^ great thanks
@beachymom If you are willing to share, where did your son end up? And did he have a good first year there? The schools you mention that you looked at are many of the ones on my son’s list. Thanks!
@EmsDad I looked at your list above and I found it so strange! Maybe others will find it helpful though and if so that is great. But I just find it very different from the way that we approached MT. When I explain the process to non-MT friends or family - I say it’s very similar to applying to graduate school. We were looking at the program and who my daughter wanted to work with. She would tell you that she could be on the moon regarding the rest of the university. I know that may not be the case for everyone but it’s not that unusual for MT kids. I guess I just didn’t find the other schools listed under my daughter’s program to be anything like her school. But as I said above - some may find it helpful and i wish them well crafting their list!
@singoutlouise - I think @EmsDad ‘s categories (in italics at the bottom of each list) are right on the money. Michigan (Which I think is your D’s school - correct) had other schools that were very large public universities with very selective MT programs. My D’s school (NYU) was listed with eastern schools known for academics
While I know there are many who focus on program only - I think that the school is important too. After all, you only get one chance at a college experience. D and I had a rule for schools - if she wouldn’t want to be there without doing theater - it wasn’t the place for her. It was important to us for her to have a full college experience - it’s what kept most conservatories off her list. Different strokes 
@toowonderful I hear what you are saying. And I agree about different strokes. Yours is interesting approach - But for us, if my daughter wasn’t going for MT we would never have applied to any of the schools on our list. To be quite honest, many of the MT schools I had never even heard of before she mentioned them. BW for example. I don’t want to be disingenuous however, the academics at Michigan were definitely a big part of why it was the number 1 choice for our family. And shocking as it may seem we didn’t even realize that football was a big deal.
I am sure there are as many different ways to approach it as there are MT kids!
@songbird17 - if I’m not mistaken, @beachymom’s son is class of 2022 and is headed to CMU next year!
Those @beachymom schools she mentioned (Ball State, Univ of Arizona, Wright St, Montclair, Missouri St and Coastal) are all at Moonifieds, Except CMU. I assume her son was one of the Mary Anna Dennard College Audition Coach kids. The link for Moonifieds has been on the internet
This is becoming a bit overwhelming kust htinking about it. How do you compare / contrast a Ball St vs. Coastal Carolina (just an example - not a comment on either). There must be at least 50 schools in that category from a MT perspective.
The big question for me right now is what is the primary purpose of a BFA. Is it:
- Getting advanced training to prepare kiddo for auditions and a life of performing? (essentially they could do this by taking high level lessons for 4 yrs and not going to college - conservatory)
- #1 AND getting contacts / exposure to casting directors
- Having a well rounded college education / experience including BFA curriculum (good for plan B)
How real are the contacts and exposure in #2 at, say, Ithaca vs. JMU? Is the training that much better at Tisch than Coastal Carolina?
I get the impression, for a performer, that the only thing that matters professionally is how they do at auditions later in life. That being the case, does one school provide a true advantage over another?
(part of this is financial. We can afford to send her wherever - yes we’re fortunate - but that said, why would I spend 70k/yr at BU vs. 35k at JMU?
@rickle1 All good questions! I can’t speak to Coastal Carolina but I can speak about Tisch since my D graduated from there last year and for her it was about access – access to professors and teachers who are currently working in the industry, who come from directing/casting a show straight to teaching her, access to creating networks with these people for the future and fellow students who will be working in the industry upon graduation. This access has already paid off with profs recommending her for projects and to agents and casting directors. So although it is very difficult to compare the “quality” of training, “access” might be a little more quantifiable.
@rickle1 You are in the enviable position of not needing to focus on finances to narrow the list.
