I’m really worried about S19 being shut out of admissions (performing arts), but I don’t think rolling/EA will be available to him. There are only one or two schools on his barely formed list that offer a November audition day for EA applicants, but he likely won’t be ready by then. This thing is going to go on until April 2019.
He could look at a non-audition B.A. program (I have found only one in the chosen geographic region), but he doesn’t want a liberal arts curriculum. I think at least one will have to go on his list, but, ugh. I also want him to apply to one school as a non-music major, but that seems to be a hard sell, too.
D16 got a few acceptances in December of her senior year and it such a relief.
Rolling admissions are frequently harder to get into later in the cycle when they have less seats available. The same with EA schools. The idea of getting another semester of grades under the belt and applying RD is usually a harder road because there are so fewer seats available.
Just as a point of fact, it’s effectively impossible for a student to be shut out of college admissions. There are enough open-admissions colleges—even the fine arts programs in many of them—that anyone who wants to go to college and has the money to cover their EFC can go.
@me29034 We did this for my older son. He had two acceptances (both of which were safeties but schools were he said “yeah I could be happy there”) by Nov. 11 or so. It kept the stress level down for a while until he was waiting for the three that he wanted (which came later in the process). It is an excellent strategy.
D19 finished up the school year yesterday. Looks like she will finish up with a 3.45 GPA (3.73 WGPA). SAT is a 1290 and hoping for slight improvement from the June test. Plan is to give her a couple weeks of no college talk and then get started with her essay (she claims to have a draft which they did in English class) in July and finalizing her list of schools. Also plan on knocking out a few applications that open up July 1 (Alabama, Kansas and Ole Miss). Last I heard her top 3 schools are Delaware, JMU and Elon.
@dfbdfb – about your earlier post re: getting shut out of college admissions – I can assure you my D’s friend was indeed “shut out” of college admissions, as she was not accepted to any of the schools she applied to.
But your point is well taken re: “has the money to cover their EFC” as she has a very high EFC and her parents could not afford that cost, so she was focusing on in-state options and OOS options that were roughly the cost of in-state.
And to follow up on D’s friend – she did finally apply to one of the NACAC “space available” schools in-state, and learned that the performing arts major she was seeking was already full, so there was no space for her at the “space available” school. So she is going to attend the nearby community college and will either attempt a transfer after one year, or she will go the guaranteed admissions track with one of the state universities.
But @OrangeFish, then she wasn’t shut out—she went to a community college. That was kind of my point—yes, it’s possible to be shut out of a list of selective (even mildly selective) schools, but there are always options for the college-bound.
She absolutely did not want to attend community college, @dfbdfb ,and she calls herself “shut out” and she is very upset by her results. I go with her definition.
@OrangeFish, that’s sort of Humpty-Dumptyish, though, isn’t it? I mean, there’s being shut out, and then there’s feeling shut out. I’d argue (strenuously!) that those are two very, very different things.
Was she not admitted to any schools, or could she not afford the schools where she was accepted?
I know to her it doesn’t matter and still feels like all were a big NO, but there were schools that would have accepted her. In fact, it sounds like the instate school did/would have accepted her, but not into her desired major.
@dfbdfb – not sure if the differences in labeling matter from her perspective.
“Hi sweetie – I know you wanted to major in theatre and wanted to get a BFA, but the schools we can afford to send you to will not accept you. But that’s okay, because you can get accepted by this school over here, and it is kind of like a BFA but instead it is a BA, and they do not have a theatre major BUT they do have a communications major, and you can audition for parts in the plays because everyone can audition for parts in the plays.”
@twoinanddone – she was not admitted to any schools. She specifically did not apply to schools where she would not be able to afford to attend.
@OrangeFish If I applied only to Harvard, and didn’t get in, then that would match your daughter’s friend’s definition of being “shut out.”
The problem is that she cast too narrow a net. And that by the time she got around to applying to that state school, they were already full.
