Tech mom-high school class of 2014

<p>Hi all,</p>

<p>I have been following you all this fall and winter and am eager to see where your children land. I have been through the college app process twice with my two LAC daughters. Now I am getting ready for a completely different search with my son who is a junior Tech major at a performing arts hs. He is thinking he wants a BFA program, but will look at some BA programs as well. </p>

<p>Currently on the list to investigate:</p>

<p>SUNY Purchase
SUNY Buffalo
SUNY New Paltz (BA)
SUNY Oneonta (BA)
Rutgers
URI
CalArts
Coastal Carolina
UNCSA
JMU
Ohio University
Ithaca
Muhlenberg
UConn </p>

<p>Any thoughts are appreciated. But I look forward to hearing about your successes and connecting with the next class of applicants eventually.</p>

<p>I have a techie in Class of 14 too. He would like to study stage management, but would do regular design tech too, depending on the school.</p>

<p>Our list - </p>

<p>VCU (instate; visited and liked it)
JMU (instate)
Emerson (visiting spring break; he loves Boston)
Ithaca (visited over summer. Really liked it)
Boston U
Ohio U (I went there; he has been before)
Pace</p>

<p>maybe SUNY Purchase, UArts in Philly and big reach- Univ. of Michigan.</p>

<p>We also visited Syracuse. Good program, but he hated the town (don’t blame him).</p>

<p>I really like that my son has a passion for something. Also, I feel like being on sort of an obscure track takes us out of the high-stress rat race around here. </p>

<p>Here’s to an interesting journey!</p>

<p>I teach at JMU and would be happy to connect you with Design/ Management faculty, students, an alums if you would like. You can email me at <a href=“mailto:arecchkm@jmu.edu”>arecchkm@jmu.edu</a> :)</p>

<p>As you may know, my daughter is a techie. She is particularly interested in stage management but also has a strong interest in lighting. We had a huge list of schools, did a lot of research, and finally ended up with a list of schools. She has since had two rejections and has withdrawn two applications. </p>

<p>Here is the list:</p>

<p>Carnegie Mellon
UNCSA
Purchase
University of Central Florida
Coastal Carolina
Otterbein
Wright State
Point Park
Webster
Evansville
Virginia Commonwealth
Shenandoah
DePaul</p>

<p>Thanks for the replies! </p>

<p>Yes, I have been following your posts, ugadog, and even told my son about your daughter’s experience at Coastal Carolina. Congrats!</p>

<p>Thanks for the offer, KatMT. Once we figure out how to fit in these visits, I’ll be in touch. </p>

<p>Virginia, so we’ll be here together next year! Wondering about your impressions of OU, and your son’s. And if you have any impression of the theater department. It is on my radar because a friend visited last year with her daughter who wants to study photography and they were impressed. </p>

<p>I am a bit concerned about how we will fit in visits. With my daughters, I avoided summer visits because they felt they needed to see students to get a fuller sense of the school. My son has a lot less time for visits, though, trying to work around show commitments. As it is, he can’t take the ACT or SAT until May.</p>

<p>Hi again - I wouldn’t worry so much about visits. The tech and drama kids are going to have to go in person for auditions/portfolio review anyway, so they will get to visit the ones they are more serious considering.</p>

<p>RE: OU - we need to get a closer look at the theatre dept. I attended OU the first two years of college (transferred, long story). It is a really charming little town and a pretty campus and if your friend’s daughter wants to study photography, it has a great program.</p>

<p>I think also for techs you do not need to do a portfolio review as an incoming freshman. You apply to the general theatre program, take the core courses and then work on your major.</p>

<p>Hi GCmom and Virginia718
I guess I’m the third member of the “techies” class of 2014… Like GCmom, I have been following ugadog99’s daughters experiences closely and have found it very informative (thank you for always sharing!) My daughter is interested in theatre design (specifically scene design). Right now we are looking at:
University of Central Florida (instate)
University of Miami (our home town)
Carnegie
Rutgers
Boston University
Emerson</p>

