<p>My daughter wants to spend Summer 2012 at a US university summer theatre
program. We live in London, but are US citizens. She will have just finished
her sophomore year in 2012.</p>
<p>Can you recommend some top summer theatre programs that will take "rising
juniors"? Also, how competitive are these programs to get in and do they
require auditions? She is a pretty good actress and has done courses here at
RADA, Central School, etc.</p>
<p>Thanks,</p>
<p>Carnegie Mellon takes rising juniors I believe. No audition required, but the talent is tremendous anyway! As I recall, it asks for transcript, PSAT scores (or the equivalent I guess), an essay or two, and recommendations. I think they are primarily looking for dedication and commitment from the applicants.</p>
<p>Thank you for the quick response. I have heard good things about CMU’s Theatre Dept.</p>
<p>We just did a lot of research on this so I can tell you that NYU also has a program. Again, no audition required, just essays, letters of recommendation, and transcript. BU has a program, and so does Brown University (which I think requires a DVD audition.) </p>
<p>My daughter decided to apply to CMU, NYU, and BADA (on your side of the pond.) She got into BADA (do you know anything about it? Trying to learn more) Waiting for results from the other two.</p>
<p>D did the BU program as a rising junior and she got so much out of it. 10 hours a day, 6 days a week of theater-- a great challenge and a great satisfaction. She grew so much!</p>
<p>Thanks for the tips. I don’t know much about the BADA programmes, but I have seen some other posts here that indicated that the kids had a great time.</p>
<p>My S attended the NYU pre-college summer program 2 summers ago as a rising senior. The one plus of the NYU program is that the students receive 6 college credits, 4 for their studio work (not taught by NYU staff) and 2 for a theatre appreciation class (taught by NYU staff). He was accepted into other summer programs but decided to attend the NYU program because he wanted to see what living in NYC was like (and because it offered the college credits). At that time, the acting kids attended the Lee Strasberg Institute but I understand that NYU no longer has an association with that studio. I believe that the program may give preference to rising seniors and then to rising juniors. There were a very small number of rising juniors in the class from what I recall. One feature of the program is that the kids attend many Broadway and off-Broadway productions. I believe they had to turn in papers that analyzed the various productions. Thus, this program has some written requirements, which contributed to the kids being busy nearly non-stop. The application process for many of the pre-college summer programs is a smaller version of the college application process - one or more letters of recommendation, a transcript in some cases, essays to prepare, etc. When my S was applying, we did review past threads on CC. There are pre-college drama programs aside from those at NYU, BU and CMU, and some are at colleges with BA acting programs, such as Northwestern and UCLA. There are other threads on CC that discuss various pre-college summer programs and so you may want to peruse those threads. Once you have narrowed your choices, you may want to peruse the website of each program carefully because they may not all have the same objective. For example, I recall that the CMU program had a focus on preparing students for the college audition process.</p>
<p>Dear Nansan, Thank you for the very helpful reply. Also, what is the best strategy for applying to these programs since they are all competitive? Should you just apply to your child’s top two choices, or should apply to 4 or 5 so you are assured of at least getting one program for that summer? If you end up turning down a spot due to multiple acceptances, is that going irritate that school and hurt the child’s chances for applying later to these schools for college?</p>