<p>I thought I'd start a thread for any/all of us who might have questions about the 2014 Unifieds in Chicago.</p>
<p>I'll start-- Flying into Chicago with son on Saturday afternoon. Do some schools have auditions on Sunday? (I thought I'd read somewhere that a few do...) </p>
<p>Not sure when to leave..... I can catch a 8:30pm non-stop flight on Wednesday night, or leave on Thursday. Wednesday has a few advantages....1 less hotel night to pay for and S wouldn't miss another day of school. But-- when do auditions usually end during the day? </p>
<p>Roosevelt is requiring a dance audition on Sunday, below is from their website.</p>
<p>**<em>All Musical Theatre applicants attending the CHICAGO UNIFIED AUDITIONS</em>MUST<em>participate in a dance call in Chicago on</em>February 2, 2014. This is the day<em>before</em>auditions officially begin. Please plan your travel accordingly.</p>
<p>Last year some schools held auditions on Sunday and some on Thursday. Unifieds are a loose confederation, schedules are determined individually by each school, and the schedules for each school can vary from year to year (many more schools participate than just the “official” members). The trend seems to be that the window of opportunity widens a little more each year, with more schools holding auditions prior to the “official” start date and more after the “official” end date. This may be the result of steadily increasing numbers of participants in the process as whole, as well as the steady expansion of program offerings by schools and the increase in audition-based programs.</p>
<p>You should carefully check the individual audition schedules for each school in which you are interested.</p>
<p>Also, be aware that many participants are surprised to find schools at Unifieds that: (a) they were not aware of prior to attending Unifieds; (b) turn out to be of interest; and (c) have walk-in audition slots open. Thus, for those who are open to unforseen opportunities, there are usually more auditions to attend than expected (at least this is what happens every year to kids from my d’s high school, in fact, most of her older classmates last year ended up at schools that were not on their original lists and they added “on the fly” at various multi-school auditions such as Unifieds).</p>
<p>Hence, incorporating Sunday and/or Thursday into your travel plans to allow for additional auditions may pay off in the long run - but this sort of plan may not be for everyone. A schedule of a carefully limited set of auditions determined in advance works better for some, especially those who do not thrive on the stressful, somewhat chaotic environment of Unifieds. </p>
<p>Here are some past threads that may of help (there are many more):</p>
<p>Texas state has their dance audition on Sunday night.</p>
<p>It was pretty much a ghost town on Wednesday night in Chicago this year. Some schools were flying out on Wednesday to LA. We stayed through Thursday because Ithaca -one of the schools that have a 4 hour block - had auditions Thursday morning. This allowed for walk ins on other days since we didnt have to block off those hours. You would be very hard pressed to find walkins on Wednesday afternoon and Thursday morning, unless you scheduled them Monday. We also found some schools were only there through Tuesday so it is best to walk around on Monday and sign up for walkins</p>
<p>Agree with broadway95 - we had a similar experience 3 cycles ago (wow! time flies!!!)
We stayed over for a Wednesday morning audition, but the place was truly a ghost town, by midday Wednesday. We used the rest of the day to shop and enjoy being in downtown Chicago.</p>
<p>RE: Ithaca at Unifieds - a couple things to consider:
First, you can set up your audition as soon as they start scheduling auditions (August 1st) - you do not have to apply to the college first.<br>
Second, individual auditions are done in the order they were scheduled and then you are free to leave. My daughter was the second one in her morning group (she scheduled on August 1st) and was done by 9:30 am. Other kids had scheduled other auditions during the 4-hour block and were allowed to leave and come back. If you missed your time, they went to the next person and worked you in when you got back as long as you were back during the 4-hour block. They were very accommodating.</p>
<p>Q: I have seen some reference to doing Unifieds as a junior. What would be the purpose for that? Obviously, you would not have applied to the colleges yet… </p>
<p>I’ve never heard of anyone doing that, MTmom2015. I guess if you live close by you can do some walk-ins, however you’ll be taking walk-ins from Seniors who might have a shot of getting into the school and going. I definitely wouldn’t travel across country or miss school to “practice” auditioning at Unifieds.
I wouldn’t tell the auditors that you’re a Junior because they might get annoyed with you for wasting their time.</p>
<p>I have never heard of people doing walkins as juniors I dont think they would let you. </p>
<p>I do have friends who were juniors who went and auditioned for TPAP, Bocos Dance Summer Intensive and Broadway Dreams at Chicago unifieds and people walked in for Broadway Dreams.</p>
<p>Since you usually don’t apply to the school until after the audition I don’t know how they would actually know who is a serious applicant and who isn’t. And a lot of people do use some of these walk-ins as practice or just to see how many auditions they can cram into a day. Kids actually come back and brag about who did the most. I’ve never heard of doing it as a junior but I have known juniors who go to scope it out so it probably does happen. Ugh.</p>
<p>SU88BFA, I just saw that same sale, but I would have to travel 90 minutes to that airport. I’ll probably leave from my dinky local airport for less than $100 more total. Easier for my parents to drop us off and pick us up. I noticed that, in general, the ticket prices doubled if leaving on Sunday–DOUBLED!!! It’s cheaper to book an extra night at the hotel and leave Saturday.</p>
<p>GSOMTMom- You might want to consider leaving on Saturday… We are. Travelling in February is iffy-- especially heading to Chicago. Also, some schools are auditioning on Sunday. (We’ve booked Syracuse for Sunday afternoon.)</p>
<p>(Why Chicago in February, I ask myself. REALLY? Why not Atlanta, or Dallas…?)</p>
<p>MTmom2015 - You can audition at SETC as a high school junior. My D did that. She did receive some MT/Acting program acceptances and scholarship offers the summer between junior and senior year from those auditions. All were obviously contingent upon her being able to get into the university itself. None were schools that are mentioned here regularly on CC. But there were a couple that she looked into to see what the programs offered.</p>
<p>SU88BFA-The flying into Chicago is my fear too…We live in Florida and are so worried that a winter storm is going to wreak havoc on our Unified plans. We are crossing our fingers and praying to all the good weather gods. If Chicago wasn’t so far away I swear I would drive-just so that I wouldn’t obsess over flights.</p>
<p>My D auditioned at SETC this year as a junior also. Great results and it helped her to form her college list. One of her classmates got a full ride to Shenandoah based on his audition at SETC. It’s in Mobile, Alabama next year. They do other auditions too, so look into high school audition on their website.</p>
<p>If any of you use a companion pass on Southwest (wife as husband’s free companion or vice versa), you can change the pass to your son or daughter’s name and they fly free instead. Husband took D to the LA unifieds this way. Then after the madness is over, just change the pass back to the way it was.</p>