<p>My 11th grader would like to major in Drama (acting, not particularly musically inclined) and is an average student (I will post stats) but am told is a good actor (comedy). He went to a drama camp last summer and was told that he should pursue this. (by professionals in the industry), I want him to have a real college experience tho. </p>
<p>what we have so far: </p>
<p>SUNY- Purchase (other SUNY's?)
San Francisco State (?)
Indiana (which one?)
UCLA (even tho his grades won't get him there, he was told that sometimes that take average students based on the audition and this is his first choice and a super reach)
Michigan (which one?)
Cal Arts
North Carolina Arts
Cornish
Southern Oregon (?)
VCU (last last last choice as a safety)</p>
<p>He would like to be on either coast preferably.</p>
<p>Suggest others?</p>
<p>grades: 2.8, (3.1 weighted)
ACT 22</p>
<p>4 AP classes
drama Academy
lots of productions</p>
<p>ld - I totally understand your thinking, that a kid with lower academics might do better focusing on schools that stress artistic standards instead.</p>
<p>I’m going to suggest that you consider a couple of things, though, based on the experiences people on this thread have had over the past number of years:</p>
<p>1) There are many schools that stress the audition over academics. Carnegie Mellon is known for this. Others are known for insisting on an academic “bar” - NYU and BU come to mind. People here can give you a lot of suggestions from what they know. But please understand that NO college that uses auditions has a even a moderate acceptance rate. They are all at 20% or less, and most are way less than 10%. Some certificate programs are more lenient and do rely solely on the audition. These may need to be your S’s safeties, if he does not want a BA. However, he will not get the academics you would like him to have. It’s a tricky balance, and, sadly, leaning heavily toward auditioned college programs is probably not quite the solution. </p>
<p>2) You say you’d like your S to get a well-rounded education. I’m guessing that means you’d like him to go to a school with general education classes, rather than just a conservatory. I think it is important, whether in an auditioned degree or not, that his academic ability matches the general academic standards of the school, if he’s going to be taking academic classes there. So even if he passes the audition test, he should still be at least in the middle 50% of applicants academically, even if they say they don’t care about that. You don’t want him to be miserable in his gen ed classes, or worse, flunk out.</p>
<p>He has perfectly nice academic stats for lots and lots of schools, and if he works hard on his monologues, he should have good audition results. There is a thread here on non-audition BFAs, too, which might help him find a safety school that he really likes. </p>
<p>logicaldog, Emmybet gives good advice. And what I should have added is that although Temple is not auditioned, your son’s grades an scores are not too far from their ballpark. They do a rolling admission, so if he applies early his chances will be better.</p>
<p>I’ve just returned from NY Unified where my daughter auditioned at DePaul. She is an excellent student with a 3.8 GPA 2100 SAT. DePaul said they were 80% weighted towards audition and 20% weighted toward grades. They made fun of the fact that they were okay with adequate grades. </p>
<p>As a parent, this is not something I was impressed with at all. But, if you don’t have the grades and are heavy on the talent - check them out.</p>
<p>logicaldog - we were told at UCLA that they will go as low as a 2.0 if they like the audition and want the kid and they are not alone in that; there are many that weigh the audition and compromise on the scores. It’s the schools like UMich where you need to be admitted academically before they’ll schedule an audition that are the only ones truly concerned with scores.</p>
<p>Just echoing EmmyBet’s comments–no audition program can be considered a “safety” (am curious why VCU is a safety for him?). Also, just in regard to your preference for a more typical “real college” experience (a preference I share for my own son)–you did list a couple of schools that are straight-up conservatories: NCSA and Cornish. Is he really considering both arts schools and liberal-arts colleges/universities? Finally, I’ve seen good comments about the University of Rhode Island’s non-auditioned acting program, and your son might be a good prospect there academically. Wishing the best of luck to your son–I’m sure he’ll find the right spot!</p>
<p>Point Park is a school that comes to mind. I was recently accepted academically and I only have a 2.5 GPA. They have a very strong acting program.</p>
<p>As others have said, no auditioned program should be considered a safety. VCU is among the schools for which my D is auditioning and we were there this past Friday. We were told they were auditioning 250+ this year and would be accepting 36 into the program. In addition, the performance students are required to do another audition at the end of their sophomore year for admittance into the BFA program.</p>
<p>With that said, we were impressed with their program, facilities and faculty. I am surprised that we don’t hear more about VCU on this forum.</p>
<p>VCU is a safety that is pretty mediocre (I live in Va and went there too), it would be a huge savings but urban richmond wouldn’t be my first choice.</p>
<p>Not sure if someone answered this already, but Point Park is in Pittsburgh, PA. With their academic requirements he can easily be accepted. Like I said, I was accepted academically with only a 2.5 and just as many (if not more) extracurricular activities and APs. I am still waiting to hear back from my audition though.</p>
<p>Re: VCU–Not to belabor the point, but VCU hasn’t been an academic safety school for several years now, and as an auditioned program–in fact, you audition for initial acceptance and then again after two years for the acting program–it’s certainly not a safety theater school. I’m in Virginia too, teaching at a selective and fairly rigorous independent school, and we send kids with quite good academic records to VCU–it is by no means the easy admit that it was even 10 years ago. However, I don’t know how they weigh academics and auditions. I have been told that JMU is 50/50–that the department tells the admissions office who they want based on auditions, but the applicants still must meet general admissions standards. Does anyone know whether, as a state university, VCU follows the same protocol?</p>
<p>Yes the problem with Virginia is that parents don’t want to spend the money to send their kids out of state to actually good schools, so the skewed applicants where schools that are sub par like Va Tech, VCU, Radford…get so many applicants with tiger moms and dads that they are inundated, even though they still are not top notch schools. I am a therapist and I see it everyday. Any school in Virginia would be our back up plan-certainly not a first choice, my oldest son turned down U Va., I was never prouder of him.</p>
<p>Wow, kind of harsh on a number of levels. logicaldog. Won’t debate the value of Virginia schools, although I totally disagree. Being a VA resident as well, I feel blessed that my kids have so many wonderful in-state options. However, I think most of us would agree that all of us as parents are doing the best we can for our kids. The name calling and accusations aimed at other parents is probably not constructive or welcome on this forum. It is my understanding that we are all here to try and support, encourage and help one another through a process that can sometimes seem overwhelming. </p>