We taking our first college tour this spring, visiting Ithaca, Muhlenberg, Bard, Skidmore and St. Lawrence University on spring break. I was pleasantly surprised at how accommodating each school admissions dept. and theatre dept. was in scheduling our tours and private visits with some of theatre dept. heads. I guess I was expecting more of a “just another number in the crowd” response but each seemed genuinely kind and helpful! Any tips as we take these tours?
good choices for theatre. inspect the facilities closely. ask about each department’s philosophy of theatre education if you cannot tell from the dept websites. how invested is each dept in getting students gigs outside the dept.? what resources do they dedicate to this support? where do the St. Lawrence profs take their students to see shows? how do the students get there? what sort of extracurricular acting experiences have their students had recently? these things come to mind. I know the Muhlenberg students go to NYC regularly, and I assume the Bard and Skidmore kids do as well.
thanks jkeil911, all good points to focus upon!
Make sure you ask Ithaca about their theatre dept. When I went, the school had multiple activities in theatre and music.
We will be visiting St L on spring break too! We have found the LACs generally very accommodating about tours for specific interests. At Denison, my son had an extended tour of the studio arts facility by the department chair -up until that moment, we had been generally impressed with Denison based on our campus tour, but talking with the department chair at length, and seeing the really quite wonderful facility, was incredible. Moved the school much higher on my son’s list.
So poke and prod away and enjoy! As for tips, I imagine for theatre (like studio art), an important question is access to classes and facilities for freshman/sophomores/non-majors. What are class size limits and registration priorities? Can students get into the prerequisite courses early on so that they can get into the upper level classes they want? Access for majors vs. non-majors?
Enjoy your trip, and take notes at the end of each school to keep track of the differences.