<p>Huh? BU has a separate school for drama and it is really good. [Message</a> from the Director College of Fine Arts | Boston University](<a href=“http://www.bu.edu/cfa/theatre/about/]Message”>http://www.bu.edu/cfa/theatre/about/)</p>
<p>I don’t see how JHS can say “It really doesn’t have a theater program.”</p>
<p>You are absolutely right, of course, jonri. I don’t know how I missed that. I actually know people who went there, but in visual arts, not theater. I looked yesterday, but somehow missed it on the BU webpage, and saw only a minor in Theater Studies in its college of arts and sciences.</p>
<p>I think that you have too many schools to visit in a week. I actually like your approach of skipping the uber-reaches and visiting the safeties and matches. The purpose of these visits is to see where it’s worth investing the time to apply and to log an expression of interest in the schools that care about level of interest. One of the reasons that schools care about level of interest is that they know that you only have so much time. </p>
<p>You can go to [College</a> Admissions - SAT - University & College Search Tool](<a href=“http://www.collegeboard.org%5DCollege”>http://www.collegeboard.org), search for each school, and see if they consider level of interest as a factor in admissions. If they don’t, it takes less time to apply than to visit. Just skip them. Harvard, Yale and Columbia do not consider level of interest as admissions factors, Brown does. Skip the first 3 altogether. It’s not like she won’t be applying to those anyway. Plan to visit those if she gets in. </p>
<p>In terms of the car, I say keep the car and use it. The cost of one way rentals, and everything else just pales in comparison to the cost of college. Just suck it up and don’t waste your time with public transportation. The only exception is Manhattan where public transportation is actually faster. The big problem you might find is finding a place to park in Manhattan that is a Park and Lock lot. Because every inch of real estate is so valuable, most parking garages make you leave the key in which case your luggage is in jeopardy. If you can find a Park and Lock lot around Columbia in advance, then it’s worth driving there. The other problem with the garages where you leave your key is that it can take a while for them to move 20 other cars to get yours out!</p>
<p>If it’s not too late, try to fly to Providence on Tuesday morning or Monday night and visit Brown. If you can’t change your flight, then it’s not a bad drive to Brown from Logan, maybe an hour. Then drive to Boston that night and stay in Boston. Visit BU and Tufts on Wednesday. Drive to Vassar, visit in on Thursday, drive to a hotel in Queens near the Queensboro bridge. I personally like the Verve but there are a few others in the same general area. The Verve has limited free parking but it’s first come first serve. There is street parking though. Drop your bags in your room and take the subway to Greenwich Village and hang out around NYU for dinner and just to take it in. Take a cab back to your hotel, roughly $25. In the morning, if you’re not already parked in the hotel garage, pull into to the garage and load up your bags out of sight so the loading process is not seen by everyone. Then legally park on the street. Take the subway to Columbia, leaving an hour (it won’t take that long, but you may not be familiar with the subway and you have to change trains). I think that you’d get more mileage out of visiting NYU than Columbia because Columbia doesn’t consider level of interest. Take a cab so that you are back at your car by 1:30 if you have to check bags, and 2:00 if you don’t. Then drive to LaGuardia (between 15-30 minutes). It shouldn’t take more than 30 minutes to get from Columbia back to your hotel by taxi. Again, probably $35. All of this cab fare will be paid for by money you save on your hotel by staying in Queens rather than Manhattan.</p>
<p>Confused yet? </p>
<p>You’ve got two different issues to sort out. One is whether your visiting plan is logistically feasible. The other is whether you’re visiting schools that are going to meet your objective of finding a good safety for your D. </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I agree whole heartedly with what JHS has said–and if you’ve read these boards for a long time, you’ll know that’s pretty rare ! 
</p>
<p>I just know SO many kids who make the same mistakes. They apply to reaches, matches and safeties which attract kids with the same interests. They think they can treat LACs that admit a lot of their students in early rounds as safeties when they are applying in the regular round. </p>
<p>Actually, Vassar is not as “bad” as I thought. From its website:
Still, when you look the percentage admitted, remember that the overall percentage admitted is going to be higher than in the regular round. The common data set for Vassar for 2010/11 says 5414 women applied and 1055 of them were accepted. If my math is right, that means about the overall admit rate for women is about 18.4%. I don’t see separate data for women in the regular round, but the percentage will be lower in the regular round, certainly no more than 15 %. I don’t think the OP can think of it as a safety–but interest is considered, so it may be worth a visit. Again, if the OP’s D had the lead in a major motion picture or is a URM or has some other hook, this analysis doesn’t apply.</p>
<p>But, go back to the drawing board and find some schools that do “hit the sweet spot” and add them.</p>
<p>We found it useful to visit colleges by ‘type’ - so one big state school stood in for all of them. You could consider that Brown/Yale/Harvard are all one ‘type’ - walking around any one of them is probably sufficient.
