<p>Thanks, austinmtmom, for the lead.</p>
<p>AdaQuince - Although I don’t know what the official rule is, we have both Equity and SAG members in our company. You should be fine. As far as I know, there are no restrictions.</p>
<p>If you really want the answer you should contact Equity or at least look to see if they say something on their website.</p>
<p>Thank you, eimc, for this fabulous post. SUNY Purchase is among my D’s very top choices, and she will definitely find your info extremely helpful come her audition in January. Truly appreciated, thanks again.</p>
<p>Does Purchase accept video auditions?</p>
<p>It does not say anything about a video audition on their audition information page but you could contact the department and ask.</p>
<p>[Application</a> Instructions - Acting Audition](<a href=“Search results for • Purchase College”>Search results for • Purchase College)</p>
<p>Hi, eimc! I didn’t really get into acting until after high school, and I was wondering if you could say anything about how much emphasis they put on experience. As it stands Ive taken about five acting classes at my college and have a couple show credits. Assuming they liked me, would they not mind my lack of experience, or would they be too busy laughing at my resume to hear my audition?</p>
<p>I would assume that it would be totally fine. People in my company had various levels of experience before coming in: performing arts high schools, a few musicals, Broadway, movies, etc. I think they will judge you on what your audition. Best of luck!</p>
<p>I always see Purchase, Juilliard, NYU Grad and Yale School of Drama kids working!</p>
<p>Good luck to everybody at your auditions in the next few weeks! We’re all really excited for you!</p>
<p>Hi! I was curious about the call-backs that occur at the auditions. I’ve heard that not getting a call-back doesn’t necessarily mean you wont be accepted, but some posts on this site have lead me to believe otherwise. Does anyone know anything about that? If I did not get a call-back, should I be expecting a rejection letter? </p>
<p>I guess the real question is, how many people studying as a BFA Acting major in the conservatory got a call-back when they first auditioned? Was there ever anyone who was accepted as a BFA without a call-back?</p>
<p>I would say to think of it as a rejection in your own mind and not hold out hope for an acceptance. If an acceptance somehow came through, it would be a delightful surprise.</p>
<p>Two years ago, my son was in an audition group of 35 or so, and only four or five of those students were called back. He was not one of them, and he was subsequently rejected via a letter that arrived a few weeks after the audition. (However, he was accepted into three other BFA programs, two of which were quite selective ones.)</p>
<p>Purchase has enormous numbers of applicants. My understanding is that they do not want to accept anybody who has not been seen…either personally (for on-campus auditions), or via videotapes taken by them during the Unifieds period…by a larger group of faculty members. The callback allows the applicant to be evaluated by the larger group of auditors.</p>
<p>At my son’s on-campus audition, the person running the audition told students not to read anything into not getting a callback. I don’t think anybody believed her. There were a lot of shell-shocked looking kids walking silently out of the building after the callback list was posted.</p>
<p>Thanks, Theatremom. I hate to come to terms with reality, because purchase is a dream… but you’re right. I did however, find this on another thread:</p>
<p>“I auditioned at SUNY in late January, and several of the current acting Freshman were assisting with the audition and out of the 7 or so of them that I talked to, NONE of the were on the “call back” list when they auditioned.”</p>
<p>Do you think there is any truth to this post?? Its sort of giving me renewed hope!
Are there any current BFA Acting students out there that can shed some light on this? How many accepted students had a call-back when they first auditioned?</p>
<p>Hopefully somebody with Purchase connections will notice new activity on this thread and address your question. I know I have heard from several sources that only called-back students are accepted.</p>
<p>It’s probably not the best idea to give too much weight to a single post on CC, on any topic. If a number of people say the same thing, that’s a little bit different.</p>
<p>I should imagine you are auditioning at some other fine schools, Owlsong…right? Purchase offers fine training, but I’m sure it is not the only program out there that would fit your needs.</p>
<p>Our D went to the Purchase audition in NYC in Feb. fully understanding how difficult it is to get accepted. It’s definitely an outstanding program with an incredible reputation.</p>
<p>But what we didn’t expect was the very cold, “cattle call” type audition. A Purchase student staffer signs you in, you are rushed in to do your audition in front of an evaluator, who isn’t very friendly. There’s no info session for parents, and there are no questions for the student during the audition.</p>
<p>Contrast that to our other experiences, which were terrific:</p>
<p>Ithaca College: Auditioned in NYC. Program director held a 40-minute info session/Q&A with parents. Students were then taken through a 20-minute warmup, interviewed for 5 minutes, and then did their auditions. One evaluator even coached my D through her classical monologue, something which helped her perform it better during subsequent auditions.</p>
<p>Marymount-Manhattan: Included a lenghty info session for parents and students with the program director and several M-M students. After that, they did exercises with the students and a warmup before their audition.</p>
<p>UArts and Point Park: Questions for my D during the audition, and an opportuntiy to do a little improv.</p>
<p>Hartt School: Very friendly and supportive environment, and really nice facilities. Parents info session, an interview during the audition and great feedback for our D.</p>
<p>Emerson College: The best so far! An info session for parents, and another info session for students, both with the program director, who returned to the parent waiting area to answer additional questions. During the audition, the evaluator asked my D questions, and had her do some improv in addition to her monologue.</p>
<p>As I said, we fully understand how difficult it is to get into the Purchase BFA acting program, and how it’s an outstanding program. But it’s our feeling that their process was a somewhat draconian method of auditioning nervous 17-year-olds.</p>
<p>We had the identical lousy experience, but at Purchase itself.<br>
There was an info session, of sorts, by the admissions coordinator, who informed us of the impossible odds of admission. And that callbacks didn’t mean anything (yeah, right).
