<p>I posted this question on a different thread but I think it would be best suited to its own thread. </p>
<p>I'm not personally impacted by this situation, as I live in NJ, but I got to thinking about Unifieds and how expensive they must be for anyone who has to fly there and stay overnight. </p>
<p>I realize everyone knows this already, but do you think it's a problem and if so, can the problem be solved or eased? The colleges are already trying to reach out by having Unifieds to begin with, which is great, but by focusing only on northern locations, is there a risk of excluding the south/southwest? Is there then a risk of losing diversity? Certainly, I myself could not afford to shell out two tickets to fly to, say, Chicago and stay in a hotel--that would be at least $1000. </p>
<p>Do people see this as a problem at all? Is it possible for colleges to have more regional unifieds, in the South and/or Southwest, for instance? </p>
<p>Someone posted that Texas has a lot of regional auditions--are other states this way?</p>
<p>I guess ideally I was hoping to start a conversation: How have you personally been impacted by the location of the auditions?</p>
<p>I’m long past being personally affected by this but I did post in the other thread that I know that Tisch already offers regional auditions in a few southern and southwestern cities. I’d be surprised if there weren’t other schools who did the same. The Tisch cities are Houston, L.A., Atlanta, Miami (as well as NY, Newark, Chicago and San Francisco).</p>
<p>I’m also no longer personally affected by this but my memory of last year is fresh :). Connections thanks for starting this thread. I’ll weigh in repeating somewhat what I mentioned in the other thread that this came over from. </p>
<p>You raise a valid point about the financial hardship that traveling to auditions creates and the possibility that the expense limits the diversity of the applicant pool. Very likely this is true. However, I don’t see how adding an additional location is really going to solve that except for the people that actually live in whatever new location is selected. </p>
<p>I’m looking at a map of the US as I write this. The biggest bang for the buck is to consider major population centers with good airline access. Take Atlanta as an example that was mentioned earlier. Atlanta is probably a good 5+ hour drive from any nearby big-ish city and if you want to think major metro that would attend Unifideds in Atlanta because of proximity instead of NYC or Chicago you’d be talking about Miami and that drive is about 10 hours from Atlanta which is almost as long as it takes people who live in Atlanta to drive to Chicago. </p>
<p>Same problem with Houston, Dallas, Denver and pretty much any major metro west of the Mississippi. The distances between large population centers is enormous. Too far to drive and not spend the night and highly likely to make you fly because of the travel time involved if you drive. In short, there really isn’t an easy answer that does anything except for the people that live in or very close by whatever new city is chosen as an additional Unifides location. The one exception to this though is if a new location is picked that is known to be a cheap and easy place to fly into from various parts of the country. I’d also add really good public transportation to/from the airport and the actual audition site so that one did not need to rent a car. </p>
<p>I went through this last year with my daughter. She did almost all auditions on-campus because her schedule did not allow her to make the Unifides dates (regrettably). The exception was attending the very last day of LA Unifides to see U Miami. It still required a plane ride (we are in the Northwest) but it was a lot closer than flying to Miami and at least LA was in the same time zone so it was physically possible to fly down on the first flight that morning and make it to the audition at noon, turn around and fly back. So to me it’s all about the time zone and the number and cost of direct flights because unless you put a new Unifides location in the Northwest, people that live here are going to have to fly. </p>
<p>Recorded auditions are the only economical answer that could level the playing field for most. Fortunately some schools do take them.</p>
<p>Recorded auditions don’t tell us enough. The video screening taken up by many schools was (for some of us) a way to save some parents money. Even with many large scale “unified” auditions, there are quite a few schools who will not offer invitations unless you travel to campus. Screening at least tells the potential student that there is something worth traveling for.</p>
<p>I know the recordings don’t tell you enough. I wasn’t really suggesting that since it is far less a perfect measure than a live audition (which isn’t perfect either.) I threw it in there mainly to say that this is not a problem that can easily be solved if the goal is to make attending these programs more accessible to all.</p>
<p>It doesn’t stop with the auditions either. How about the added expense of getting your student to/from campus? If you’re in the East coast or Chicago area there are many wonderful schools with great MT programs that you can actually load up the car and drive to. Not the case for many other locations around the country.</p>
<p>Maybe that is a good reason for Unifides to be where they are. It is theoretically possible to combine the audition trip with a campus visit or two.</p>
<p>We are also way past this, but we would not have taken on the expense of flying to Unifieds and staying in a hotel for 2-3 days. Fortunately we are very close to Los Angeles so it was not an issue for us. We did not do on-campus auditions for that same reason. I wonder if some schools don’t have the attitude that given the cost of many MT programs, if you can’t afford to do the auditions, you probably can’t afford the cost of the school. In any event, I am sure that the cost of flying to Unifieds makes the audition process very cost prohibitive for many talented kids.</p>
<p>You are illustrating exactly my point. You did live close to a Unifides location and could not or would not fly for auditions if there were no other option. Fortunately, your kid is in the system because he/she was lucky enough to live close by. Not sure how many people drive from Atlanta to Chicago for Unifides at the moment just as I’d not be sure how many would drive from Miami to Atlanta if you add that city. Could be some but I’m betting the list is short. </p>
<p>But I will say that I have my doubts about schools having the attitude of if you can’t pay, you can’t play. I have the impression that all of these schools would be over the moon to get a really talented kid from North Dakota (insert any other state that has a limited # of MT programs that is hard to get to/from). I also doubt that MT programs are cash cows for any school given the costs involved with mounting a production. I don’t think anyone is making it deliberately inaccessible they are just trying to survive.</p>
