<p>With an uncertain economy and MT programs getting more and more competitive, everyone seems to be looking for that safety school, that they would feel happy and content to attend. Would anyone like to share less competitive, or higher acceptance rates, and or lesser known great non-audition mt programs? Maybe non-audition state schools.....with nice reputations. It seems there are many top students looking for a "safe" place to land if their reach schools don't work out.
In particular, anyone who didn't get in to their top 5, but have settled in nicely and thrilled with where they ended up.</p>
<p>I wrote this entire post to be helpful but then as I was about to post it, the program quit. Then, I went to try again in a word processing program and it froze up. So, I will try to recreate it……</p>
<p>A few things you need to keep in mind are….</p>
<p>A school is not a safety school just because it is a BA or a non-audition school. A safety school is only a sure bet if your academic profile is above the average academic stats that are published for admitted students to that particular college and if that college does not have a low admit rate. So, a safety school is relative to each applicant. One person’s safety is another person’s match or reach school. For instance, I have a student who is applying to mostly BFA schools and her safety is Muhlenberg and this school has indicated to her that she will be accepted. However, I have other students for whom Muhlenberg is a match school or a reach school, and not a sure bet safety. Further, you have to examine the acceptance rate to each BA school and so even if your stats are above the average stats of admitted students to a particular university, their admit rate may be low and so it is not a safety for anyone. An example would be Northwestern and even if your stats are above the norm for that school, the admit rate is low and it is not a safety school, though may be a match school for a very good student. </p>
<p>Another thing is that I would not only consider state schools to be more affordable. This may be so for your IN STATE school but not necessarily for an out of state STATE school. It could be that either the need based or merit based aid at a private could come in cheaper than the full pay at an out of state public. For example, my daughter got much better scholarships and financial aid at some private schools like NYU or Syracuse than at Penn State. </p>
<p>Another thing you have to realize is that NO AUDITION BASED schools can be considered safeties for ANYONE. Every school that has an audition has very chancy odds. It could be that some audition-based schools have better odds than others, but none are safety schools. It may be easier odds to get into an audition based BA school such as American or Temple, than a very competitive BFA program like CMU or CCM, however. But it still cannot be counted on. A true safety school is one that has NO AUDIION AND where your academic profile is higher than the average admitted to that particular college, as well as the college’s acceptance rate not being a low one. </p>
<p>I will list some NON AUDITION BA SCHOOLS (NOT NECESSARILY A SAFETY FOR YOU!) that either have a MT Major or a MT Minor or else a theater program that has MT opportunities such as combined majors between theater, voice, and dance. This is not a complete list:</p>
<p>Muhlenberg (combined majors)
Manhattanville
Rollins College
Columbia College
Sarah Lawrence (interdisciplinary)
Dickinson College (interdisciplinary)
University of NH
Northwestern University
Indiana U (not their BFA)
West Chester Univ. of PA
Cal State-Chico
Cal State-Fullerton (audition after 2 years to get into the BFA)
Santa Clara University
UC-Irvine (audition after 2 years to get into MT)
Nazareth College
SUNY Geneseo
DeSales University
Wilkes University
Rhode Island College
Johnson State College</p>
<p>You may want to look at this list of MT colleges:
<a href=“Yahoo | Mail, Weather, Search, Politics, News, Finance, Sports & Videos”>Yahoo | Mail, Weather, Search, Politics, News, Finance, Sports & Videos;
<p>Quick note about above list. SUNY Geneseo BA MT program does require an audition. And their academic requirements to get in are quite high. Nazareth has an audition, but it may be for scholarship purposes only - not sure and a quick look at the website did not clarify it - so anyone interested should inquire further (also Nazareth’s program is a BS-not sure of the implications of this).</p>
<p>Oops, sorry about putting SUNY Geneseo in there. I should have gone through my OWN notes which I did when I first wrote the post and I lost it and I didn’t want to go back through all my materials when I tried to recreat the post and so I took a look at the BIG LIST on this forum (the second time I did the post) and pulled SUNY Geneseo off that one. I haven’t recommended that school lately but had in the past and so it wasn’t fresh in my mind. For sure, it is a difficult school to get into academically. That is why I was saying that the list above does NOT represent SAFETY schools, but simply non audition schools that offer MT in some capacity. For instance, Northwestern is not a safety for anyone. The OP asked about schools with MT…she talked about non audition but also about safety schools and these are not necessarily one and the same!</p>
<p>EDIT…I just took the time to go through my own notes and of course I do have SUNY Geneseo as having an audition based BA. Sorry about the list above. Redoing the post was time consuming and I didn’t want to start over from scratch going through materials again!</p>
<p>And a slight correction to susievt’s list: Wilkes University’s MT program does require an audition – however, I think it is more for placement than anything else. I don’t believe it is highly competitive; many of my students have used it as a “safety” school, and all of them have been accepted.</p>
<p>Thank you as well, onstage. When I first posted, I was using accurate information from my own personal notes. When I lost the post, I did not want to go back through my notes. I haven’t typically recommended Wilkes. I mentioned it to one student in the past who did not apply. The second time I recreated the post, I did not want to go back through notes of my own and just glanced at the Big List on the MT Forum. Probably not wise, as it wasn’t accurate enough regarding audition / no audition, like my notes are.</p>
<p>soozievt,
You are always a wealth of information. Thank you for all your insights and the time you put in on this forum.</p>
<p>Thank you, musicalmom. I do hate to post any inaccurate information though! But I enjoy helping. Thank you for your appreciative comment.</p>
<p>Bowling Green State University has a BAC in Musical Theater that is an auditioned program.</p>
<p>The idea here is non audition programs, I believe. In reality, no audition based programs can be thought of as sure bet safeties. There are some like Bowling Green or Wilkes that have much easier odss than most of the BFA programs and would balance out a list of mostly BFA schools, but I would still add a non audition safety as well.</p>
<p>central washington university…there is another thread about it.</p>
<p>I believe Wichita State University’s BFA in MT is audition for scholarship only.</p>