) and then 2 self selected courses from either Humanites or Sciences. </p>

<p>That’s it.</p>

<p>I guess it just goes to show that you can’t go by what “they say.” I have read innumerable posts on this forum and it has been my impression that NYU/Tisch is ONE of the programs that requires more in the way of academics than some of the others that are considered “highly ranked” or “very competitive” or whatever.</p>

<p>It has been my impression that schools like Juilliard, Rutgers, Purchase, NCSA, CMU, etc, require almost nothing in the way of academic electives that are not directly related to theatrical learning…and that is what makes them conservatories.</p>

<p>In addition (according to my admittedly limited understanding based on reading many posts on CC), it is my impression that acting programs like those at BU and Tisch - as well as many, many other BFA acting programs - are not “true” conservatories because they require more, academics wise, than the “pure conservatories” (“true”…“pure”…sounds like we are talking about political ideologies or something, lol) such as those listed above.</p>

<p>I agree that it would be good for my son to know exactly how Tisch and BU compare in terms of academic requirements, so I will find out about BU and post here for the enlightenment of others.</p>

<p>NJTheatreMom…it’s true that, for example, NYU has more academic requirements than CMU or NCSA or Rutgers. I just can’t say whether or not that it does compared to BU as I don’t have their requirements. But since many are reading these forums, I think it is important that misinformation or misunderstanding be clarified. And when you mentioned how much academics NYU had based on days of the week, it was not the correct measure, in my opinion. NYU DOES have conservatory training. When you mentioned that NYU has more academic requirements than BU and mentioned you based that on carosmom’s post that listed one academic and one fine arts elective per semester at BU, I wanted to point out, IF that is true, that is akin to NYU’s requirements overall. </p>

<p>So, not only would I want my kid to make his decision on correct information and to be well informed of the differences if I were you (and it seems you guys do not have the BU requirements in hand, yet seem to know which school requires more academics), I also care about what others read on the forum and to share what I know when I read some misconceptions or misinformation about a program such as NYU (such as upthread when Becca talked about the lack of connections at NYU!!). </p>

<p>That said, if your son likes BU better, I would fully support that choice!</p>

<p>It occurs to me that possibly Tisch’s reputation for being academically oriented may have to do with the fact that its Theatre Studies electives are intellectually rigorous and demanding?? Not that this would be a bad thing at ALL. I like it. :-)</p>

<p>I seem to have a vague recollection of somebody posting about how much work some of the theatre studies classes involve.</p>

<p>At a school that is looser in its elective requirements (as BU may well be), there might be a tendency for students to seek out the softest, least rigorous electives they can find. I don’t know. It’s just a guess.</p>

<p>Re post #47 above. I do apologize for posting something that was apparently incorrect and based on assumptions rather than solid information. I am glad that you were here to correct me, Soozie.</p>

<p>The Theater Studies course options are MANY and the students choose which ones to take after the freshmen required ones. For instance, there is one about the history of musical theater and it was a ridiculously easy gut course that my D didn’t feel she learned much new and there are other theater studies courses that are hands on and others that are more papers. There is a wide variety of options…you can look them up. My D enjoyed almost all of them. She even wrote musical adaptations in one of them…she wrote a musical excerpt based on Lord of the Flies in fact and they performed in class and so on. It was not all books and papers!</p>

<p>Here are some things that may be helpful. </p>

<p>[Boston</a> University College of Fine Arts](<a href=“http://www.bu.edu/cfa/theatre/prospective/undergraduate/acting/]Boston”>http://www.bu.edu/cfa/theatre/prospective/undergraduate/acting/)</p>

<p>You have to do this: [Boston</a> University College of Fine Arts](<a href=“http://www.bu.edu/cfa/theatre/prospective/undergraduate/performance/index.shtml]Boston”>http://www.bu.edu/cfa/theatre/prospective/undergraduate/performance/index.shtml)</p>

<p>Thanks early_college. I think Soozie and I were looking for something more detailed, like on Tisch’s website…listings that include credit hours for all four years of the acting track, exact requirements for electives, etc. </p>

<p>This list of classes is just for the first year performance core.</p>

<p>I understand. But so many college’s websites give terrible information. I know NYU has a good website and could be useful. I read BU’s website and it is also vague. It took me months until I found what I was looking for on Simon’s Rock website. I had to dig hard and deep. I think some college’s need to remodel the website.</p>

<p>My son e-mailed an Adler student he obtained contact info for, and here is a list he was sent:</p>

<p>"Adler Technique- exercises involve prop work, pretending you are in a specific set of circumstances and describing it, doing actions while speaking text. A lot of written work, rehearsal, and sitting in class and watching everyone do it.</p>

<p>Voice and Speech- learning all the vowels, consonants, and sounds. Using them to rehearse poems, sonnets, and other texts.</p>

<p>Ballet- self-explanatory.</p>

<p>Movement- half warm-up with a lot of ab work, half learning how your body moves through improv exercises, half learning dances.</p>

<p>Scene Study- get picked a scene and you rehearse it with a lot of written work, character projects, and rehearsal.</p>

<p>Character- learning different characters and making them seem realistic and normal."</p>

<p>The student also said the faculty is very friendly and the students get very close to them. He said New York is totally the place to be and that he is “making more connections than anyone I know in other programs and also have the opportunity to go on open calls for Broadway and other stuff.” He said the kids work very, very hard.</p>

<p>(My son also sent an e-mail to Paolo DiFabio at BU asking him for the complete BFA acting curriculum with all requirements listed.)</p>

<p>That description sounds great, njtheatermom, and not like a too-narrow focus at all.</p>

<p>Remember, too, that is just the freshman year studio classes, not all four years.</p>

<p>We are going up to visit Adler tomorrow. A young lady named Stacey who works there and is a graduate of the program is going to talk with us and show us around.</p>

<p>I believe my son is going to call actressmom’s daughter also and tell her we will be visiting.</p>

<p>I’ll post afterwards and let you know how it goes. :-)</p>

<p>Glad you will make it up to Adler. Ask actressmom’s D, or the freshman student I hooked you up with, or even Stacey, if they can get you in to observe a class. Sometimes a current student can ask their teacher to have a visitor, and particularly an accepted student. </p>

<p>Try to find out at BU what the liberal arts and theater studies course requirements are, and not just the BFA curriculum.</p>

<p>In my view, it is a good idea to do this visit even if your son picks BU because then he will have made an informed decision and be better able to compare apples to apples.</p>

<p>Soozie, the student I quoted upthread was the student you hooked us up with. My son asked him about visiting a class in his initial e-mail. The young man did not respond to that, though he answered a number of other questions. </p>

<p>Stacey said it would not be possible for my son to observe a class. </p>

<p>If my son contacts actressmom’s daughter and she has studio tomorrow, then maybe…(?)</p>

<p>When he goes, he should approach a variety of students milling about the studio outside of class and ask them questions as an admitted student. The more perspectives he garners, especially off the cuff, the better.</p>