<p>Hi. I'm a high school junior who discovered the joy of acting fairly recently and am now considering it as a career. What I want to know is:</p>
<p>Is it possible to complete a BFA degree while also completing the undergraduate coursework necessary to enter a PhD program in clinical psychology? According to collegeboard.com, you need about 18 credits in the subject. Would a BFA student have room enough in their schedule for this? (The reason I ask is because I'm considering pursuing acting and falling back on psychology.)</p>
<p>Also, will a strong academic background make up a for a lack of production experience when it comes to auditioning for top BFA programs offered by prestigious universities like Carnegie Mellon and NYU?</p>
<p>Thanks in advance for any insight.</p>
<p>When it comes to an audition based BFA program, it is the audition that determines whether you get into the program, not academics. Academics can not compensate for a weak audition. In addition, programs do not look at “production experience” per se as a measure of talent but rather look at the history of production experience as an indication of commitment and seriousness to studying theatre. Students, however, come into programs with a wide range of experience from professional work to a couple of high school shows a year and being at the low end of the experience scale will not preclude admission to a BFA program. It’s really the audition that counts.</p>
<p>Where academics come in is with regard to admission to the college or university in which the program is housed and here there is a broad variety of approaches taken by schools. Some schools expect theatre students to meet the same academic admissions criteria as the general student body. Some lower the academic bar for those applying to BFA programs. Some schools weight the academic piece equally with the audition piece. Some give more weight to the audition than than to academics. Some have a blended admissions process where the audition and academics are considered together and some have a bifurcated process where the department rules on the audition and the admissions office separately rules on the academics and if you don’t pass muster academically, you don’t get into the school regardless of your audition and you can make it academically into the school but not into the program. It’s important when researching schools to find out exactly how the admissions process works .</p>
<p>As to the 2 schools you mention, CMU puts an 80-90% weight on the audition and lowers the academic threshold for its BFA applicants as compared to general university academic admissions standards. It is a blended admissions process with the department having great influence over who gets admitted. NYU has a blended process which weighs academics equally with the audition process and expects BFA applicants to meet the same academic criteria as other liberal arts applicants. If you don’t pass muster academically, you don’t get into the school regardless of your audition and if you pass muster academically but not on your audition, you are not offered an academic admission to another department (if memory serves me right).</p>
<p>Also, I know at NYU you could double major in acting and psychology. It would be hard though, but I know people have done it before. I don’t think at CMU you would have much time though to do both.</p>
<p>As to the first part of your question, there has been a lot of discussion about the viability of a dual major for a BFA student. If you do a search on this forum and the musical theatre forum, you will find some diverse and strongly held views. Your best bet is to speak to the theatre program reps at the BFA schools you are considering to get their view on this issue (not admissions reps but theatre dept reps). Keep in mind that BFA programs are very structured and sequenced and usually have much less space in the curriculum for electives outside of the department than BA programs. Also, a BFA student will have many hours a week of commitments to serving as crew, auditioning for productions, attending shows, rehearsing and performing and there are only so many hours in a day, particularly if you are trying to juggle the demands of upper level psych courses with your other time commitments related to a BFA program. Talk to students in BFA programs that are of interest to you to get a handle on whether a dual major is feasible while still maintaining the level of time commitment required by a BFA. If you have a strong interest in both acting and psych, you may find a BA program better suits your needs and desires.</p>
<p>Hmm… sounds like a BA program might be better for me, especially since I have a few other academic interests as well. One more question:</p>
<p>Can you switch your major if you’re enrolled in a BFA program or does this never happen due to the dedication it takes to be accepted in the first place? Thanks again.</p>
<p>Oh, and does anyone know off the top of their head any other great BFA programs like NYU that offer some room for academics as well?</p>
<p>Many BFA programs require taking liberal arts classes and provide the opportunity to do so in the structured curriculum, even schools that have been viewed historically as pure “conservatory” programs such as CCM for example. The question is how much of an opportunity is there and will the level of the liberal arts classes be what a student desires. It’s accordingly important to look at the structured curriculum at each school and also consider whether the liberal arts offerings are through a “liberal arts department” at the school or whether the classes are through a separate department in that discipline as you would expect to find at a school that offers degrees in a variety of liberal arts and science majors. 24 credits or so in liberal arts (approximately 8 classes) is a pretty good average of what you would expect to see at a BFA program.</p>
<p>As to changing major when you are in a BFA program, if you mean changing to a different BFA major, you might be required to audition again and you might not transfer laterally based on your current class year, depending on the program and school. If you mean moving from a BFA to a BA degree program, at most schools this is not a problem provided that the original admission process included a review and acceptance of your academic record on a similar basis as all other applicants. The only problems that could occur is if you are seeking to transfer to a very competitive particular school within a university that has its own specialized admissions requirements that you don’t meet.</p>
<p>Thanks. I feel informed now.</p>