<p>I agree with Soozie…my child has over 2300 on the SAT, over 4.0 GPA, excellent EC’s, recommendations, etc. and I think the chance of acceptance to Yale is closer to 6-7%. Of course, if your D is an under represented minority or has some other hook, her chances would be better. Good luck!!</p>
<p>Unfortunately, the main “hook” is one we can’t use – that she is an out-of-district special ed student with severe anxiety issues who missed 80 days of her freshman year due to panic attacks in a huge h.s. She has not only managed in the smaller h.s. but thrived – she even had the courage to stand up in front of her peers and present a proposal for forming a gay-straight alliance in her conservative rural school where her gay friends were being bullied. The fact that she has been able to adapt socially – she is president of the Drama club, secretary of the honor society, manager of the school store, writes on the newspaper, etc. and be valedictorian after spending nearly half of freshman year in psychiatric outpatient programs is a miracle. We are incredibly proud of her but there is still such a stigma attached to mental illness we can’t use this in her applications.</p>
<p>Counterintuitively, there are many people in the performing arts with severe social anxiety as being on stage allows them to be someone else.</p>
<p>Bravo to your D mamajen. Sounds like she is thriving. She will go onto college and have exciting times no matter where she lands.</p>
<p>I have to repeat our experiences when working very hard with the Yale undergraduate department for theatre - it is not a practical, hands on approach but much more academic and theoretical. Yes, there are lots of productions but not classes, similar to what momjr’s niece seems to be experiencing at Vassar. My daughter delved very deeply into their program and that is what she discovered. Also, when we went to visit originally before she applied and went on the Theatre tour (or whatever they call it), she asked where else everyone was applying and the answers were not BFA programs or even strong BA programs but other Ivies and similar.</p>
<p>All I’m saying is that, should your daughter be accepted into Yale please don’t be mesmerized by the school’s status. If your daughter is looking at BFA programs then I am very doubtful, based on our experience, that Yale is the right place for her. You’ve got some better choices, based on her interests, IMHO. Good luck!</p>
<p>Yale was also on D’s list, and she has an MT friend who landed at Yale because it was less costly for her than Northwestern, and she is experiencing exactly what amtc mentioned above, so I agree with her caution. She also knows someone at Princeton who wants to be a choreographer and he is similarly disappointed.</p>
<p>I think when people sometimes think of “Yale and Theater/Drama” together, they are thinking of the very fine GRADUATE program at Yale and assume that Yale has a similar undergraduate program. But that is not the case.</p>
<p>Yale is not going to be like a BFA in MT program, no. But the OP’s daughter so far is not admitted to a BFA in MT program. My opinion is that Yale is better for MT than her options of Vassar, Cornell, Skidmore, or Muhlenberg. Northwestern would be a great option but the OP’s D did not apply there. Comparing Yale to a BFA is apples to oranges but comparing Yale to other BA theater programs is what I am talking about.</p>
<p>For starters, Yale has an abundance of musical theater performance opportunities. While that is not the same as training, there just is far more of this there than at many BA schools in terms of musicals staged. </p>
<p>In the Dept. of Music for undergrads, there are courses in musical theater performance taught by Annette Jolles. I had the pleasure of meeting Ms. Jolles when my daughter and I were seated next to her at an event where my daughter was honored for a national award right after she graduated college and Ms. Jolles had won this award previously when she was younger. It so happens that my daughter has had several MT friends who chose to attend Yale and we realized that they had taken these MT classes with Ms. Jolles. See the Shen Program for Musical Theater at Yale. This program also involves weekly master classes in MT with guest artists from NYC.</p>
<p>When one of my D’s friends was at Yale and his field is MT, I recall that his voice lessons at Yale were with none other than Victoria Clark!</p>
<p>Senior projects for Theater Studies students can involve performance.</p>
<p>The Theater Studies major includes courses in acting, scene study, and dance in MT. They also have musical theater writing/composing. It won’t be like a BFA but for a BA program, it is strong. There is also a lot of dance available. When you add in the abundance of theater and MT performance groups and productions and a capella groups, it offers a lot for a MT kid in a liberal arts context than some other BA colleges. </p>
<p>While this is a minor factor, but I’ll mention it, the Yale Institute for Music Theater, which develops new musicals each June and casts mostly Equity actors or some MFA Yalies, has cast May BA graduates before. </p>
<p>Several of my D’s Yale MT friends got to be in a cabaret type show at Joe’s Pub in NYC made up of Yale alums and current students.</p>
<p>It really stinks how little value is placed on grades by most MT programs. I feel like a lot of time was wasted studying in high school. Just saying.</p>
<p>soozie - First, I am not comparing a BFA with a BA program, I am comparing BA programs - Muhlenburg, Skidmore, Yale. </p>
<p>After my daughters’ acceptance to Yale she spent two days with Annette and the Shen program and, as I said previously, she came away with the belief that while you might be able to put together a fairly decent MT program at Yale as an undergraduate the difficulties and lack of cohesion and guidance were major obstacles to accomplishing that. She felt that she did not have the knowledge (even after 6 years in the business professionally) to put together as good a program for her success as she could in a more traditional and established program. </p>
<p>The point of my postings is that one should not be enamored and “starry-eyed” by a college based on the schools overall reputation but on the reality of the program your child is interested in. Too often the name “Yale” (or Harvard or Princeton) carries such hopes and prestige that people don’t look further. If my daughter wanted to be a History or Math major and minor or dabble in Theatre/MT than Yale would have been perfect for her as she loved it in all other respects, that was not the situation with her so she painstakingly researched and turned it down.</p>