<p>My biggest worry is $$$… Do any of you know tech kids in programs now and if they are getting scholarships or taking out loans???</p>

<p>Hi Gabbally, nice to have another tech mom aboard for next year! </p>

<p>Yes, money is very concerning. One reason our list has several in state options. My daughters go to LACs, where merit money was more predictable, I think. I really don’t have any sense yet of how eligible my son would be for merit scholarships in tech theater programs.</p>

<p>I know there has been some negative flak about Purchase based on acting audition experiences. However, we were blown away by the tech facilities. Costs even for out of state are quite reasonable compared to a number of schools. If I had a tech kid, it would be worth looking into.</p>

<p>Thanks for that, ActingDad. My husband and son visited Purchase and were very impressed with the tech facilities and program. We are in state, and his high school has a good acceptance rate to the tech program (maybe other programs, too, I just haven’t looked into that), so I am hoping it can be a viable option.</p>

<p>Hi, all 2014s. My D is a Stage/Production Mgmt junior at CMU. She received good FA offers from all schools in which she showed serious interest. Keep in mind there are fewer good tech students by far than good actors and theater departments cannot run without them. If your S or D is a top student so much the better. But not all theater schools can count on the best students. Art schools like UArts and UNCSA, for example, have very mediocre freshman GPAs. As a result, your child may even be a Presidential Scholar in that group. So there is reason to hope.</p>

<p>Thanks theater mom, that’s good to know. He is not even looking at CMU because we know it is an unrealistic reach academically.</p>

<p>GCmom, if you are looking at the GPA and test score stats for Carnegie Mellon, you should know that admission to the arts programs is not the same as for the academic programs. If it looks like a good program for your son, look into it. CMU is my son’s top choice and although his test scores would be competitive for the university, his grades wouldn’t, and his acting coach says that won’t matter.</p>

<p>Thanks, Prodesse. I think his grades and scores will be low for CMU.</p>

<p>I’m not just talking about CMU. My D also applied to DePaul, UArts, and other less well-known schools that are not very competitive academically and are similar to the schools on your list. FA offers from those schools were what we needed. </p>

<p>But prodesse is right about the differences between College of Fine Arts at CMU and the academic programs.</p>

<p>Thanks. It is good to know that there is some merit money out there. It was certainly what guided our search with my first D, who is at a LAC with a nice merit scholarship. I was not even encouraging my S to look at UArts because of the price. Now I will. He has heard that CalArts has good merit scholarships, but he heard this from a student who might be confused with FA. Anyone know?</p>

<p>My daughter does not have a particularly strong academic profile (3.4 gpa and 1570 SAT). She got what I understand to be the top merit category that U of Arts gives out but as far as I know it had nothing to do with her academic grades. It was just “merit” based on U of Arts talent assessment. As others have pointed out, good tech kids are in even higher demand so at some schools you could get aid based on tech talent level and not academic stats.</p>

<p>Congrats to your D, ActingDad. Great news for us.</p>

<p>Coastal Carolina offers both talent scholarships (including for Design/Tech) and academic scholarships. The academic awards are stats based and automatically awarded to those who meet the guidelines… For out-of-state the highest academic award is currently $11,000 per year.
[Coastal</a> Carolina University - Merit-Based Scholarships](<a href=“http://www.coastal.edu/financialaid/scholarships/merit.html]Coastal”>http://www.coastal.edu/financialaid/scholarships/merit.html)</p>

<p>Gabbally - Emerson is legendarily stingy with financial aid. They also take GPA and test scores into account more than some of the other schools on your list. It’s very attractive for tech students, because Emerson actually owns two magnificent, historic theaters in Boston, and their students have opportunities to work there. I’d also like to chime in on behalf of UArts. They are a little less expensive than some other top private colleges, and they are pretty generous about financial aid. My son’s GPA was disastrous, but his scores were good. He received a talent grant there, and he is very happy (BFA Acting program). UArts owns the Merriam Theatre, which is also a magnificent landmark opera house. I believe that DePaul also owns a beauty in Chicago. For Tech students, internship opportunities and networking are particularly valuable.</p>