My third is starting at BU in the Fall, my first graduated from BW and the second is a junior at SUNY Purchase. For all three, the first two were important components (although making contacts included contacts with agents and other industry professionals, not necessarily just casting directors). For my kids (and for me), having a college degree at the end of the process is critical. I have no doubt you could pull together outstanding advanced training without a degree. However, there are ultimately many, many roads diverging from and leading to the theatre, and many would require a degree for work (not to mention grad school if that is somewhere in the picture). For my third, the chance to minor or possibly double major became important as she was making her final decisions.
I agree with @jbtcat - it may be tough to gauge the quality of training - although you can compare curricula (do you get 2 hours of acting training per week or 10) and the background of the professors. Are graduates working and where? Are professors working professionals? Is there an established alumni network? For schools outside of major markets where, you can ask about the masterclass and how students gain access to industry professionals during their 4 years.
Side comment about the above:
My kid, a BFA graduate (NYU/Tisch) never had a Plan B. However, a college education is important in life. An educated mind matters to her. A college degree is good to have. But it isn’t for Plan B. As a musical theater professional, it helps to be educated. I believe my D’s broader education and knowledge of the world has come into play in her Plan A of being in the performing arts. My D enjoyed the liberal arts classes. I believe this broader education beyond her studio training has been useful to her career in the arts, but also just as a person, and not for a Plan B.
@soozievt same with my D and I couldn’t agree more with you!
Picking up a bit on what @artskids and @jbtcat wrote…the exposure and contacts goes beyond casting directors. The faculty at my D’s school (in this case, NYU/Tisch) led to future opportunities. My D’s fellow classmates at NYU have often become collaborators and/or they hire one another for projects. None of this was why my kid went to college, but it has been one of the benefits. I feel her network is now vast, and part of that, particularly in the beginning, was based on her contacts via her college, both faculty and fellow students.
@CaMom13 Wow CMU! Good to know. Adds some hope into the process!
Thanks for all the feedback. It’s very helpful. I’m trying to get a handle on the differences (quantifiable) of connections (I realize far greater than casting directors - was just an example) and qualitative (training quality / curriculum / outcomes.
Some perspective - Very much a fan of a quality college. Come from a long line of educators, Brother has a Harvard MBA, other brother has a PhD from UT Austin. Work in the Business world, etc. When helping S decide on his college, we went with a outstanding institution that featured strong LAC, outstanding business school, wonderful resources including excellent OCR for his fields. He goes to Wake Forest and will greatly benefit from small classes, network, alumni, job placement in banking / consulting, etc. And he’ll receive a phenomenal education to boot (so much that the LAC reqs have created a real love of politics and international affairs so he’ll minor in that. He had a certain criteria for school selection and Wake is virtually a perfect fit (for him).
D doesn’t care about anything other than singing and acting. Doesn’t care about location, size, city vs rural, sports, etc. She’s quite smart, but isn’t focused on academics (does fine though - top 20 in her class of 500 ). She doesn’t want a plan B. She’s all in. When discussing things, she would love the conservatory approach and embrace the arts 24/7. We keep on telling her she should get an English minor and could always write plays, teach, etc.
So much easier to send S through a certain process (be an excellent student, go to an excellent college, graduate top in your class, go to all the recruiting functions, get a tippy top type job, etc. All of that will happen as it’s quasi formulaic.
For D, this seems so arbitrary. My wife and I certainly understand and appreciate the value of having a degree. Trying to thread the needle here. My guess is acceptances will help make the decision but trying to guide her to the most appropriate program (for her)
I think @soozievt is very much on the mark with what she said regarding the importance of being an educated person and how that informs your entire life both within and outside of the arts. That is something we considered extremely important and that I know my daughter’s school considers a large part of her education. I also agree that network and collaboration within your alumni community is also something that was very important to us and something we consider a priceless part of her future. I also just want to clarify my earlier post because maybe it was a little convoluted. I stated that I didn’t think the “if you like this…you’ll like that school” was germane to MT. I think it’s because I am all about the program. For example UMich may be a large university but when you are in the school of Music, Theater and Dance - it becomes very much a small conservatory. Also academically you just can’t compare it to others on the list. I think you have to look at the individual program and faculty. My husband is a research scientist and his graduate students come from all over the world to work with him - it has very little to do with the university. I believe MT is like that, which is why I compared it to graduate school. I think if you are a liberal arts major or a normal 18 year old (Lol!) than you are looking the university as a whole. So to sum it up - look closely at the program and the four year trajectory of classes, look at the faculty and who you will be building relationships with, look at the track record of alumni and innovative work coming out of the program and most of all enjoy the process! There are so many amazing programs out there!