Tufts is a bit more suburban, although it is very easy to get into the city.
Columbia/BU/Northeastern are all large and very urban , without the usual campus feel - visiting one of those would be important.
Emerson is very small, and somewhat unique, and therefore, I think , well worth a visit.
Can’t comment on Vassar - wasn’t a school we considered.
Logan to Brown in an hour is a bit optimistic and will depend a lot on traffic and your ability to navigate.
I would recommend spending a little time on the subway system in either Boston or NYC - if your daughter will be living in either of these cities, she’ll be using it and should know what that is like (assuming you live in a town without a subway.)
Does she actually want to do some math - there probably isn’t much at Emerson, but she’ll be in the heart of academia - there are lots of interesting math lectures and such for the public nearby.</p>
<p>I would guess that BU (and Northeastern) is the safety, Tufts and Vassar are matches and the others being considered are the reaches. If she likes Boston, apply to both BU and Northeastern. The value of the BU visit is potentially finding a safety that she likes. The value of the Tufts, Brown and Vassar visits is both assessing and demonstrating interest. The NYU program might consider level of interest, but in general NYU does not. </p>
<p>Because Harvard and Yale are in the picture, as it sounds like they should be, there will be no ED for this applicant. There is no reason to waste your precious time on THIS trip visiting a school before being admitted that does not consider level of interest when making an admissions decision. You have so many other important visits to make. Right now, you and she are working on deciding where to apply. Next April, she will be deciding where to attend. Those “due diligence” visits after an acceptance are a lot more valuable in my opinion then pre-application visits where it’s difficult to let yourself fall in love with a place because you have so little chance of getting in.</p>
<p>^^“Columbia/BU/Northeastern are all large and very urban , without the usual campus feel - visiting one of those would be important.”</p>
<p>I have to respectfully disagree with this comment. If all that’s being compared here is physical feel, Columbia is probably closer to Penn and Brown than BU and NEU. Of course, this could be a thread all it’s own, and the truth remains that the OP probably planned more than she can do. Although, IIRC, she’s already enroute (which may be why she hasn’t posted again in a day or so) so it will be interesting to see how her reality jived with our opinions and predictions.</p>
<p>I’m beating a dead horse here, but BU is IMO a horrible choice for a safety if she wants to act and isn’t planning to apply to the School of Fine Arts. </p>
<p>As terriwtt explained:
</p>
<p>BU does have an excellent program in theatre–which is a different school from school of liberal arts and which requires an audition. Because it does have a good acting school, being an actor really isn’t going to help much in getting in. More importantly, if she’s not in the BFA program, her opportunities to act will be more limited than if she goes to a school without one. </p>
<p>I wouldn’t recommend going to NYU to an actor who wasn’t planning to go to Tisch either. </p>
<p>Add in the fact that because these schools have so many phenomenal actors, being a very good actor doesn’t help in the admissions process, especially if you aren’t going ED.</p>
<p>It’s a distraction from the main point of this thread, but the Columbia campus is not anything like BU, Brown or Penn. BU is a bunch of big, boxy,functional buildings strung out along busy streets, a business district more than a campus (albeit with a lovely river as one boundary). Penn is huge and sprawly, and has buildings on major streets with traffic whizzing by, but also large, protected quads with Frank Furness buildings, pedestrian arcades, playing fields, tons of nooks and crannies. Brown is also pretty sprawly, but more open, and in a much quieter neighborhood. And Columbia . . . Columbia’s main campus area is one huge protected quadrangle completely set off from the street. It is raised several stories from the surrounding area so that at “ground” level you are looking over the roofs of the Barnard buildings, and you barely notice the traffic on Broadway. It is compressed and maybe a little claustrophobic, but it is much more of a defined campus than anything BU, Penn, or Brown offers, with a lot of architectural consistency, too. Unlike most urban campuses, it was designed to shut the surrounding neighborhood out, and it does.</p>
<p>I recommended that the OP look at Sarah Lawrence for exactly the reason teriwitt and jonri give. It has an MFA program, and the faculty to support it, but no BFA program – its undergraduate theater program is a liberal arts degree.</p>
<p>JHS has politely PMed me to point out I can’t divide. The overall admit rate for women at Vassar was 19.48%, not 18.4%. So, my post was too pessimistic. Still, if the regular round admission rate is about 17%, I don’t think it’s a safety. I’d be pushing to add some matches because due to the fact it attracts so many actors as applicants, it’s harder to get into as an actor than most people think. </p>
