So… My D has both of these schools on her list. We are trying to eliminate schools as there are too many etc. thoughts and comparisons on both from those who know? I know about the in state tuition for Montclair & I see rider is expensive but think they give good merit aid etc. I also think Rider seems less competitive but maybe that’s incorrect…plus their program is newer it seems? Location seems similar with NYC proximity so… Not sure who to eliminate if either…
Well as you know I’m completely biased since my kid chose Montclair and withdrew her application to Rider, but that was 3 years ago and there are very happy, talented kids at both schools with graduates doing well. Both programs have gone through changes and expansions in the last few years, but just to clarify some differences: Montclair’s MT program is smaller, less than half the size of Rider’s. Montclair is closer to NYC with the NYC skyline very visible from the campus, and with busses and trains that go to the City right from campus. I have never been to the Rider campus but I believe it is more traditional looking whereas Montclair has a kind of urban/suburban feel. Both schools are in wealthy communities. Montclair as a school is bigger with a lot of commuters, though 6000 do live on campus, more than the total number of students at Rider. I suspect that Rider may feel more like a traditional college experience, though Montclair has sports and sororities and the like if you want them. And yes, Montclair BFA students all get in state tuition now, but many get scholarships, too! My daughter wanted the smaller program, the more urban feel, and to have easier access to the City, and she felt more of a connection with the Montclair faculty (she had previously met some of the Rider faculty), but truly, there are extremely happy and successful students at both programs. If I were you and on the fence, I would visit both in the fall before eliminating one. You might just “click” with the faculty or the feel of one and not the other.
We recently visited both campuses. D preferred Rider over Montclair. This is just an opinion of course, but D did not care for the vibe on the campus at Montclair. It reminded her of the the large state campus at home, around the corner. We took a brief tour of the performing arts building and found it to be a bit dated. There is a train that goes directly from Montclair to the city though (is that right @Calliene?) which might be a big draw for your D.
The campus at Rider is lovely, right on a creek/river, with gazebos and benches to sit and study/check out the view. It’s a small campus and D liked that, as well as the surrounding community. I will say that I think she’s much more suited to a small campus than a larger one so this was not a surprise.
I can’t speak to the competitive nature at either school, sorry.
I agree with @Calliene that a visit to both might be in order. They are fairly close, we did both in the same day. It’s hard to say what a kid might feel when they step on campus. We knew right away, others take a little more time.
Good luck! We are also in the “elimination stage”. 
These two should absolutely be on your list along with Malloy/Cap 21. Speaking of lists, I think at this point casting a wide net, rather than eliminating may be a good idea. Both of these auditions can easily be scheduled at Unifieds and then go visit if you get an offer.
Montclair State redirected D to VP (a common occurance, kid can SING, and is classically trained…let’s just say Post’s intense acting training is key and it was her one of her best financial offers. I used this offer to get a bit more out of Post.
If I was doing it over Rider and Malloy would be on the list, I would take out the schools that I couldn’t afford, and I would make the list longer. I think she auditioned at 11 schools, it’s been a while now, but for her type it should have been more like 15-20. I am a big fan of Unifieds, which gives you the ability to cover a lot of ground in a short amount of time
We had both these schools on our list as well, as D was very interested in attending college in or around NYC. Both good programs, Montclair is a bit smaller in terms of how many students they shoot for in MT. Auditioned for Montclair on campus, and, tbh, did not get the best vibe for us. Felt really rushed through the process. Wound up cancelling the Rider audition when she got an early acceptance from another school in NYC that she knew she’d prefer solely based on location (while Montclair is like 30 minutes from Manhattan, Rider is much farther down in NJ). But again, this was based on D’s personal preference. And where is she going to school? Pittsburgh LOL. So just keep an open mind during this crazy process and you’ll be fine.
There is a huge construction project going on right now in front of Life Building at Montclair, which is where the theater program is based (though they have classes all over campus) and the gorgeous Kasser Theatre is very new and modern. Kids looking at the school now will have the pleasure of coming after it is done, and it should be great! The web site says, “The new School of Communication and Media building will be a 105,000-square-foot facility that will join together what is now Morehead Hall and Life Hall into a single, multi-functional communications and multimedia facility. The new building will be equipped with a leading-edge, multi-platform “newsroom of the future,” along with a 150-seat presentation hall, broadcast studios, integrated media lab, film screening room, and acting and dance studios.”
Another difference is that Montclair is a more ethnically diverse school, which is something that appealed to my daughter, having grown up in very NON-diverse northern New England.
I went back through the last 5 years of posted acceptance/rejection data and here are the numbers for Montclair and Rider:
Montclair 9 accepted out of 38 auditions - 24% acceptance rate
Rider 24 accepted out of 50 auditions - 48% acceptance rate
Rider is one of the most popular schools to audition for here on CC, with only CCM (68), CMU (59), Ithaca (58), and Pace (51) exceeding their audition count. Montclair is a little farther down the list.
This data is highly likely to be biased on the optimistic side since those with satisfactory results are much more likely to be post their stories than those who did not fare well, and those who actively post on CC are perhaps more likely to be better prepared than the other students given that participation here may indicate more research, effort, and guidance applied to the process (this is pure speculation on my part). I would guess that the actual acceptance rate numbers are about 1/2 to 1/3 of these and, of course, these are small sample sizes and the actual numbers are likely to vary, perhaps considerably (however, the CC data lined up pretty much as expected with the usual suspects, CMU, CCM, etc. showing the lowest acceptance rates).
