makes sense was half kidding…good luck the rest of the way…boco aint cheap thats for sure, and they aint typically generous, but a few have gotten great offers in the past , hope it works out!!
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“I wouldn’t want to belong to a club that would have me as a member.” - Groucho Marx
Anyone else’s child feeling this way right now? I haven’t been active in this thread because D wasn’t set on BFA. She applied to a mix of LACs, theater BA, and Acting BFA, all within driving distance and predicted to be affordable. Her first selective audition and possible rejection is next weekend. The kid who said, “No conservatories” now likes her last minute conservatory acceptance best. Last night, she mentioned trying again next year with a more aspirational list. Today, she texted me about an academic reach school with only a theater minor. I don’t see this settled by May 1st.
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@Juno22, in my view, one of the telltale signs that a BA path may be more appropriate is when the student, as is the case with your daughter, has some uncertainty. A BFA path is more appropriate for someone who is at least 100% certain and ready to commit. A BA path is a viable path to go into this field and affords more flexibility and less commitment as a teenager.
Congratulations!
My son attends here and absolutely loves it. He received a decent merit scholarship. There are many in his class that did as well (of course some pay full tuition). Sometimes Boco gets a bad rap for not giving out money but there are also kids there with full scholarships. And I will take this time to also mention that in the freshman class 40% of the students are Bipoc which I think is a high percentage for MT programs! Feel free to DM me if you have any other questions:)
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About BoCo. When do they make their financial offers? Are they in the acceptance letter? After?
Actually it is in the financial tab in the students portal we didn’t notice it until months later! But i believe it’s out in there around the same time as your acceptance. Ours was early acceptance in late Jan.
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I am so sorry your daughter did not have a positive experience! Wonder if different people running the desk gave misinformation? My daughter did a walk in for Hartt also this weekend in NYC. She did it on Sat just after lunch. They told her to go in with her best song and if they are interested in her they will ask for more audition material and maybe an invite to the dance call later on. The faculty did ask her to present a few more audition pieces and then told her in her audition they would like to invite her to the dance call later on. I did get the impression that the walk in was a pre screen and if they ask you to do more and invite to the dance call that is like a callback? I don’t know. We were just winging everything last weekend! Headed to Chicago unified as well next week!!!
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My D had a scholarship letter with her acceptance, but was told by financial aid (when she inquired) that her full financial aid package would be released in March. 
At that point, we will appeal for more, depending on how much it is. Praying this is feasible, because my D would be so blessed and honored to attend Boco.
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Thank you so much! My D is absolutely thrilled to be accepted and hopes and prays she can financially attend. 
So cool to hear about so many being bipoc. 
I love the diversity!
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@soozievt Thank you, my D is committed to theater as a career. She’s the kind of kid who strains against limitations, and right now, that’s all she’s focusing on in her options: limitations on college interactions at conservatories, on outside electives in BFAs, on allowed theater electives and performance opportunities in BAs, in faculty depth and department funding at LACs.
I’d describe her as a thinking actor. She’s a natural performer who is deeply interested in all the details of character and story creation. Dramaturgy and directing make sense, and she’s had some BFA programs tell her they would work with her on those goals; however, that comes at the expense of all the foundational humanities electives that would deepen her perspective and knowledge base.
Unfortunately, her GPA and test scores aren’t Northwestern, Wesleyan, NYU, or BU caliber.
Small victory today. I offered to trade her a scheduled scholarship interview and campus visit for a parent’s pick audition. She agreed!
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@Juno22 Based on what you have shared here, it still sounds like a BA might be a better pathway because it is more flexible and can accommodate someone who values gaining worldly knowledge via humanities courses (a true thinking actor) and is flexible enough to maybe explore many facets of theater, like directing or dramaturgy in addition to performance. Many BFA programs take up a huge percentage of the coursework and many of them are very lock step in nature to not allow for any variation of the curriculum or to get into other facets of theater, for example. There are exceptions. For instance, in the BFA program at NYU, there are still quite a number of courses outside the conservatory studio classes and there is a lot of flexibility in the four years of the BFA aspect of the program too. My own kid went there and now has a multi-faceted career including performance, but not just limited to performing and not just in theater either. I understand this is not a school for your daughter, but I mention it as an exception to many BFA degree programs.
