<p>and on topic… He auditioned in NYC and we did not visit until he was accepted.</p>
<p>I was about to send this as a PM to jeffandann post #30 but realized that I’d be a better steward of passing along the wisdom to post it.</p>
<p>It is fine to plan to spend an extra day during auditions to check out the schools. Makes total sense. But if you do, I’d advise you to put the visit portion into the front part of your trip because… (and this happened to us twice) if the on-campus audition does not go well for whatever reason, your very dissapointed and emotional kid will want to get the heck out of dodge as fast as he/she can.</p>
<p>The other thing is that unless you live somewhere where there is easy access to a large portion of schools (which rules out EVERYONE on the west coast) the luxury of an extra day here and there you’ll find is a scheduling luxury not easily afforded because it results in too much time out of school. It’s very hard just to fit in the on-campus audition dates which often overlap and even when they don’t, getting from point A to point B can in the middle of the winter can be challenging. </p>
<p>I’ll again recommend: visit as many as you can beforehand and do unifieds for the bulk of the actual auditions if you possibly can. We didn’t but I wish we could have.</p>
<p>^^^I agree with this so much I could have written it myself! We also found that travel to auditions was both stressful and exhausting, and we sometimes just wanted to stay in the hotel and rest and watch movies, even though we had planned to make a side visit to another school or try to do a campus tour the day before the audition.</p>
<p>I will say again that I KNOW not everyone can plan campus visits ahead of time, but if you CAN (if it makes sense for your particular family), the try to do at least a few so that you can do most of the actual auditions at Unifieds where you can travel ONCE and audition many times.</p>
<p>If you have the luxury of starting the process when your kid is a Sophomore, you might be able to at least get a FEEL for what the school is like, then when the acceptances come in during Senior year, if you are fortunate to have more than you can reasonably visit during spring break, that impression might help weed out which schools to visit and which to let go.</p>
<p>As I have said, since we currently have four wait list schools, we are having to make hard choices to let some go sight unseen because there simply is no time to visit them all in addition to the top two accepted schools.</p>
<p>^^^ditto and back at you. I think there was one audition trip where the highlight was that there was a hotplate in the room and we could cook some pasta in the room for dinner and watch TV intead of leaving the room. Audition mode is its own animal with its own unique activites that could include mission critical things like “yikes I forgot my leotard” and needing to go shop for one, etc. It’s exhausting and it gets LLLLOONNNGGG.</p>
<p>Question: some have said here to visit schools and then audition at Unified, but I have also heard it’s better to audition on site rather than at Unified. What are the thoughts/experiences about that?</p>
<p>There are lots of posts and threads about auditioning on campus versus auditioning at Unifieds. For a few schools, auditioning at Unifieds actually acts as a prescreen and those schools invite a selected number back to campus for a final audition. HOWEVER, for most, it is just one more audition opportunity. After having gone through Unifieds last year, and discussing this topic with many college auditioners, I feel very safe saying that it makes no difference at all where you audition. I think the 'better to audition on campus" is an old rumor that has been passed down through the years. Needless to say, the colleges could not even handle on campus the number of auditionees they now receive. My daughter worked with MTCA audition coaching, and many, many of their kids, both this year and last, got accepted at many, many of the well recognized schools they auditioned for at Unifieds. I think that colleges are now fully aware of the number of schools most kids are currently auditioning for and the cost it would be to travel to all of those individually. The colleges would not spend the money and time to send their auditioners to Unifieds if they did not take them seriously.</p>
<p>Five auditions: three on campus and two at unifieds. Two on campus acceptances and one rejection; one of each at unifieds. </p>
<p>You will get lots of opinions both ways on this (I think I have seen about 100 each way!) and I am not sure there is an answer. Or at least not an answer that fits all situations and all schools evenly. Fun to bat it around, tho!</p>
<p>p.s. it must matter to some schools, because they do not even have the option of unifieds.</p>
<p>We also heard it was better to audition on campus so we did that for her top picks. In retrospect, I’m convinced where you audition is completely irrelevant. Plenty of people are accepted or rejected either way. On visits - we honestly didn’t learn anything by trekking to schools. Not saying you shouldn’t but in our case there were absolutely no surprises. She loved the ones she expected to love and found more issues with the iffy choices. Now, we do know kids who audition willy-nilly for programs at Unifieds and then have no idea where they want to attend. That wasn’t the case with us. She could have lined up her schools in order of preference with no problem visit or not, and would rather watch TV in the hotel than do a “what-the-heck” walk-in. I think you have to find a balance. Too much travel also takes a toll.</p>
<p>The individual face time in front of the people making the decisions is so limited on campus or not. I don’t know how it could possibly matter for admissions. </p>
<p>We did six on campus and only one at unifides. The unified audition actually felt more personal than many of the on campus auditions we encountered. Probably more school-specific than venue-specific. Some schools choose to make their auditions more personal. Others are deliberately down-to-business and would be that way no matter where the audition is held.</p>
<p>I think from a school point of view there isn’t usually a bias. Although, I have heard from several sources that Michigan prefers those who audition on campus - but these are still rumors - just what I’ve heard. </p>
<p>I think you can get lucky or unlucky as to the mood of the people judging the auditions regardless of location - are they hungry - are they tired - who did they just see - did they fight with their spouse that morning - this is people judging other people - it just isn’t science. </p>
