This was mentioned on another thread and thought it would be an interesting topic. Any program you wish in hindsight you should have applied to?
SO many. I found this site after applications for my S and we are new to MT the last few years…I would have made him apply to Harrt, Guthrie,a few SUNY schools, Montclair, Baldwin Wallace, Wagner, Fordham, Marymount Manhattan…too many. He applied to too many Reach schools and not enough of ones I really could see him getting in. Now it is too late. A gap year may be in order. At least I will know for when my current 7th grader goes down this path in 4 years!!
In 2014 My D was adamantly against any schools in the south- so we didn’t put in a lot of research there. There are a number of southern schools I have read about here that I think might have been good to check out. On the flip side- D had a couple of schools where she DID audition - that I knew before she went in we’re not real fits… but she had friends auditioning there, or who went there etc. In the end, it is important to know you kid, help them figure out what they are looking for in a school, and be prepared to nudge them if they need it- after all, they are kids!
My S didn’t apply for any schools in NY. No NYU, Marymount Manhattan, Pace, Juilliard, LIU Post, SUNY, Molloy/Cap21 and for good measure no Ithaca or Syracuse. Ummmmmm, ok? He had his reasons and I really do understand and support his decision, but that has my biggest “road not travelled” struggle. I will absolutely second @toowonderful comment about a few schools that were on the list but really shouldn’t have been. One of the top three schools was one. Of course it is an amazing program but S only auditioned because he thought he should. I offered to let him cancel the audition multiple times because he was so “meh” about the school but he wanted to see it through. Another one was relatively close to home, but so NOT my S in terms of program. At least those two rejections were easy to handle!
My D’s list was horrible last year. 1/2 reaches and 1/2 poor fits. Although she made a much better list this year, and is currently very happy with how things seem to be turning out, there are schools that I wish she had applied at. Ball State, Coastal Carolina, Hartt,…
My daughter is a sophomore and I already told her that she needs to apply to a lot of schools - it’s better to spend an extra $300 to $400 filling out and submitting an additional 5-6 applications than it is to find out the school you chose is a bad fit and the $40,000 to $60,000 or more your parents just spent on your freshman year isn’t going to fully count. (Having transferred after my freshman year, some of my credits transferred as just generic electives instead of applying to my major)
That said, her high school has excellent college guidance/counseling, annually have a ton of kids going to top colleges, and for theater, they have a girl at Michigan doing theater and a boy at Elon as well if my daughter continues down this path.
To be clear - I in NO way regret the school my D ended up attending. It’s more of a “ Road you didn’t take” Sort of thing
Western Carolina…wasn’t affordable for us when making my D’s list, but looks like they have dropped tuition for out-of-state, and now it would be. 
I think the posts here are going to help a lot of parents who are beginning this process
PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE… do NOT go through this process without having a true safety that you love and would be willing to go to. Reading some of these threads I am shocked at the number of people who are getting in nowhere and they have no safety to fall back on. They are heartbroken. Unless you are willing to do a gap year or change majors it makes no sense at all to go through this process thinking you will get into one of these programs. The odds are against you and it’s not because you’re child isn’t talented. There are too many kids for too few spots! Take if from a parent whose kid was one who got in nowhere. Thank goodness for her amazing safety…
I wish my kid had applied to BA theatre programs where she could diversify a little!
I wish my D would have applied to schools outside her targeted geography range. She only wanted Mid-Atlantic, New England - I would have liked to have seen some NC schools and ShenDo on the list. Also, because we live near Philly she wouldn’t even consider Temple or UArts. She loves where she is now (she is currently a freshman at Wagner) - but she had too many reaches for sure!
@bisouu I think this piece of advice is so important. D has real life friends who don’t have any safeties and it’s scary right now. It’s also important to point out that it’s not a safety unless it’s 1) non-audition 2) an academic safety and 3) within your budget! If it’s non-audition but well beyond what you can afford, it’s not a safety!