<p>Soozievt, thanks. Every post from you is packed with great info. </p>
<p>Yale is such a long shot I am not going to think about it at this point. </p>
<p>Likewise, Syracuse and CMU are miniscule odds. We are anticipating rejections. Syracuse MT audition did not go well except for monologues, and auditor noted how young she looked. At CMU, she was on top of her game and auditioned for acting only, which is her strongest area. However, she did not get asked to go to a different room, which I understand is common for those accepted. She did get to do three monologues plus a variation with an accent, and made the auditor laugh. Best audition experiences were CMU and Ithaca, in terms of how nice the auditors were. </p>
<p>Cornell is out of consideration also, although she may well get in there. Monydad sent me a very important piece of info, an article about the $1 million in cuts this year to the department of theatre and dance, forcing huge changes to the major, so I think that is off the table even if she gets in. (Thanks again, monydad).</p>
<p>Remaining choices are Muhlenberg, Vassar, and Skidmore (if she gets in). She told me last night she has been leaning more toward acting vs MT given her disappointing results at auditions.</p>
<p>amtc – thanks also, sounds like your daughter really did her homework well.</p>
<p>amtc, I agree that Yale is not ideal for someone focusing in MT. I think Northwestern is better in this regard, though that is not a school that the OP’s daughter applied to. I think Yale is better for MT than Skidmore. Skidmore puts on one musical per year (a student run organization) and doesn’t have MT classes per se that Yale has. I still think Skidmore is a good option though. Muhlenberg is a good option and I have had several advisees who landed there who did not get into BFA programs. In my opinion, if attending a BA and if Yale were to be in the mix, I’d choose it over Muhlenberg for a MT kid, but again, this is an individual decision. </p>
<p>The OP says that acting is her D’s strongest suit and Vassar and Skidmore have strong departments in terms of BA in straight theater.</p>
<p>Mamajen, at Syracuse, I believe singing, acting and dance are equally weighted in their audition and are scored and the applicant must score a certain number in each area to be considered. It is also one of the more challenging dance auditions.</p>
<p>I agree also that overall reputation of a college should be secondary in choosing a BFA in MT program. But if attending a BA school, I think choosing the overall school, as well as the theater program is important. With a BFA, a huge amount of time is spent in the specific program and so that is more paramount in selecting a college than the overall university. But I do feel the overall university matters more in selecting a BA. I think the academics at Yale do not compare to Muhlenberg and both are BAs. If Muhlenberg were a BFA, then that would be different as selecting the program would take precedence.</p>
<p>The MT students who I know who chose to attend Yale did so over BFA programs because they cared strongly about the academics and Yale allowed them to have strong academics and yet study and do a lot with MT even so. Those students were not considering Muhlenberg. They were more apt to consider Northwestern, Brown, Vassar, NYU.</p>
<p>There are still some quite wonderful theatre/MT programs out there that might still consider an application. One that comes to mind is Cornish College in Seattle. They are still holding on campus auditions (until July I think) and they also do allow a DVD submission if you can’t attend. There are very excellent instructors there and a very enthusiastic student body. Worth a look and Seattle is a very theatre-friendly city. </p>
<p>I’m sure there are others as well. Perhaps U Arts in Philadelphia is still taking applications? (Just looked at their website, I think you need to apply by 3/15 and possibly audition at their last on campus which could be this weekend.) I’ve never seen that school but I’ve heard very good things about it.</p>
<p>Some people feel a broad education gives an actor more “grist for the mill” in terms of being able to understand the historical context and experience of their character. This is why some people might choose a BA in Drama like Vassar’s, which emphasizes contextual interpretation. It would neccessitate an MFA after graduation to really pursue an acting (or MT) career. </p>
<p>In terms of acting training in movement, diction, etc., a B.S. in Acting like Skidmore’s allows students go right to work after graduation. No MT, though. Less broad education than Vassar’s. (60% VS. 40% of classes in the major, and more of them are performance-oriented)</p>
<p>Muhlenberg definitely has more to offer in terms of MT in the curriculum for the BA in Theatre, as well as tech and production values. Far less academic than either Vassar or Skidmore.</p>
<p>I know it is just semantics, but I do think perhaps the names of the different programs (Drama vs. Acting vs. Theatre) may give an indication of the priorities of the programs. </p>
<p>Bottom line, my daughter has to decide what she wants: MT vs. acting, and bachelor’s vs. master’s before heading to the salt mines.</p>
<p>Query: Can you go for an MFA in musical theatre if you majored in Drama and took dance and voice classes? Or do you have to major in MT to get in to a master’s program? Presumably there are MT master’s programs…I never thought to research this as we were aiming for the BFA.</p>
<p>Would she consider Syracuse if offered a BFA in Acting spot? She could always accept and then re-audition for SU’s MT program while there and then the faculty would know here better. Just an option.</p>
<p>Mamajen, I really disagree with you that getting a BA “would necessitate” an MFA “to really pursue and acting or MT career.” Training in craft is available in many ways without a degree, and many actors succeed without any training.</p>
<p>The BFA at Tisch is from the Drama Dept. Whether in acting or MT, a student from Tisch graduates with a BFA in Drama.</p>
<p>A big difference between Muhlenberg and a top tier university (or LAC for that matter) is not only the caliber of the students, but the diversity as well. Muhlenberg has a really narrow geographic distribution:
Geographic Distribution
New Jersey 36%
New York 19%
Pennsylvania 19%
New England 15%
Del./Md./Va./D.C. 5%
Other States/Foreign 6%
(source: Muhlenberg.edu)</p>
<p>It is also about 88% white (2010 incoming freshman class; I included “race unknown” as white). (source: 2010 Common Data Set)</p>
<p>Maybe this doesn’t matter to you, though.</p>