<p>My husband was worried about her doing 8 out of 10 BFA auditions at unifieds. Especially after she had success at her first 2 auditions - both on campus. He kept saying - shouldn’t she do CMU on campus? I kept saying - they take 4 girls nationwide - it’s going to be what it’s going to be, we have no control - and BTW - it’s probably going to be a NO. Unfortunately, but expected - by me anyways (Daddy doesn’t get it!), I was right. And, I’m 99% sure that if we had make a special trip (from CA) to go to CMU on campus, she would have had more or less her same few minutes and it would still be a NO. </p>
<p>The other thing is that we chose two schools to do on campus and early that we felt like were both good fits and that we felt like she had a good chance of getting into. My goal was that she have at least one acceptance going into unifieds - and that if she didn’t - that it would be a wake up call that she had to change her material and/or that we had to add less selective schools and/or have more safeties, etc.</p>
<p>If we lived on the east coast - I think we would have tried to do more on campus auditions - but being from CA - this just wasn’t that feasible.</p>
<p>I do feel like it’s a risk doing most of the auditions over one unified weekend - especially LA as it’s the end of the audition season and hard to reschedule if there is a problem. I will never know if her results would have been better if she didn’t have a head cold during her 8 unified auditions. We had visited an ENT, put her on steroids to reduce vocal swelling, steamed, netti potted, drank tea with honey, etc. (and people on CC were very kind with advice!) I do know that having almost all her eggs in one weekend basket was extremely stressful when she got sick. I tried to reschedule some of the first auditions that weekend - but their upcoming on campus days were completely full - there were no other options.</p>
<p>So, that’s my concern with doing a bunch of auditions over one weekend - if I could have spread them out - even over two unified weekends - I would have. But, overall, I think our strategy of getting some early feedback with rolling or early decision auditions was wise. </p>
<p>Also, I have to say - I liked the fact that I think all of her unified auditions were taped to then go back and look at later, with more people, etc. Even though her actual time in the room was really small at unifieds, I’m sure, at least at the schools she was accepted to that there was more time spent considering her than she experienced in the audition room.</p>
<p>What I really really think is that all the schools should get together and decide on a couple or a few pre-screening formats/requirements. I know a few schools are doing this, but I really think they all should. It would be so much better to know ahead of time what schools might really be interested in you and then just focus on them.</p>
<p>We just visited 3 schools - all within driving distance, and all with free lodging options for our family. </p>
<p>Here’s what I found beneficial about it. Everyone around my D understands that it’s time for her to get her head “in the game” so to speak in regards to college. She’s a free spirit, a daydreamer, an artist - and has been perfectly content to have me doing all the research etc. These visits pulled her head down out of the clouds, made her start to really think about what she likes and what she doesn’t like - and has her committed to sitting with me over the summer to put together her “list”. </p>
<p>She learned terms like the “Anderson Method” and other things that we were completely clueless about - and has started to narrow down what SHE wants in a program.</p>
<p>I wish I had put more schools on the list! She was very apprehensive starting out the week, but by the time we left the last campus yesterday was thinking and talking about her future like I’ve never seen before. So, just for that - it was invaluable to our family to do the visits!</p>
<p>We are working with a coach that suggested not visiting until auditions. Her point was that if you do and fall in love with a school, it may stain your evaluation of other programs, and then if you do not get into the school of your dreams you will never feel comfortable with where you wind up. I think that’s good advice. However, like the poster above my Daughter (a junior) had no real idea of what college is, had never even seen a college campus (outside of a very small college where she did show choir camp), so we decided to make a couple stops over spring break this week.</p>
<p>Since we were in Chicago anyway, we took in a show put on by MT students at Roosevelt, and we visitd Northwestern. And since we live only an hour away she visited Ball State , where she has some friends in their theater program. These visits I think served a purpose, in that it opened her eyes to what college is about, gave her an idea about different kinds of campuses, etc. For example, I don’t think an urban setting is that appealing to her (Roosevelt is housed in a single building on Michigan Ave) vs an actual larger campus like NU or BSU. She, I think (I hope!), found out that college will be an opportunity to expand her horizons. When at one campus she saw posters for lectures on things like rape counseling, Cuban refugee issues, all kinds of different lectures, etc. And she was sort of put off by that, at which point her mom and I told her that every college has those sorts of lectures, and that college is where you actually have an opportunity to expand your scope of knowledge. Her response was: have I really led a sheltered life? And our response was: yes, you have. So that really opened her eyes, regardless of the MT program, etc.</p>
<p>So in the end I would say this past week has been helpful just in terms of my daughter understanding what a college is and what general sorts of things she might find appealing. And I think that will help her to some extent as she starts putting together her list of MT schools she’ll apply to. And she knows that in the end she may only get one spot somewhere and that it will have to be somewhere she feels fits what she wants in a learning experience.</p>
<p>I have a young friend struggling with the “final decision” this month and I asked what shows she has seen at the final contenders. She hasn’t seen any shows. Don’t let this be you next year!</p>
<p>IMO, seeing seniors in performance gave us great clues as to the strength of the voice, dance and acting training at those schools. I even decided that when we “wasted” time & money at schools that eventually didn’t accept my D, we learned something from the visit which has still contributed to the process.</p>
<p>My son and I just took 11 tours in 12 days. There is no way to measure the value of what we learned. The visits were so informative. Schools he thought he would love were taken off the list and some were added. He is feeling focused and confident. For us it was an es
sential first step.</p>