I wish my child had done more schools in general. She was all over the board and panicked at cut back a ton and then refused to consider any southern schools (Elon, ShendDo, JMU, etc) I had her do one school in Florida (and they accepted her with a great package) She also wouldn’t try any school in NYC - she figured she wants to live and work there someday so she didn’t want to go to school there and not see any other part of the country.I guess right now with more rejections than acceptances I am playing the shoulda, woulda, coulda game
Northwestern and Juilliard - both SUPER reach schools but I would have loved her to have the experience of auditioning at Juilliard. She has friends who made it through the initial callbacks and regretted not throwing her hat in the ring. Northwestern because I feel it fits her academic profile - although her standardized test scores are right on the line. Again, the only SURE no you get is the one you don’t try.
Picking up on the Safety school topic, I am amazed at posts that say that the student has NO interest whatsoever in their safety schools. I realize students have preferences and favorites on their college list and that is only natural. But safety schools should be picked out with utmost care, and not just tacked on because they are “safe.” No school should be on a student’s list if they have NO interest in the school. Students need to find safety schools they truly like. They should ideally have TWO so that if they don’t get into their other schools, they still have a CHOICE of schools.
@soozievt I am amazed at the same thing. I see all the time "my kid has no interest in his/her safety?. Makes no sense to me.
Agree @soozievt! I must have asked D2 100x - are you SURE you don’t want to add a second safety (she does love her safety and would attend). D1 got into her safeties, then turned around and told us if those were her only acceptances, she was going gap year. Ugh!
My d had zero interest in a non-audition safety school, although I made her apply to one. I did not fully understand her point of view at the time, but I do now. She attended a PAHS that was very competitive for entry (less than 10 percent admission rate) with a BFA-style curriculum and a holistic, pre-professional approach to training students. She also attended studio-based training classes conducted by working professionals in town on weekends. Her view was that a BA program, especially a non-audition program, just did not line up with her objectives for a college theatre training program, based on her experience in high school. During campus visits, she had very little interest in touring the school, learning about clubs and activities, touring the town, etc. She wanted an audition-based program with advanced, cadre-style, studio-based training in Musical Theatre focused on professional performance with what she felt had the right “feel” during the audition, or bust.
Her HS theatre department head, who had decades of experience, tried to explain all this to me, but it didn’t really sink in at the time. I couldn’t understand why she was not interested in what I considered to be interesting about college, as well as having a “Plan B.” Having a “Plan B” and investigating a wide range of collegiate opportunities other than just training for theatre performance seemed like a good idea to me, but not to her, not at all. I was especially baffled because d was an excellent student in many areas in high school, earning an AP Scholar with Distinction Merit and other awards and I thought that she would be interested in a broader range of classes in college.
However, she had, and still has, a laser-focus on her passion for performing with a long-term interest in directing and probably teaching at some point down the road. She is determined to pursue her goals with steely resolution and I salute her for that. She has really enjoyed her Gen Ed classes in college and has done very well, in fact, her main complaint about school is that many other students in her general courses don’t seem very interested or motivated. But, despite doing well and enjoying other coursework, she remains fully focused career-wise in performing on stage.
My d’s attitude and approach is certainly not the only way to success, nor is it something that I would necessarily recommend to anyone. But I can see know that for my d, a gap year would have been a better fit than trying to force her square (audition-BFA) peg into a (non-audition) round hole.
Note: my references to BA programs are generalized for the sake of brevity. There are certainly audition-based BA programs that are equivalent to BFA programs in terms of the amount and approach to training.
@EmsDad, I can relate! My D also was BFA or bust. I do not recommend this to others, but admit my D only applied to BFA in MT schools. There was no Plan B. So, that means a college list made up of VERY reachy odds, which I don’t recommend as a college counselor (my profession!). While that made me nervous, I believed she was a viable candidate and thought she would walk away getting in somewhere, not sure where, but had some confidence she would not be shut out entirely, and indeed, she had very good results. Again, not recommended to others. My students who want a BFA in MT, typically have two non-audition safety options on their college list.
I admit, I never contemplated what she would do if entirely shut out. Upon reflection, I suppose she could have stayed in high school another year, because she was an early graduate and turned 16 during the college admissions process.