Some observations on the USC audition and admission process

College Majors Theater/Drama Majors
1

<p>My D applied to, and auditioned for the following universities (in no particular order):</p>

<p>RADA, LAMDA, RSAMD, Juilliard, SUNY Purchase, USC, UCLA
She was insistent on being on the East coast close to NYC, or on the West Coast in LA or in the UK in London. I know.... RSAMD is in Glasgow. This limited her choices some what.
She was accepted at 2, is waitlisted at 1 and will be going to her top choice. I state this to give some indication of her talent and capability.</p>

<p>Out of all these top level schools, I was the most surprised/shocked at the way in which the applicants were treated by the auditors and admissions people at USC. Please note that the following descriptions are of course subjective and others may feel different, your mileage may vary.</p>

<p>For some auditions we flew to New York, the rest were in San Francisco where we live.</p>

<p>The USC audition we attended was held in San Francisco
We arrived at 7:30 AM for an 8:00 AM start.
At 8:30 the admissions officers (NOT anyone related to the auditions) gave a 30 minute talk on the USC acting program. Most of the talk was to emphasize why the BA Acting option is such a wonderful alternative for those who are not admitted into the BFA program. I felt that they were trying to hard sell the BA program.</p>

<p>At 9:00 the auditors "marched" (I feel this describes their entrance into the room) in and one of them gave a three minute talk on the audition process. They told the applicants that they would be presenting one of their two 2 minute monologues, and MAY be asked to deliver the second.</p>

<p>They then divided the room into 3 sections, one section would be doing nothing, one section would be sitting in the hallway waiting for their chance to audition, and one section would be interviewed by the admissions officers. Yes, the general admissions officers who do not specialize in theater interviewed them!</p>

<p>So my daughter ended up giving her one 2 minute monologue and being interviewed by an admissions officer.</p>

<p>I contrast this with all the others where at a minimum she gave two monologues, and answered some questions which the auditors asked. In some cases she was called back (there were no callbacks scheduled for USC), in some case she was asked to sing 16 bars, in many cases she had a lengthy interview with the auditors.</p>

<p>Then, the USC process is such that they badger you for financial information BEFORE you are accepted. I had to make an effort to get my 2008 tax return done in order to give them the information they wanted for their deadline which is 1.5 months before the 15th of April 2009. They wanted W2s, 1040s. schedule As and more information for myself, my wife and my daughter. I ended up faxing them about 60 pages of information BEFORE we got a letter of acceptance.</p>

<p>In the end my daughter was not accepted. She got a form letter stating that she was not accepted to USC. They could not even be bothered to program their computer to include the program (BFA Theater) but simply left out any reference to what she had applied for.</p>

<p>In short I am not impressed with their process and how they treat applicants.</p>

2

<p>We got the same type of letter from Ithaca – just a letter saying she hadn’t been admitted to the college with no reference to not being accepted to the BFA program. She was a bit taken aback given that her academic credentials are beyond the top end of the range for Ithaca . . . she read the letter, looked puzzled and said . . . “how could I not get accepted at Ithaca?” It seems as if they too couldn’t be bothered to provide a more personalized rejection.</p>

3

<p>it’s the whole process and the way in which USC treats BFA Theater applicants that I find distatsteful.</p>

4

<p>IanJoseph - </p>

<p>Just to clarify the Admission Officers who interview the applicants ARE from the School of Theatre - They are not USC Admission’s officers. They work in the School of Theatre Building and are actually part of the final decision. </p>

<p>I found with my daughter’s (last year) and student’s (this year) interview process to be actually quite similiar to UCLA’s. </p>

<p>I’m so sorry your daughter had such a negative experience because every young actor I have known to audition there has had a very positive one.</p>

5

<p>I must disagree with you, I was at both the UCLA and the USC auditions and they could not have been more different. USC projected an air of arrogance and “we are doing you a favor”, UCLA was very professional and was open to talking to the students. We visited both campuses and UCLA was a totally different experience, the school was welcoming and the professor even allowed us to sit in on an acting class.
Are you connected to USC in any way apart from your daughter studying there?</p>

6

<p>IanJoseph – You had a different experience than actingmom. That does not make her wrong and you right. You each had different experiences. Your comments about the USC audition process were quite derogatory and she was simply expressing a more positive impression. That’s all fair game for this forum. You have a right to say your piece and you did, on several different threads. I’m sorry about your bad experience, but I don’t like you lashing out at a wonderful poster like actingmom, implying that she is biased insider, just because she defended the USC theatre department.</p>

