<p>Friends, I found this online and thought it would be of some small use to students and parents looking at various college/university/conservatory theater programs. </p>
<p>Best,
L</p>
<p>great site, notmamarose- thanks!</p>
<p>Terrfic Link- thank you for sharing that with us!</p>
<p>Funny you should mention this article. We just received a copy of 'Dramatics' a publication of this organization a couple of days ago. I didn't even know it existed, and I have no idea how we got on their mailing list, especially since it's priced at $7, and I haven't paid anyone anything for this. </p>
<p>The magazine is full of wonderful information, but I was a bit concerned about its accuracy on specific colleges. For instance, SUNY-Geneseo's profile (a school my daughter has been accepted at) lists under the 'school admission selectivity' category as 'less competitive', but a GPA of 3.4 for school admission requirements. SUNY-Purchase does not give its school admissions requirements, but says it is 'extremely competitive' for selectivity. SUNY-Geneseo is known as the honors school of the SUNY system, so how can they be 'less competitive' while Purchase is 'extremely competitive'. Also, SUNY-Fredonia lists its selectivity as 'competitive' but only requires a 2.7 GPA to get into the school.</p>
<p>I would certainly recommend this publication highly for beginning purposes, but do your research. If I'd read this magazine last year, I would have never suggested Geneseo to my daughter if I'd only glanced at the school admissions selectivity rating.</p>
<p>Teri, Let me try to explain my interpretation of that information you brought up. It can be misleading unless someone truly digs for information and knows how to interpret it. </p>
<p>When examining the selectivity of a school, there is the ACADEMIC selectivity (and for most college applicants, that's what admit rates refer to in general) and then for arts applicants, there is ALSO the artistic selectivity. For example, look at Penn State. They have approx. a 57% admit rate to the University. So, if one examines the academic selectivity, they would look at that. However, for the BFA program, the admit rate is approx. 5%. When I evaluate a prospective student's "odds" of admission at a college, I rate it as "reach, match, safety" JUST academically. THEN, I add another layer as to its relative artistic selectivity. </p>
<p>Now, let's look at SUNY Purchase, SUNY Geneseo and SUNY Fredonia. </p>
<p>When I give admit rates below, these are for the UNIVERSITY, not the BFA program itself:</p>
<p>SUNY Purchase has a 29% admit rate, the average GPA of admitted students is 3.0, and the mid SAT range is 1010-1210 (CR/M). </p>
<p>SUNY Geneseo's admit rate is 49%, the Avg. GPA of admitted students is 3.8, and the mid SAT range is 1200-1340 (CR/M).</p>
<p>SUNY Fredonia's admit rate is 55%, the avg .GPA of admitted students is 3.5, and the mid SAT range is 1040-1200. </p>
<p>(I happen to have this all in front of me as I am in the middle of a college search and evalution for a junior MT student!) </p>
<p>Now, speaking academically only, clearly the stats needed to get into SUNY Geneseo are the most selective academically. Then, SUNY Fredonia, and SUNY Purchase's stats of admitted students are lowest. However, each school is providing its acceptance rate and here is the CONFUSING part of these three particular schools. SUNY Geneseo and SUNY Fredonia's acceptance rates are interpretted like most colleges.....overall for all students, not just BFA. The acceptance rate to their BFA programs are lower than to the overall university as is the case everywhere. BUT.....SUNY Purchase is not like MOST colleges where there happens to be a BFA progrm in a greater university, because SUNY Purchase has a BIG chunk of the school as conservatory arts programs. Thus the OVERALL admit rate at SUNY Purchase reflects it very competitive conservatory programs (example....BFA in dance and BFA in acting are quite competitive). The BFAs at SUNY Geneseo or SUNY Fredonia aren't as competitive but that is besides the point.....because the OVERALL admit rates reported are not reflective of the competitiveness of the BFA programs which are a SMALL segment of the greater university. So, Purchase's overall admit rate appears more competitive because it is reflecting arts admissions which are low admit rates, whereas the admit rate provided for Geneseo and Fredonia, as was my example with Penn State reflects more upon the overall academic admit rate, not the arts part. </p>
<p>Geneseo is the most slective of the three acadmically speaking. When it comes to admit rate for the BFA, I imagine Purchase to be more highly selective. But for reporting purposes, the school is reporting the OVERALL admit rate and Purchase comes in as lower only because it reflects heavily upon that they have a bunch of conservatory programs. </p>
<p>I don't know if I explained that well. If I had a prospective acting student with a GPA of 3.0 and an SAT score of 1200, I would say that ACADEMIC ODDS ONLY for Geneso are a REACH, for Fredonia are a Match/Reach, and for Purchase a Match/Safety. However, when the artistic odds are added, Purchase is a more competitive BFA pool artistically speaking. So, it changes the OVERALL selectivity rating for a BFA candidate. </p>
<p>Anyway, one would have to look at the acceptance rate in those three schools that way because it is not apples to apples since Purchase's overall acceptance rate reflects the conservatory nature of admissions and a school that has only a small segment of the university admitted via auditions, doesn't have a reported acceptance rate that reflects the artistic selectivity as much. So, you have to look at the academic odds of admission AND the artistic odds, if a BFA candidate. The use of "most selective, more selective, and least selective" in that book is reporting on the reported rate of admission for the entire university, not the admit rate to the BFA program. Usually the reported acceptance rate is reflective of a school's academic selectivity (not the artistic odds). But in the case of Purchase, the reported rate is low because so many applicants are applying to conservatory programs via audition there that the overall reported rate oc acceptance reflects a mix of academic and artistic selectivity to the university. So, the overall rate is misleading in terms of comparison purposes in a book like that when referring to most, more and least selective. </p>
<p>Susan</p>
<p>My guess is that Dramatics was addressing ONLY the selectivity of the MT/acting/dance programs at the various college programs listed, as readers of that publication (mostly members of the International Thespian Society) would be most interested in those statistics. (Not that kids pursuing these arts areas are not also interested in academics, because most of them also are excellent students. But because the magazine's audience is mostly a group focused on these kinds of programs.)