<p>To me, this is sort of like wanting to play soccer in college. If you are not able to join a select team in the high school years because you work after school and can’t pay for all of travel expenses etc. that go with that, it’s hard to keep up and be noticed. It is inherently unfair and some amazing talent is overlooked because of it just as I’m certain happens in MT. But how do you fix it? I don’t know the answer but I do think that throwing an additional location (now back to Unifides) is wonderful… for the people that live in the new location. That’s pretty much it (unless it is a cheaper, easier place for everyone else to fly into which will cast a wider net but will still only pick up the people that can or will pay to fly which would not be everyone and not “takeitallin” and others in the same boat.) Ugh.</p>
<p>^^^^Completely agree, but as others have said, I’m not sure what the answer is. Funny you should mention soccer, as we are going through the whole recruiting process with our senior son right now for soccer- while he did play club soccer on a high level team, we are finding many schools are not flying to see recruits anymore because of budget restraints. Once again, we are lucky to live near some huge tournaments that coaches do attend. Again, kids who are in more remote areas are at a very distinct disadvantage for opportunities for college coaches to see them play. It is true with many programs that require that the school have a chance to see a student perform before recruiting them, whether it is for MT or a sport, or whatever. The added difficulty with MT is that there are very few programs in some areas of the country (California is one of them- we just don’t have much) so students from those areas have few options that are not extremely expensive.</p>
<p>^^^ Ditto for Washington State (me), Oregon, Idaho, Nevada, The Dakotas blah blah blah. Texas too if you count the size of the state and number of MT programs there and want to make it all accessible to people who can’t fly. So it goes. 'Tis a big country. </p>
<p>Funny the soccer reference was because of my niece and nephew who are in No Cal. I get it entirely.</p>
<p>On the other hand, I think a big reason there ARE Unifieds in the first place is to make it cheaper and easier for applicants to audition for several schools at one time, as opposed to many trips to various campuses (we did the latter).</p>
<p>Exactly, and I think the point about the cost of the programs is a good one. I have seen posts on here about people not being able to afford a trip to campus or even an extra application fee and it does make you wonder how they think they would pay for the program. I think pre-screens are awesome though. We did a combination of on-campus, regionals, and Unifieds and I’m reasonably certain pre-screens would have eliminated several programs that ended up being a total waste because of either bad fit or ultimate rejection. That was 2 years ago and it really was way too crowded out there. The lines at some of those programs both on-site and off really made me wonder how these in-demand schools can possibly pick 25 people without going brain-dead somewhere during the process.</p>
<p>I think halflokum hit the nail on the head: not only are MT programs not “cash cows” (sorry for the double negative), I think they are actually money losers. I remember sitting in on the parent portion of a master class with the head of MT from one of the “top” schools, and he said that MT programs lose a LOT of money. Think about it: the student teacher ratio is generally tiny, and successful alum are few and far between, and … well, it’s not like Broadway stars make enough money to give endowments to their alma maters. This department head said that the only benefit for the school is that their alum are usually good fundraisers (when they agree to do it)…but that is not enough to warrant pouring tons of money into the program. So, these schools are operating on a tight budget, and it’s probably all they can do to attend Unifieds and regional auditions. </p>
<p>I assume that all the schools would love to get talent from all four corners of the globe and across all socio-economic situations. The reality is that they will simply not be able to see a number of talented people. Is it “fair” to those incredibly talented kids who can’t afford to travel to auditions? No. But life isn’t fair. Maybe, as technology gets better, someday there might be live video auditions, where it is almost like the auditioners and auditionees are in the same room. It’s really unfortunate, and I feel awful for the people who can’t audition b/c of money. I wish there were an easy answer, but as others have pointed out, more regional auditions would be tough on the schools and only benefit those in the immediate vicinity.</p>
<p>We also dismissed doing any Unifieds because of travel expenses. As a matter of fact, I am holding onto two more applications, waiting to see if S gets into his ED school, because the app fee plus the audition fee is substantial, and I will have two days to send them out if he gets bad news. </p>
<p>And as far as trying to figure out how us penny-pinchers are going to afford the program if we complain about the cost of auditioning . . . If the kid narrows down his college choices because of the limitations of auditioning, he will surely make a “dream” list of a handful of schools. If he gets in - we’ll make it work, because that is his dream.</p>
<p>I confess to being amazed at this process now that we have started. We have been working with an audition coach who advised us to do on campus auditions as much as possible, so that we could kill two birds with one stone: audition and check out the campus to see if the general atmosphere is what my daughter would like. And it’s going to be expensive to be sure, but less than if we made two separate visits. She is also going to audition for two schools at unifieds in Chicago (luckily only a couple hours away), but that is only because of time constraints; my D is tied up with show choir competitions and/or auditions for other schools on the only on campus days for these two programs. I really wish I could be there for Unifieds just to see the atmosphere!</p>
<p>At my daughter’s first audition a couple weeks ago, she met kids that are auditioning at over 15 schools. Not to open the whole “how many schools to apply to” issue, but it would seem to me that the only possible way you could do this would be through unifieds, unless you have a boatload of $$ and if your child is willing to essentially sacrifice much of his or her senior year in high school to go on countless auditions.</p>
<p>I’m from PPU.
