We are hoping to head up to Philly for the UArts Open House. I’d like to add 1 or 2 other schools to the trip. Any suggestions for schools that are nearby?
DS is a junior, and is still figuring out exactly what he wants in college, so I’m hoping that we can see a variety of programs, both B.F.A., and design/tech specific B.A.'s. He doesn’t want a “theater studies” type degree.
Muhlenberg (Allentown- not in Philly, and I’m not sure about the major/degree).
Nearby may be a relative term depending how you want to travel but Montclair and Hartt are “easy” by train. Drew?
Temple’s BA theater program is highly thought of.
UMBC is about 2 hours away in Catonsville, MD.
Thanks, lots of great suggestions to check out!
I wasn’t able to find any information about design/production on the Hartt website. Did I miss it, or is that not something that they offer?
@TDMom2 Hartt has a BSE - Bachelor of Science in Engineering Acoustical Engineering and Music. There is also a similar program thru the regular University of Hartford thru the College of Engineering, Technology and Architecture. I don’t know much personally about it but found it very unique if that’s your thing.
thanks @1998parent15 I agree that program sounds very cool. My son’s interests are different, but it’s neat to see how many options are out there!
On one trip, we flew in to Newark and did Muhlenberg, Wagner and Rider. I imagine the same could be done from Philly.
Thanks everyone!
I think we’ll try and see Rider, Temple and UArts.
UMBC is pretty close to home, so we’ll do that on a different day trip.
We’ll probably also plan a separate trip to look at schools in around NYC, such as Marymount Manhattan, Wagner, Drew and Montclair.
I don’t think Muhlenberg is a match.
Are there any other schools we should add to either trip?
SUNY Purchase (in Westchester NY) has a very good technical theater program.
Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers for your NJ/NY trip.
Penn State has a great program (I am biased).
I have heard great things about Penn State’s program. From where we live, it’s in a different direction than Philly, so if we check it out, it will probably be a separate trip.
If you do a trip for Penn State, you could also see CMU, Otterbein and CCM.
Are you going to check out UNCSA? They have an amazing program.
CCM is probably 6-8 hours from Penn state… google maps says 6 hrs 54 min
Otterbein is also many hours away and CMU isn’t right around the corner. Pennsylvania is a long state. I lived in Pittsburgh and went to school at Hofstra–a long, long state! 
I did a Penn State/Ithaca trip from DC. It’s about 3-4 hours each segment. (DC to PSU and PSU to Ithaca)
Yes, I know they aren’t that close, but you could see a school in the morning and then drive to the next and overnight.
We live in CA and everything is far for us. So we had to consolidate all the top choices into one 8 day trip. In order, we saw Northwestern & DePaul in Chicago. Then we drove 2 hours to see Purdue, since it was on the way to CCM. And then 3 more hours to see CCM. We didn’t really know about Otterbein until after the trip (and then D applied there), but it’s also 2 hours from CCM on the way to Pittsburgh, which is 3 hours from Otterbein. Penn State is 2 1/2 hours from CMU. You could even continue on to Ithaca as Techtheatrewiz suggests.
(We drove the 5 hours straight from CCM to Pittsburgh and then flew to Boston to see Emerson and BU and then took the train to NYC to see Pace.)
I grew up in NJ and went to CMU so I drove the PA Turnpike many, many times. 6 hours is no fun (which is also why I don’t like driving between SF and LA).
Thanks, those are all great suggestions.
I’m feeling like we should look at all of our more local schools, and get a better sense of what he wants. Then we can travel further afield to places that meet his criteria.
For example, right now he’s saying that he wants a small school, but he’s never actually seen a large one. We’ll look at UMBC and Temple. If he finds them big and overwhelming, then we won’t pay to travel to Penn State. Since he’s a junior, we’ve got some time.