The system would have worked, had she either been guided better or chosen to accept that guidance… not sure which is the case here.
Yes, of course she’s upset. Every kid who didn’t get in to the school(s) he or she wanted is or was upset. But “upset” in January means there are still workable options. That same feeling in May is a different story; your options are much more limited.
My daughter wasn’t happy with the options she faced in January. Rejected from her top two choices, though accepted to a few other schools that she had decided she didn’t like. So she applied to a few more.
She had Orientation Friday at the school she’ll be attending-- a school she had never heard of before January. She is absolutely giddy with anticipation-- this school is positively the school she was meant to attend. (It’s 67 days until she returns to start for the fall semester, in case you’re wondering. I’m not doing the countdown, she is.)
My sympathies to your daughter’s friend, and to every other kid in this position. But, again, my position is that the system works. But you’ve got to be realistic in your expectations, apply early, and be willing to widen your search if that first round doesn’t work in your favor.
@orangefish I would consider my kid to be shut out of admissions if he applied to what we thought were a reasonable set of safeties and matches and didn’t get accepted into his major. It’s not as if there is something else that is just like theater, or art, or music. And I’m not sure that there are true safeties in these fields other than non-audition/non-portfolio programs which are sometimes less attractive for other reasons. (In music, it may be a B.A. with a really watered down music curriculum, and I’ve only come across one of those so far. At a school that’s too expensive).
CC can be over the top and I appreciate the sanity that this thread brings, but even most of the parents on the B student threads wouldn’t be here if they were just as happy to send their kids to community college.
I totally agree with you @bjkmom that “the problem is that she cast too narrow a net.” She only applied to 15 schools (I thought she had applied to a dozen but my D19 insists it was 15 schools) and the majority were what she thought were matches, but with BFA programs it is pretty difficult to predict what is a match. (To use your Harvard example, she did apply to three “reach” schools – CCM, CMU, and UNCSA. The remaining dozen schools were all BFA matches.)
She did not apply to any BA programs because she wanted BFA programs, not BA programs, and the in-state if-she-had-only-applied-sooner schools only had BA programs.
Maybe she should have thought about another major? I suppose that’s an option for all students.
Anyway – what all this means for “Jane” is she is trying to figure out what to do next. How all this has affected my D19 is she is having a very tough time trimming her college list, as she “doesn’t want to end up like “Jane”.” My thought is the competitiveness of BFA Acting programs is much higher than BFA theatre tech programs.
From what I know there are no direct admit acting BFA safeties. The only other option are schools that don’t admit by major but which allow students to matriculate into their BFA programs based on performance freshmen or sophomore year. For example, Hofstra has a program like this. I believe Drew does as well but I am not sure.
@OrangeFish agree with @gallentjill. And as for tech theater BFA programs (since I know we both have an interest in that area), they may be less competitive than the acting or MT programs, but there are still very few that I would characterize as “safeties.” The Ohio state schools’ Design and Production BFA programs do not require a portfolio review so I would consider those safeties as long as you meet academic requirements for admission, but other than those, I am not aware of any BFA program that is anything close to a shoe-in. And even there, you need to pass an annual portfolio review sophomore through senior year in order to stay in the program. My D’s back-ups will be a couple of BA programs and one of the Ohio BFA programs.
My D19 plans for some BA backups as well, @Bubblewrap666 and she has Ohio state schools with BFA programs on her list. She also has URI (BFA with no portfolio review required) on her list.
But my D’s GPA is not as high as “Jane’s” so D19 is trying to identify more “probably” acceptances for BA schools.
Really, though, the fine arts college application process is radically different from anything else—I’d suggest that anyone going through it needs to apply to at least a couple safeties that aren’t just safeties, but are non-audition/portfolio safeties.
@eh1234 some parents do have community colleges on the continuum of options . It’s not uncommon for students in my area to start at a CC and transfer to a four year institution and some of their parents are on CC. It’s unfortunate that some people see this as " settling" instead if a viable financial option .