I don’t know your daughter’s academic profile, but there are many BA programs where she could do all the things you mention and have a career in the theater world. Has she looked at Skidmore? Muhlenberg? Connecticut College? Fordham? American? University of Vermont? Brandeis? James Madison? Rollins? Wagner? University of New Hampshire?
In an earlier post, I was not questionning your daughter’s commitment to theater. I was trying to say that her uncertainty in terms of the type of degree program she wants is a good indicator that a BA degree program might be more appropriate because I believe a BFA program is most fitting if the applicant is VERY certain they want a BFA. In both cases, the student can be certain they want to pursue theater though!
One more thing is if she does a BA degree program and down the line wants more conservatory training, she can earn an MFA.
Yes, in looking more closely at the curriculum, we discovered that department heads’ power to make accommodations is limited to their own departments. She spent part of her snow day digging through course catalogs and falling back in love with LACs.
Fordham would be her dream; unfortunately, the NPC didn’t work out. We’re concentrating on midwestern schools for travel and affordability. Most will offer enough merit to come close to the price of the state flagship. Ithaca reached out this morning through Acceptd. They’re extending their non-performing theater studies application deadline. She’s at the 25th percentile for GPA and test scores, and I warned her that the cost is likely to be too high. She’ll complete it today. Skidmore was an early favorite, but since they are need aware and her stats are low, she didn’t apply.
She’s always been open to an MFA. So we had a talk about BA–>MFA vs. BFA–> ?, community college, a post grad year of intro courses at the state university and whether or not that would make sense.
In order not to hijack this thread, I’ll throw out there that three of her four BFA acceptances questioned why a kid with voice and dance experience wanted acting. One encouraged her to keep singing, one admitted her to BFA MT, and another highlighted the amount of dance and voice their acting students receive. These schools are attending Unifieds or have rolling admissions. I’ll speculate that utility players who can be thrown in an MT ensemble when needed are an asset.
@juno22 Look into Lindenwood University. It is not too late to apply.
Congrats on BoCo ED and the scholarship! The late March financial aid package will most likely be in the form of standard parent/student loans and appeals are pretty stingy. They’re not being mean - Boston is expensive, the training is elite and they don’t have a large, established endowment pool or state/local public grants to draw from like many of the larger universities (working on endowment, but it’ll take awhile to build.) By all means appeal and hopefully you’re not too far apart between what has been offered so far and what you are willing to pay.
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Thanks for the advice! Praying it works out.
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Unfortunately we did not get more from BoCo after the initial scholarship, even after appeal. Just want to manage expectations for you.
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I really hate to have to confirm what’s been said about BoCo financial aid, but it’s very much true. (I have a DD that graduated from there in 2019 with a lot of debt, and one who got accepted last year with an aid package that would have left us paying over $200k out of pocket for 4 years…we respectfully declined). The initial scholarship is not far from what you’ll end up with in terms of merit/academic aid. The other piece of the financial aid you’ll find out about in March will be what you qualify for with the FAFSA. That means unless you qualify for federal grants, the additional aid they will offer is likely to be direct subsidized student loans, which is about $5,500/year for a dependent undergrad. The rest of the costs will need to be covered by the family…through outside scholarships, parent loans or rich relatives! It’s very unfortunate, but as great a school as BoCo is, they are pricing themselves out of the market for many talented MT students. In fairness though, the same applies for many of the MT programs, especially those located in the big cities like NYC, LA and Boston.
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My S had offers from a variety of schools. The only ones who offered him merit aid were those that gave for academic credentials. His cost of attendance at all schools was decreased by 10-20K. NYU offered nothing. He attends UNCSA and that is the only one where the cost of attendance of 4 years would be less than 200K and that is only because it is a state school (and we are out of state). Generous merit based awards at top programs are few and far between.
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DS just got accepted at CCM acting;) happy day!!
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