7

<p>Ian Joseph - I have to support actingmom and say that our experience with USC audition was very pleasant. We auditioned in LA (first weekend) – also had the orientation by the Theatre admin staff, then an overview of the audition process by the faculty. Both sessions were informative and not arrogant at all. I would agree that they did hype the BA program more than I would have expected – but since so few students make it into BFA, I thought it was appropriate to give people information about the BA option. My D was also only asked to do one monologue, but felt very comfortable with the auditors and said that they were friendly and helpful. She did not get selected for the BFA but was offered a place in the BA program. I was glad that we had gotten an overview of the program so that we can now make a reasonable choice. We visited USC and had a great experience. I have no doubt that my D would have jumped at the chance to be in the BFA program, but is not sure about the BA given that she has other BFA options.</p>

8

<p>StageMom,
I would hardly classify my response as “lashing out”. But that is your opinion. I also did not try to imply anything about ActingMom, but rather than imply asked the question in order to see if there was any bias. There is a difference. I also wanted to make the point that we seemed to have VERY different impressions. I have received private messages from others on this forum who had the same impression as I did, I just hope that they post them publicly. If my comments were derogatory you need to look at the full posting where I stated that they were MY impression and others may have different impressions.</p>

<p>Let us not forget that this is a PUBLIC forum where one is able to state any opinion in, one would hope, a civil manner.</p>

9

<p>I ran into basically the exact same thing for USC at the unifieds in chicago. I was allowed to do only one monologue and I felt like the admissions people sized everyone up and felt like no one in the room would be in the BFA program. I asked another young man how he felt about the whole thing at my Fordham audition the next day and he said that he asked the admissions counselor who was giving him the interview if she thought anyone in the room had a chance for the BFA and she said something like “Not really, the BFA kids are the ones that are lying on the flooring doing odd breathing exercises and acting strange.” Anyways, he might have been exaggerating, but this kid was nice and I didn’t feel he had any reason to lie to me. </p>

<p>Let’s just say I was really not impressed with the whole thing. I felt like I was just in a herd of cattle or something. NOT cool.</p>

10

<p>IMHopeful
Thank you! It is very interesting that two people can see the same process in such a different way. I am sure that others will end up with views that may differ from both of us.
My impression of the USC process was that it was very different from any other and seemend to be disrespectful of the students. This is obviously a personal impression and I was very impressed by every one of the other 7-8 auditions we went to.</p>

11

<p>A young woman from our area was admitted to the SC BFA program last year. She had a 4.0 from a rigorous private school and had many professional acting experiences. I spoke to her later in the year and she did not have one negative thing to say about her audition or her experiences at SC.</p>

<p>It is regrettable your senior did not have a positive impression from her audition at an off site audition for SC.</p>

12

<p>Actingmom,
“Just to clarify the Admission Officers who interview the applicants ARE from the School of Theatre - They are not USC Admission’s officers. They work in the School of Theatre Building and are actually part of the final decision.”</p>

<p>Just to clarify, there is a world of difference between an auditor who is a member of the academic and teaching staff interviewing an applicant for a theater program versus an Admissions Officer interviewing you who at best majored in theater, but who probably majored in Psychology or Bus Admin and who cannot relate your interview to an audition which they did not see.</p>

13

<p>GeorgiaGirl,
Are we talking about the same university?
I am referring to University of Southern California when I say USC, not University of South Carolina.</p>

14

<p>Margot wrote: "I asked another young man how he felt about the whole thing at my Fordham audition the next day and he said that he asked the admissions counselor who was giving him the interview if she thought anyone in the room had a chance for the BFA and she said something like “Not really, the BFA kids are the ones that are lying on the flooring doing odd breathing exercises and acting strange.”</p>

<p>I must admit that I got a chuckle out of that. In none of my son’s auditions for acting BFA programs did we see anybody on the floor, except for the MT kids at the CMU audition doing stretches in advance of their dance auditions, lol.</p>

<p>But then, he only applied to six programs, and USC was not among them… :-)</p>

15

<p>IanJoseph–The University of South California is also referred to as SC. The University of South Carolina does not offer an auditioned BFA program. Hard as it may be for you to believe, Georgia Girl is expressing a positive view of USC’s BFA program. </p>