Last week, the head of voice here at Point Park actually went to Texas for auditions! A lot of other schools actually do that too.
It would actually be even more expensive to fly to individual schools. So Unifieds is probably the best option they have!</p>
<p>I don’t post often on the MT board as my daughter is pursuint acting though she sings fairly well and has done a fair amount of MT productions at school and in community theater. She is applying at 15 schools. And you are right, this did require her to sacrifice peforming oppoturnities during her senior year in high school. She’s disappointed but it was not a hard decision for her. I think if you went to a school where it was common for kids to have these kinds of auditions schedules and the school was willing to accomodate the kids it might be different, but at our school they refuse to make any exceptions and she would have had to fairly siginificantly limit the schools she was auditioning at to participate in the school show.</p>
<p>I’ve been giving the question of fairness a little more thought partially inspired by marbleheader above. (Excellent points.)</p>
<p>I don’t know if this is true or not (was going to actually check before writing this but eh… too much work) but likely every state has some sort of a college or university where one can study drama (or MT). What we are talking about here (with respect to Unifides and fairness) is more about equal access to specific school(s) to study MT/Drama but not about access to the field of study itself. In the case of schools that do require that you do a live audition, that is part of their admission criteria and a student can decide if they are willing or able to meet that criteria or not. (Same applies to grades, tests scores, essays etc.) But concluding that you are unwilling or unable to travel doesn’t close the door on the field of study, it just means that there are certain schools that will not be available to you.</p>
<p>There are also a number of schools that have programs where you audition after you are already at the school. (UC Irvine as an example and there are several others.) So a student could also decide to forgo the whole audition route and its associated expenses and find either a non-audition based program or one where the audition happens later.</p>
<p>Anyway I guess my point is that it probably isn’t reasonable to expect access to a specific school to be fair. One cannot expect a school that is located far away to move its campus closer to your home so that you have easier access but one can decide that easier access is important and therefore pick a different school where you can still study drama/MT.</p>
<p>It’s easy to think, “we wouldn’t have travelled” when you live somewhere that you don’t really have to like close to a Unifides location or somewhere that you can drive to many on campus auditions at wonderful schools. You’d be surprised the amount of “we’ll figure it out” you might find yourself doing though if you really had to in order to meet the admissions criteria at a dream school. It’s the same thing as figuring out how the heck you are going to pay the tuition and travel expenses it just that the clock starts ticking a little earlier.</p>
<p>What an interesting series of posts. I started some of this with a post in another forum asking if some type of “unified” auditions was desired in the south. To date, I still don’t see a desire to have one. But I will tell you this: Schools will come to almost any area where there is a decent number of motivated students who are willing (ready and able) to move out of state to go to school. Many of us travel to Lincoln (International Thespians), Chicago (unifieds), Texas (NTDA, Texas Thespians, et. al.), wherever SETC is that year, and some do the NYC, Vegas and LA unifieds as well. In addition many programs travel to state thespian conferences. The goal is to find the best fit for the program. </p>
<p>And just because I’m a chair of a program. We lose money. In fact, at my particular institution we are among the highest per FTE cost (there are higher - generally speaking the field sciences are higher, and any school with a marching band that travels) Universities that believe in the arts, fund the arts. And those of us that severely restrict our enrollment have institutions that support the idea of excellence in teaching over “making money.” Completely off the topic of more unifieds, but I thought I would lend some expertise. </p>
<p>I have to tell you, if you can tell us a better way to get to students, the schools will listen. Trust me. Thanks for posting everyone!</p>
<p>Acting Dad: I understand where you’re coming from, and have seen my daughter and othes make the same kinds of decisions on productions, etc. For example, she did not audition for the winter drama production since she knew she’d be tied up with college auditions. But there was no way she could miss show choir competitions, since their show choir is one of the top ranked in the country and she is president of the group this year. So you make your choices (hers was to apply to 8 schools knowing she has a fallback to go into a non-BFA theater track and reapply as a freshman at at least one MT school) and go on. I guess my bias is that I remember my senior year of high school as one of the best years I ever had, football and basketball games, productions, etc, etc, and I want my daughter to experience the same.</p>
Ditto for Washington State (me), Oregon, Idaho, Nevada, The Dakotas blah blah blah. Texas too if you count the size of the state and number of MT programs there and want to make it all accessible to people who can’t fly. So it goes. 'Tis a big country. </p>