Someday when I get more time I will post the complete results, which consist of more than 1,000 data points from about 150 “Final Results” posts.
I have no idea about Rider but Montclair says that their acceptance rate for MT is about 3%.
I just visited Rider and Montclair. Did the tour at Rider and I was very impressed. The campus is beautiful and the program seems great. I was disappointed the it wasn’t closer to NYC. We went to Montclair but a tour was not available when we were there July 16th. The campus is beautiful as well. I did like the town of Montclair as well. My daughter liked the look and location of Montclair over Rider. She will be auditioning for both however.
@Emsdad, just to clarify, when you say “auditions” for Rider and Montclair, you mean auditions and acceptances self-reported here on CC? I do think this runs the risk of being very skewed. But it’s interesting!
@connections - yup, I just went through the “Final Decisions” threads for the past five years and tallied up the results. If someone said that they auditioned for a school I counted that as an audition and if they said that they were accepted then I counted that as an acceptance. As I mentioned in the post above, the data was surprisingly consistent with hearsay about the difficulty of acceptance at various programs, although it is clearly only a relatively small sample and subject to lots of variance, as I noted. I think the data is only really useful on a comparative and not an absolute basis, for example, I think that Rider accepts more students than Montclair but the actual acceptance rates may be lower than the tallies from the CC data.
So
Any thoughts from anyone on Rider financially? Aid given to anyone who got accepted etc? I think we may be going to unifieds in NYC so if that is the case will probably just try to knock out both if possible. I think Rider was actually at that open call last year at another location though but whatever. I don’t think we could audition on campus at both, we have too many on campus auditions that don’t go to unifieds already.
Thanks @EmsDad for your info , always helpful . And everyone else with info. @winnieroot I am trying to eliminate schools based on finances but it’s so hard to determine sometimes if the aid will be there or not merit wise etc. D has crazy high GPA but test scores are average so it’s putting her at that cutoff at some schools . Taking ACT in sept to see if it’s higher.
D nixed Molly Cap 21 because of travel to NYC for MT classes. She does a similar thing now at high school with being mobile for classes and wants everything in one general place.
The NYC proximity isn’t really factoring in for school elimination choice. Most seem to be in Ohio right now to be honest lol. Yay @mom4bwayboy who is always so helpful with Ohio tips!!
I did read some info and reviews on Montclair and it keeps alluding to the commuter school thing again but not a deal breaker really. I think theater kids tend to be together a lot anyway so I’m not that concerned about my D not having anything to do.
We have a male friend at Rider MT who seems to love it. Not sure if he would admit if he didn’t though lol
Will see how it all plays out this fall winter I guess! Praying for good winter weather and very little illnesses!
Looking back, I would have FREAKED OUT if she had an acceptance to some of these school and their price tag. Her acceptance to Pepperdine had me worried. They only gave her 8k. Lawd. Yea. I hear you about Malloy. It’s a different structure. Cool, but different. Here is some out of the box thinking: SUNY Purchase. Cheap! But it is only acting. However, most of the kids are MT and they take private lessons. D’s godfather is an alum and he is now a major show producer. (He thinks Western Michigan is one of the best MT programs out there, FYI, D refused because it made her cold to think about it…)
My son is a Rider MT 2016 grad, so feel free to PM with questions. It’s been a few years since we went through the process, but merit aid at Rider is tied to academic stats. Use the merit aid calculator on the Rider website to figure out what your student might be eligible for in terms of scholarships. (Play with the numbers to see if raising GPA or test scores might mean significantly more money.) I’ve heard of small talent awards, too, but (AGAIN - only from what I’ve heard) these are usually rare, small and used to help entice a student who might have other more competitive offers and perhaps isn’t getting large academic award. Hope this helps. We were very happy with the program. Very talented students; very excellent productions. Fabulous professors. Great summerstock and professional placements.
@winnieroot- there are others who would know better (@artskids has a D that is about to start there) but the kids I have known who have gone to Purchase are pretty serious about studying acting, not MT
@winnieroot Agreed - my D is about to start in the BFA Acting program at Purchase. While your comment “cheap” is likely to refer to the total COA, if you are an out of state student, you will get no or very little $$ in your first year. In fact, a number of other schools with much higher sticker prices (gross COA) would have worked out to be less expensive for my D once we factored in the scholarship $$. Purchase was my D’s 1st choice and in the long run so she’s heading there! As for MT, none of the classmates with whom my D has corresponded with or met at Orientation indicated they were interested primarily in MT. Purchase does like actors who can sign (in fact, singing is part of the audition process) but the curriculum is not an MT curriculum. If a student really wants to focus on MT, Purchase is probably not the best choice.
BTW - we just met a family at Stagedoor with an incoming freshman (D) at Western Michigan. I don’t know much about the program other than what is on these threads but they couldn’t say enough good things about the program!
We recently toured Rider and were very interested. However, my research when I got home indicated financial trouble for the school, do you think this should be a concern for perspective students? My daughter will come in with AP credits and hope to double major in MT and Arts Administration. Any thoughts on room for double major? Thank you!