Do any of you know of any schools w/ the following criteria?..
-very solid english and theatre department
-moderately high transfer acceptance rate
-on the smaller/medium side
-small to no greek presence
-located in midwest/northeastern regions
-not going to put me in incredible amounts of debt
-willing to give transfers merit aid or scholarships
If anything comes to mind, please just throw it down in the comments because any suggestions are appreciated. The schools don’t have to be prestigious either, I just want a high quality education that is not in South Carolina.
Some private colleges may offer you $10-20 thousand in merit scholarship recognition (some may offer more, others less, of course). If this might be sufficient, then you could consider a college with an excellent theatre program such as Drew (http://www.drew.edu/financial-aid/financial-aid-scholarships/). If you’d want to research a school excellent for theatre with a lower standard cost, look into SUNY–Purchase.
Northwest Missouri State gives you in-state rates if you have a 3.0 and $2500 merit if you have a 3.5, making tuition around $8000 for the year. Rent is pretty cheap off-campus. My daughter is enjoying the theatre program.
You might also look into Southeast Missouri State as they are generous with scholarships. I know people talk about their musical theatre department being good, so regular theatre probably is too.
Which aspect of theater? Tech? Design? Performance? Scriptwriting? Dramaturgy?
What aspect of English? Teaching? Writing?
Towson University in Maryland has a nice theater program and does have some scholarship money for transfers, but most of it is directed at transfers coming from the Maryland CCs.
Truman State is a mid-sized public LAC in Missouri that may fit what you’re looking for. They have a very affordable “sticker price” and additional automatic merit awards. Depending on your budget, other public LAC’s like UNC Asheville, St. Mary’s of Maryland, and SUNY Geneseo could be worth a look as well. Full-pay at these schools could well be as affordable as you’d be able to get with merit at private LAC’s. It’s often harder to get significant merit as a transfer.
I was thinking of SUNY Purchase too - there’s just the issue that they have a powerhouse BFA program in theater. As a transfer who also wants to study English, you’d definitely be going into the BA program (transfers into the BFA program still take an additional 4 years to graduate so I’m assuming you wouldn’t do that). I’m not sure how the BA students fare at competing for performance opportunities - that would be something to look into.
University of Maine has a Flagship Match program that would bring the cost down closer to your in-state COA. It has under 10K students, so not too big, and its theatre program is a BA.
@happymomof1 the most i’d be able to spend is 30k a year. i’m at a cc rn so i’m knocking out two years of tuition. pursuing english literature and theatre performance:)
The thing with Drew (and also Muhlenberg which is particularly known for theatre and good for English/humanities too) is that, as Merci said, merit for transfers maxes out at about 20K/year, and the total “rack rate” COA is close to 70K. There’s no way merit gets you down to your 30K budget at private schools like this - it’s hard to get that much merit even as an entering freshman, and transfer merit is even more scarce. You’d be looking at 50K and up for most private LAC’s.
Hence the recommendation of public LAC’s and smaller public flagships. Truman State would be a financial safety for you, as the cost would definitely come in under $30K - closer to $25K And it’s a high-quality LAC, not dominated by Greek life (only 20% participation), not too big (only 6K undergrads), moderately selective (67% acceptance rate), and in your geographic target region (midwest, halfway between St. Louis and Des Moines).
The other Midwest public LAC that’s affordable is U of Minnesota Morris. It’s fairly middle-of-nowhere but it’s very small (~1500 undergrads, almost as small as Drew) with small classes just like a private LAC, no Greek life, and it has the majors/programs you want at the under-30K price you’re looking for. Moderately selective (58% acceptance rate), solid performing arts, and fascinating history (it’s on the site of a Native American Residential School and offers free tuition to NA students as one of the terms of its charter - hence there’s a decent-sized Native population and a strong NA Studies program).
U of Maine with Flagship match would come in around $33K. UNC Asheville (which is great for the arts - lots of theatre/culture in Asheville itself too) has a $34K sticker price but there are some merit possibilities. (And yes, it’s still in the Carolinas, but that area has a very different vibe.) SUNY Geneseo has around a 35K COA.
If you really don’t want to go in-state and your max budget is in the neighborhood of 30K, these are your small-school options; maybe someone can think of private LAC’s with bigger transfer scholarships but I’m not aware of them, especially in the Northeast.
P.S. There’s also MCLA, in Western Massachusetts, about 6 miles from Williams College. It’s a bit less selective than the others I listed, but it’s small (around 1800 undergrads) and in a lovely setting in the Northeast, has both a theater track of performing arts and writing & literature tracks of English/communications… and they do have merit scholarships for transfers (they don’t state how large) so it could be an option if merit drops the ~32K OOS sticker price down below your price point. And as they note on their Theater page, there are a lot of great theater internship opportunities in the Berkshires. http://www.mcla.edu/Academics/undergraduate/fineperformingarts/theatre/index Maybe worth an app to see how much merit you can get.