We were then herded in groups to a tiny (ugly, of course, it’s Purchase, remember) area outside the various audition rooms. The students assigned to us informed us that the two professors who were auditing were “weird.” The group of applicants we were with were nervous, awkward, overly-talkative, obnoxious – and there was no easy escape.<br>
The Purchase students deserted our group very quickly, obviously sharing our discomfort, except for the one who was stuck “escorting” each waiting applicant from the ugly area to just outside the room.
My D was increasingly wound up during the unpleasant wait, and afterward told me the auditors were unfriendly. No callback.</p>
<p>There are schools (two of them are Purchase and Rutgers, where we had experiences similar to the above) that have huge numbers of auditioners because of their strong reputations, relatively reasonable tuition, and location.</p>
<p>I don’t think either school is hurting itself by not providing a pleasant experience for auditioners and parents. Just as many kids will apply anyway.</p>
<p>It’s a shame that people leave the auditions with a bad feeling, though.</p>
<p>Nalajen, though the Purchase campus is not the world’s most beautiful (it’s nowhere near as bad as what we expected, though), the Dance Building, where the theatre dept is located, is beautiful! Didn’t you wait in one of those little glassed-in areas, with window seats all around?</p>
<p>At Purchase, we had a nicer group of students to wait with than you did, and the freshmen did hang around and talk. Auditioners were given the option to go into a separate space to warm up. (This was in 2008.) You seem to have had particularly bad luck…I’m sorry that happened to you.</p>
<p>Of course, no one wants to wait for a long time at their auditions, and I sympathize with people’s frustration. But, it’s part of the business. And, the positive thing about auditioning at Purchase is that almost every single student is given the full 8 to 10 minute individual audition. I have not heard of any instance when a student auditioning on campus has not been given time for an interview AND done both monologues and song. So, on the one hand, yes people have to wait around, which can be uncomfortable and awkward, depending on the level of nerves of the other people auditioning. However, I think the fact that students auditioning in your group were nervous and awkward doesn’t really reflect on Purchase, their students or their acting program. If anything, it’s pretty nice that the auditions don’t go quickly because that means that they give everyone a fair shot.</p>
<p>NJTheatreMOM, you’re right, these schools aren’t hurting, they’re thriving. Thanks for the heads-up on Rutgers, which my d is doing as her final audition this Saturday. Purchase was a top choice. Along with Rutgers, where she’s hoping for a considerably better experience.<br>
Eimc, I know it’s unfair to judge a school by its auditions, but it is revealing when the auditions are run so unpleasantly.<br>
NYU is a prime example to us of how the audition process can reflect the student experience - We have met an awful lot of NYU students at these auditions, seeking to transfer, who feel “lost” in the crowd at their school. The NYU audition was a genuine cattle call, and regardless of the result (still unknown), it left my d and me stone-cold, despite the posts on this site by a perfectly lovely current NYU student with very good audition advice (similar to your extremely kind and helpful posts, which have been super, and have been much appreciated).
The Purchase audition was an extraordinarily unpleasant ordeal for my d and me, herded about and surrounded by unpleasant people. Yes, everyone had plenty of audition time. Interesting that no one in my d’s group got a callback - it was, in fact, a “weird” set of auditors, just as the students had warned…
I guess all this just shows a lot of the audition process is really a question of luck - right place, right time, etc. Everyone’s experiences are different and vary widely.
My d is handling it like a trouper, as I know everyone else’s kids are. Doesn’t mean they (or we) have to like it all the time, right?Theatre kids are a special breed, no question about it.
Good luck to everyone!,</p>
<p>They may be thriving now, but it will hurt eventually if their process isn’t “customer” friendly. This gets around, and people do not like arrogance. If you feel like you have no chance because the process is like this, then their numbers of auditioners will naturally go down. It takes a lot of time (and there’s a lot of stress) around auditioning for any school. Why would a kid want to deal with the abuse?</p>
<p>To me, it also maybe forshadows how your student might be treated should they get accepted. I mean, Ithaca and CMU are brutally hard to get into too, yet they treat their candidates with respect.</p>