<p>For those of us planning ahead, is there a ballpark figure to use for scheduling MT auditions at Unifieds? We don't want to squeeze in SO many that it becomes stressful if some are running behind schedule, yet we don't want to have hours of wasted time and miss out on auditioning for some of D's choice schools. How many auditions, from those who did this last year, could we comfortably fit into one day? Average time needed for each? How many hours a day are set aside for these auditions? 8 hours, or more? I know some schools require a 4-hour block of time, while others have a separate 3-hour block just for their dance call. Hoping there a way to coordinate these in advance, prior to requesting certain days/times. I know some schools charge fees for changing the audition time, so we'd like to do it right the first time around and avoid the need for re-scheduling later! Any input would be appreciated.</p>
<p>Auditions can last anywhere from 30 minutes (report at least 20 minutes ahead of time) to those 3-4 hour blocks. If a school does not post on their website how long the audition will be, your best bet is to call the department and ask. We did, and they were very nice about it! Auditions can begin as early as 8:00 AM and most are finished by 5:00, although some schools hold evening auditions. You can easily manage 3-4 a day, if you only schedule one of the long ones per day, and I know a student who did 17 auditions in 3 days! My d’s auditions were year before last, but we were never charged to change times (ahead of the auditions, of course) and folks were very understanding about it. Find out how long each audition is and set up a possible schedule, leaving time in between each. so you can request times off of that.</p>
<p>I think it depends very much on the schools where you are auditioning. I’ve heard of kids like Christie2’s who have managed to squeeze in 3-4 per day but there is no way that would have worked for us. My S attended the LA Unifieds and auditioned for 5 schools over 4 days. He had dance calls for all his auditions and here is how our “choreography” looked:</p>
<p>Saturday:
CCM - the school scheduled the DAY and the times - though they did say they would try to work out conflicts if they arose at Unifieds (fee applied on campus as I recall. 9:00 dance call, 12:15 vocal/acting audition.<br>
Pace - at a different hotel so give 10-15 minutes to walk each way and then time to find the ballroom and check in 30 minutes ahead of time. S had his vocal/acting call at a 2:00 group session. The dance calls were broken down into those with 5+ years of training in the afternoon sessions and those with less training in the morning sessions. Didn’t work out to schedule his entire audition on Sunday AM as you will see so the school worked with us on splitting his audition over 2 days. He left the Sat afternoon audition at 4:30. That was the wait from checking in to when he was seen… This is the unpredictable factor that you can’t control.
Sunday:
Pace - dance call 10AM - this call went close to two hours and didn’t actually start till 10:20ish. Left the hotel at 12:15 to rush back to the main hotel for
CMU - check in from 12-12:30, CMU is a block audition you choose a morning session(8-12) or afternoon session (12-4). The kids are broken into groups that move through each of the 3 audition categories together. It does take the time allotted to get through though a lot is wait time between each audition phase- dance, vocal, acting.
Note - Pace’s group audition times ran from 10-2 and 2-6 so there was no way to do the Pace full audition and CMU on the same day. And we were unable to move CMU to Saturday afternoon.
Monday
BoCo - you sign up for an audition time for vocal/acting. Morning vocal/acting auditioneers must attend the afternoon dance call (2pm) and vice versa for afternoon vocal/acting auditions attending a morning (10 am) dance call. My S had the 10 AM dance call which went about 3 hours (let out right before 1:00) and then a 3:00 vocal/acting call. Done by 4:00 but not sure how you could schedule an additional audition on BoCo day unless you were lucky enough to get a vocal time slot very close to the dance call. Of course you might be able to work in a school without a dance call.
Tuesday
NYU-offsite-actually was WAY offsite - a 30 minute drive without traffic which never happens on this particular stretch of LA freeway. This is another school that schedules a block of time, as I recall they were 9- 1 and 2-6 aprox. We scheduled the afternoon to avoid rush hour traffic in the AM since S would miss school regardless. I’m pretty sure that most other schools were not extended through Tuesday so no chance so an AM audition back at the hotel. NYU spent 6 days in LA at two different locations that week. S finished this audition around 5:30.</p>
<p>All of my S’s auditions pretty much required a large block of time and more than 2 a day would have been difficult to coordinate - perhaps not impossible but very hard.</p>
<p>Thanks for the details (per school), which really helps. I was thinking we might only fit in two per day on those requiring 4 hrs., and 3 per day with those w/o a dance call and/or shorter time needed. Christie2, I will do as you suggest and call the departments for those schools I can’t seem to find times on. Thanks for your help! Very time-consuming putting this all together…</p>
<p>MTSD322, Ah ha - and therein lies a big difference between Chicago and LA, I guess:-) It seems that Chicago’s are more compact, and are 99% in the same hotel, Palmer House, so are easy to move from one to the next. My d did not do CCM or Pace, but did do BoCo. She did a monologue/song call in the am and was able to schedule 2 other auditions around it, one before and one after. Then she did only the BoCo dance call in the afternoon. She had a similar situation with one other school, as I remember, but then had one day where she was able to fit in 3scheduled auditions AND a walk in! And, then she did 2 on Wednesday morning . . . (and had done 2 on Sunday)</p>
<p>So I’ve heard that Texas State is not part of Unifieds in Chicago but they hold auditions in Chicago the same time as Unifieds. Does anyone know if their location is close to the Palmer House? Or are they actually in the Palmer House too?</p>
<p>Texas State was in the Palmer House. And I believe that they were taking walk-ins, so if you do not get a pre-screen dvd in to them, there seemed to be a second chance for them to see you.</p>
<p>Thank you!</p>