Dear Parents,
My thoughts are with you this Fall, even though I don’t know any of you. Last year, I was in your shoes and I had no idea what I was in for! We survived; you will survive too. Many people really enjoy audition/travel season and the closeness it brings between the supporting parent and the MT applicant – I hope you ALL experience that closeness and treasure it. I hope your child ends up at exactly the right school for them. I hope neither of you go crazy, because that is a distinct possibility. This process is HARD and here’s a few thoughts for you from my “one whole year out” perspective.
Be prepared for the work. This is a year filled with tasks you will never do again – picking out headshots, filming prescreens from home (how can home lighting be this bad?!), running your kid across town or across the country for auditions, dealing with impossible logistics, high emotions and unexpected results. It’s a LOT of work, make time in your schedule and try not to stress if it’s all not perfect. All of us had imperfect prescreens, schedules and monologues too. Hold tight to your sense of humor about the problems you encounter, you’ll need it.
Prepare your kid (and yourself) for the randomness of results. For each school, there is a logical, reasonable process for applicant selection. But from the applicant’s view, acceptances seem completely random. Accept that and embrace it – accept that you don’t/can’t know what will happen. Don’t overthink how to get into A school or B school… pick a wide school list, let your performer do their best for each audition and cope with the results. There will be rejections and they will hurt. For every kid who rejoices in multiple offers there are 100+ who get back mostly “regrets”. My daughter passed a prescreen at one of the top MT programs in the country and had the same prescreen rejected by the lowest tier program she applied to. Why? I have ideas but I will never know and it’s a waste of time to even think about. The programs know what they want. Your performer’s job is to put themselves out there – your job is to help them cope with the bad times and celebrate the good.
Let go. Parents are naturally control freaks but you can’t “make” good things happen for them here. Let go of the idea that you can game the system or that any admissions result is a failure on anyone’s part. Admissions results are random (see above), you have no control over how things go and you can’t make things work out for your child, no matter how hard you try - sometimes it feels like a loving parent’s worst nightmare. It gets easier if you recognize what your role is – you aren’t in charge, you are support staff. Help your kid pick a good, wide school list and support them so they can do their best. That’s all you can do.
Do get help. GET HELP! Seriously, get help. Whether you use an online MT coach or a local teacher who has been through this before, get someone who knows what they are doing to help guide you through this next 6 months. Your college counselor will probably not be the helper you need.
Have a good back-up plan and talk about it. Each year a few students get unexpected results but if they prepared well enough, they are fine. There simply aren’t enough spaces for all of the applicants at most well-known programs so having a back-up plan is common sense. If that back-up is a gap year for training, talk it out and be prepared that this is an okay result. If the back-up is a BA program, make sure your actor loves the school and knows what it has to offer. Set your plan so there is no failure, only good options and better options.
Above all - have faith in the wacky process and don’t get discouraged. Finding a fit for a performing arts kid is difficult but when they start at a school where they finally fit… they blossom and they shine. And it’s wonderful. Despite the stress, the sadness, the work involved in applications – it is all worth it when your child is happy and thriving as an artist. The parents from last year’s board have freshmen who are uniformly very happy with their programs! Only 12 months from now, you’ll be the one writing this letter.
Hang on tight and I wish you all the best on this rocky ride.
Thank you for sharing! Right now, it seems like there is SOO MUCH work ahead of us. It is very daunting, but it’s encouraging to hear from everyone that has been through the process.
@CaMom13 Thank you for thinking of all of us! Last week was a productive one for us. Common App done, pre-screens filmed and submitted to those colleges accepting them and some live audiitons scheduled that do not require pre-screens. Feel we are keeping ahead of the MT beast for right now! So happy for this forum and all the support that is here! Certainly helped us get to where we are now in the process…
Hello from the other side! :)) Wishing you all good luck and “break a leg” to all your performers. Being with your child as they go through this process is like nothing else. We both actually kinda sorta enjoyed it…but then again, my D was in a gap year so we weren’t quite as frantic as most of you! We will never, ever forget freezing in Chicago during the unifieds…and the harrowing drive there in a snowstorm barely able to see through the windshield. (Note to southerners who might be heading to the Frozen North for auditions: MAKE SURE YOU USE WINDSHIELD WIPER FLUID WITH ANTIFREEZE IN IT! )
I’ll pitch in and wish everyone the best from the other side (FAR on the other side), but want to comment on one thing.
Having a working actor who is now several years out of college, I can safely say that these are all tasks your actor WILL be doing again… CONSTANTLY!! Given that, try to help your child glean all the learning they possibly can as they go through some of these experiences for the first time. It is never too soon to start honing a process for sorting through hundreds of potential headshots, filming auditions in sub-optimum conditions, auditioning after frantic high-stress travel, juggling competing priorities, and moving forward after surprising and often disappointing results. This is the stuff a career in acting is filled with, and either they learn to manage and sometimes even enjoy it, or the gypsy life may be a constant challenge. So as you move through this year, in the midst of the chaos, help them notice what works for them and what doesn’t. In some respects that learning may pay off almost as much as their college years will. Best of luck for a sometimes-fun and productive year ahead!!
Thank you for all this advice. Some days I feel DS and I are ahead of the game and some days I feel like we’re running uphill (today is one of those). Waiting for coaches to call back and schedule training, filming is so stressful! How hard is it to return a call, for God’s sake!
But on the bright side, we do have 4 auditions scheduled before Christmas and 5 apps submitted – waiting on academic pre-clearance to schedule the 5th audition in January.
@NYKaren You are doing great! Deep breath. I’m sure there are many reading who are not as far along as you are. I know last year, we were not as far along in Sept.
Thanks for the encouragement. My kid got her first “regrets” on a prescreen that looked like an obvious yes to me. Shrug. Move on. She has a long list. She’s worked professionally so she had a ton of auditioning and rejection under her belt. I’m very grateful to have the help and guidance of BTDT parents.
Thank you for posting this! My son is a junior so I’m sort of still on the “far side” but trying to soak up everything I can this year so we don’t both get run over by the train next year (I’ve watched friends do this and it seems…daunting). I will watch and learn eagerly.
@MTthreats what school(s) have you head back from on prescreens? We submitted 2 weeks ago for many schools that were already accepting. Do schools send emails? Or should we be looking at portals? Thanks! We are keeping postive…
@MTVTmom like everything in this process, it depends. Each school notifies differently. We checked portals almost daily. Also, be sure to check email (including spam) and your Acceptd portal (or whatever other platform the schools have used). Most of the schools that prescreened my D’s year used Acceptd.
It may be too late already for some of you, but a good idea someone on here told us about after D1 one had gone through this, that we utilized with D2 - make a college email account that you can share, that is ONLY for college stuff. It was very helpful to not have college stuff mixed in with all the other email junk that comes in on a daily basis.
Yes! We had a shared college account. It was invaluable. I got the notifications for new email on my phone so I could ask every day - did you see the email from XYZ? Make sure to check your clutter/junk (on hotmail/outlook) or promotions (on gmail) regularly too. I don’t know why but sometimes stuff just gets dumped there.
Thank you, I needed this ? today. First prescreen rejection and suddenly you’re questioning every video submission, every song and monologue choice for fear that they won’t get in anywhere… Trying to regroup to be the positive supportive light that’s needed and to try and remember that no matter what happens there is always a reason and place for each MT kid!
sounds like DS and you are doing great.