But I do agree with teriwtt that people should <em>always</em> do their own homework about these things. I just suggested the Web site as a jumping off point ... a place that seems to comprise a lot of information that people might find useful.</p>
<p>NMR brings up a good point in that Dramatics might have rated each school's selectivity of its theater programs, not the overall university (I'd have to see more examples from the book and the ratings to see if that is what they did). But IF they did what NMR suggests, then yes, they would rate Purchase of the three schools "extremely competitive", SUNY Fredonia as "competitive" and Geneseo as "less competitive". When I wrote what I wrote last night, I was thinking of how schools are NORMALLY rated overall and their admit rates reported overall. I have not seen Dramatics.</p>
<p>For instance, USNews rates Purchase as "selective" (remember how I explained that their overall admit rate reflects a lot of programs that are by audition), Fredonia as "selective" and Geneseo as "more selective". Geneseo in terms of academic qualifications IS the most selective of the three. </p>
<p>It may be that Dramatics is giving a selectivity rating for the actual theater programs (again, I'd have to see more than these three schools' ratings to determine that) and so NMR is right if that is HOW they did it. I was going by how the ratings are normally determined. In fact, the usual ratings normally do NOT reflect how selective the actual BFA programs are to get into the schools! Ya know, Ithaca is not an overly difficult school to get into academically speaking but the BFA sure is! IF Dramatics rated the schools more to do with the artistic selectivity, that is a helpful resource which is harder for most people to ascertain when they only look at the normal admit rates and selectivity indexes usually reported for colleges. It would be beneficial to get a handle on the artistic selectivity. Perhaps that is indeed what Dramatics did (I haven't seen it yet). Thank you, NMR, for pointing out that possibility.</p>
<p>Soozievt, I wonder if there is a way for us to find out what Dramatics did intend. I am going to take it upon myself to see if I can find a contact person/name/email for the publication and pose the question to them. If I get an answer, I will report back here. (Can you tell I miss being a newspaper reporter? :))</p>
<p>That is an interesting question. However, I have a feeling if I saw the "rating" given for a longer list of schools, it might become obvious, since I already know the selectivity of them academically only. But who knows, I haven't seen it yet and if you ask, let us know what they say.</p>
<p>I filled out a form on the ITS/Dramatics web page in which they let me ask a question and then give my email address and daytime phone number, as well as a convenient time to call. Let's see if they step up to the plate and answer. Once I know, I will report back to the group. :)</p>
<p>As far as I have always heard, SUNY Geneseo is one of the MOST selective SUNY schools, so I don't know there that info came from!</p>
<p>Lulu'sMomma, I am guessing that the magazine is (as Susan and I discussed above!) is basing its selectivity ranking on the relative difficulty of being admitted to the BFA programs. That would make Purchase the toughest to get into for acting, which makes sense, as I have heard it is often ranked second only to Juilliard.</p>
<p>Just to clarify one point so there is no confusion amongst those unfamiliar with SUNY Geneseo - it is an audition based BA MT program. Whereas SUNY Fredonia is an audition based BFA MT program and more selective artistically than Geneseo, but much less selective academically. I don't know as much about SUNY Purchase, but I believe they have a BFA for acting and dance but not for MT (and quite selective).</p>
<p>Musicalmom, all of what you wrote is correct! Thanks for pointing it all out to those unfamiliar with these schools.</p>