As a father of one who graduated just over a year ago (Ball State BFA-MT), what I would advise is that while a child think that all they care about is singing and acting, that they don’t want a Plan B, etc., nothing is carved in stone. College should be time for education (in the cases of our children both didactic and practical training), but also for personal growth and maturation. I have seen many times as a college professor myself kids that have taken a class that completely changed their life course. Or kids that knew they were going to be X when they grow up, only to graduate and become Y.
Looking at my D’s experience, she received excellent training (go Ball State!!), and has certainly developed as a performer and is out there now working (just started a 9 week gig and then rolls right into a Shakespeare festival). But she also grew as a human being, and found out she has a lot of interests. She loved the academic side of theater and dance (what I refer to as the whys of theater, not just the hows). I could see her becoming a theater professor one day. She was in a sorority, and made lifelong friends both in her degree program but also her dorms, sorority, elsewhere on campus, and so on… She was very active in a host of campus activities, worked in Admissions and loved that. In short, as much as the training was great, her development as a person was probably to me as important. She learned about the world, learned more about ho she is and who she wants to be, and that knowledge helps her as a performer. I would encourage all parents and their children to consider the entire experience, and not just the training program itself, when making decisions. You get one shot at college life, and you should not throw away your shot.
So how do you pick a place? First, you have to audition in of course, and everyone getting ready to go through this process needs to realize that it ain’t easy, and that is documented other places on the board. But assuming you get in, then I think two things become important. One is the training and the contacts (for example, Sutton Foster is adjunct faculty at Ball Sate and that contact is great to have). And the other is feel. Many have said you’ll just know it’s the right fit, and going through the process again with my younger daughter (although not in MT), that advice holds true. You get a sixth sense just from being on a campus and talking to people. How do the faculty feel? Do the kids you meet on campus seem genuinely enthusiastic? Pay attention to those things. They mean a lot.
I agree with @singoutlouise that when choosing a BFA degree program, the selection of the program itself is primary and the selection of the university it’s in is secondary. Yes, the latter matters. But it is not the same as choosing a college in the regular sense. This is due to the fact that the BFA program itself constitutes a large part of the student’s time and curriculum. When choosing a college to do a regular program where the major is mostly 10 courses, and isn’t even yet a commitment as a major when applying, is different. So, my student first selected which programs in MT interested her. However, the rest of the university was a consideration too. But she also had to see where she would get in. My D liked the idea of the inclusion of challenging academics such as is offered at NYU and UMich (just examples), but didn’t only apply to schools that met that criteria. But given she had options of acceptances, she was able to attend a school that met what she liked beyond the BFA part of college too.
A person does not need a minor in English or anything else to teach or to write. My D did not look to get a minor (but could at NYU as it is possible there, whereas it is not at all BFA in MT schools). However, she has taught (including even in BFA programs, but also with youth) and she writes original musicals. She is a performer too. A BFA degree program doesn’t mean you can only perform. There are many skills and talents that are developed and many jobs one can do without even minoring in something else. I don’t think of my kid’s major as narrowly defining what she can do when she graduates (I think this actually of all college majors).
^ Interesting point. D is already directing youth community theater throughout the year. She likes teaching the younger kids. She likes performing better, however. I mention English minor because she’s a good writer and that might hone her skills.
Anyway, thanks everyone for all the feedback. Lots to consider.