<p>Oh, and she’s not en route. The last day of the trip is 8/12…and I wasn’t polite enough to PM ;)!</p>
<p>JHS, I guess we’re just proving the point that it’s best to look at as many campuses as possible since perceptions are so subjective!</p>
<p>jonri: I found it interesting that-at least for the school’s my S is looking at-Vassar is the only one that admits a higher percentage of men than women.</p>
<p>Is Vassar the only LAC he’s considering? It’s pretty common for LACs.</p>
<p>Hmmm…if this young lady really wants theater ARTS (with a good technical theater program) she should have Emerson near the top of her Boston schools. And she will also need a precollege resume that includes at least SOME techie experiences (lighting, sound, sets, etc).</p>
<p>If she desires a degree that involves acting, she may find she needs to audition…she will need to check EACH program to determine if this is the case. If it is, she will have to understand that at schools that require an audition there are NO safety schools…her audition will be judged along with the strength of other female students who are auditioning.</p>
<p>Schools like Yale have wonderful arts opportunities for undergrad students as EC types of activities. Yale School of Drama is HIGHLY competitive. Highly. </p>
<p>My husband is a former theater technician…he advises anyone entering this field that they should get a lot of technical theater experience. Good techies can find good work. He would vote for Emerson.</p>
<p>Yale School of Drama is a graduate school. It does not admit undergrads. Thumper may know that–I just thought that should be made clear. </p>
<p>Yale has a good UG major but it’s not really performance based. See <a href=“http://theaterstudies.yale.edu/sites/default/files/QA%20revised%20sept%2029.pdf[/url]”>http://theaterstudies.yale.edu/sites/default/files/QA%20revised%20sept%2029.pdf</a> It doesn’t require an audition. Drama at Yale is primarily an EC. Some of the best actors at Yale major in other things.</p>
<p>jonri–the other LACs are Haverford and Conn College, plus small universities. The percentages are the same or pretty close for men and women (not numbers, of course), but at Vassar, the were much farther apart. Not a statistically significant selection by any means, just musing…</p>
<p>Yes…I know Yale SD is grad only. Yale does, however, have many EC types of acting opportunities for undergrads much like its music (Music performance is also grad only…but many opportunities for undergrads to do music). </p>
<p>I’m sort of unclear what the OP is looking for in a college. If the student REALLY wants a strong technical theater program (theater arts…other than acting)…I think her list is not a particularly strong one. BUT if she wants strong academics with the ability to do SOME acting related things…that is another story.</p>
<p>Another school that used to have a great tech theater program is SUNY Purchase. I’m not sure if that is still the case…but it used to be. </p>
<p>Where is this OP from? Are there any strong schools in their geographic area that also could fulfill this daughter’s criteria? </p>
<p>The East Coast trip they have planned sounds fine (except for too much driving around as I noted in my first post on this thread). But they should reconsider WHERE they want to do drive by visits and where they want an actual tour. In Boston…tours for theater should be at BU and Emerson…in my opinion.</p>
<p>I am really surprised that Conn College doesn’t have to admit men at a higher percentage than women to get at least 40% men, but apparently it doesn’t. That makes it pretty unique among former women’s colleges, I think. I would have bet money it admitted men at a much higher rate.</p>
<p>I wonder why that is?</p>
<p>Haverford is an outlier because of its relationship with Bryn Mawr. Again, I admit my impression is purely based on kids I know, but a lot of young women I know mark it off their lists because of that relationship. As far as they are concerned, the REAL male/female ratio includes Mawrtyrs and is decidedly unattractive.</p>
<p>Still nice to now Conn College pulls it off!</p>
<p>At Conn, they actually admit 31% of men and 32% of women (2010-211 CDS) for an overall admit rate of 31.6%. At Vassar, the percentages were 33/men and 19/women! The male/female applicant rate is 30/70, after 40 years of co-education! At Conn, it’s 37/63 with about the same duration of co-education. Much smaller pool (and class) at Conn, of course, if that makes a difference. Interesting…</p>
<p>Edited to add: apologies for the major hijack…</p>
<p>Edited again to add: Mawrtyrs! Never heard that one; love it!</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Yep, I think that’s really the key point. The OP’s D may not know herself right now. There are plenty of kids who apply to different kinds of programs and then decide what they want when the results come in. There’s nothing wrong with that approach. It’s just that it makes it hard to figure out what safeties are. </p>
<p>And if she falls in the latter category, to me at least, it doesn’t make sense to go to the College of Arts & Sciences at a school with a strong acting program like Tisch or BU because USUALLY there aren’t as many chances to act.</p>