<p>You don’t have a monopoly on audition or rejection horror stories. Theater is a cruel business, and people who want to do it need to develop a thick skin and learn to shake off rejection and move on. USC will survive the loss of your good graces, and I’m sure your daughter will thrive in her first choice school, whether you move on from this vendetta or not.</p>

16

<p>Maybe the OP needed to vent to get past this point in their journey?! He pointed out in the beginning that ‘others may feel different’ and ended with his opinion. Isn’t that what this forum is for? I know we have had a similar experience with a school that acted as if they could care less that the kids were there. Everyone we spoke with that day agreed and were disappointed. I’m sure on other days the auditioners were better. I hope that the next class sees this thread as everyone has different experiences, and but it’s only a part of the whole process.</p>

17

<p>Well put zen – My D did 11 auditions – 2 at the schools, 6 at unifieds, and 3 at off-school locations (but not unifieds). I can say that EVERY one was different – some long with orientation sessions and a fair amount of waiting (like USC, Ithaca, CMU), others very short (Purchase), some with feedback and work with my D on her monologues (Otterbein), some with no interaction at all (Hartt), some with interviews separate from the audition, all with different requirements for monologues, some with singing (and she was not MT). She was treated differently by every school – with some being extraordinarily friendly and welcoming, and others being cold fish. I can only assume that schools develop audition protocols that work for them – helps them find and put together a class that is going to best succeed at their school. I may not find their approach to be my cup of tea – but then again, its not my call. But, if our kids are lucky enough to end up with some choices at the end of the process, how they were treated in audition can certainly play a role in which school they select.</p>

18

<p>Zen,
Thank you for the most rational response I have yet seen to my original post. I find the language used by some people on this board to describe me very strange: “good graces”, “vendetta” etc. StageMom, why are you so angry towards me?
Oh well, like any public forum I guess it takes all types.</p>

19

<p>IanJoseph - </p>

<p>No, I am not in anyway affiliated with USC other than paying large tuition checks every month :slight_smile: I am an actress - BA in Theatre and classically trained in London for 3 years, so maybe I come across like I work for a university! </p>

<p>And yes, I am defending the program because my daughter absolutely loves it and USC - Last year she auditioned for 14 schools and got into 11 - a very unusual and fortunate situation - She choose USC over what some consider the “top” programs - some with great scholarships as well. USC was the right choice for her. Ironically, some of the auditions she felt “a negative vibe” were schools she got into, and some of those she thought she did well… she did not get into.</p>

<p>I don’t know what the “USC Admission People” have their degrees in - I was simply stating they have worked in the School of Theatre for many years and ask specific questions because USC is, first and foremost, an academic school. The GE’s are rigorous. Even the most talented kid in the world can’t get in if their GPA and scores are low. I believe the admissions people are part of the process to aid in making a decision on the student as a whole person, not just an actor.</p>

<p>Once again, I am sorry your daughter had a negative experience but she has a great school to attend in the Fall. I wish her the best!</p>

20

<p>I am sorry that you and your daughter had such a difficult time. My daughter was accepted to USC and to the BA in acting. She didn’t want to audition for the BFA because she felt, as a professional actress, she wanted to spread her wings a bit a to learn more about the world and explore new areas. </p>

<p>The “treatment” as you describe it is what happens, sans the 3 minute talk about USC, at a theatrical audition. You go into the audition house, sign in, go to the computer where they bring up your head shot and then you go into the room. If you are lucky you get through your first audition speech or conversation. If you are truly good and the casting director is interested you get to say a second part. Sometimes the casting director doesn’t look the actor in the face. Sometimes you hit the mark and people talk to you. That is called an audition.</p>

<p>My daughter, and MANY others, have been through this process as a professional. It is grueling, disappointing and sometimes viciously disappointing. As a mother you want your child to have the world. I know this. But no one is going to book every job (acting or otherwise), and if your daughter wants to be a professional she’s going to get rejected 30 times to book 1 job. (That is, if she is lucky.) And my best advice to you as a (I’m sure wonderful, dedicated and protective mother): This is acting, this is what she is signing up for in life, no one is going to love your daughter the way you do, no one is going to protect her the way you do and you may not like it but: Back off. You’re upset, be sorry, but do not feed into the feelings that the school failed your daughter.</p>