D has received academic acceptances to OCU, TCU, Western Michigan, Elon, Univ of Oklahoma, Ball State and Indiana so far. I know that Michigan and NYU are linked to the BFA acceptances.
Academically D got into Minnesota, Texas State, Wright State, Michigan (applied separately to LSA), Rutgers, and Pace. TSU, Minnesota, Wright State, and Pace all had significant scholarship packages. Michigan has one year scholarship. I don’t remember about Penn State. Crossing our fingers that D will be able to use this scholarship money. :-/
@happydancer98 - you already heard about scholarships from Minnesota? Do you live in Minnesota? My daughter didn’t hear yet and she applied for some specific ones in the college of liberal arts. That makes me wonder why she hasn’t heard yet. I thought they didn’t notify until later about scholarships for Minnesota. Hmmm. Is your D going to callbacks this weekend?
So sad but she was rejected from Minnesota artistically. We live out of state. She received a National Excellence Scholarship. It’s worth 50% of difference between resident and non-resident tuition. I’m pretty sure she didn’t apply separately for this one. Good luck at callbacks. My D would live to be there! That’s an achievement. Great program!
Thanks for the info and nice words, @HappyDancer98 - that scholarship is quite an achievement! Your D should be proud of that. I looked high and low for something like that but could only find things for neighboring states in terms of money at Minn. In any event, my D has heard nothing about the money - which is too bad. She has the credentials and got some good offers from other schools (financial offers) - so we were hopeful about Minn. Back to waiting.
@bfahopeful Thank you! I wish your D the best at callbacks and hoping it works out financially too!
@HappyDancer98 - one of my good friends says (in jest) you can only get 2 of the 3 things you wish for (the money, the arts acceptance or program you want over another)…she assures me one just doesn’t get all 3 at once. 
Has anyone had this problem? S or D gets into none of the programs they could afford and only gets in the ones they were hoping to get some money with and didn’t. So they are out of luck on the colleges for the next year.
That is beginning to happen for us.
Ugh @mtmcmt that is my fear for next year!!
Good luck everyone! I have a junior and am immersed in all of you! I find myself checking several times a day to see who got accepted somewhere!! Lol! I think only other theatre moms could have any clue of what we go through! I just want to add a touch of sanity. My husband and I both went to, so called no -name colleges 35 years ago. We had both only been in our senior play and decided to major in theater, I might add in different parts of the Country. We met in New York in an acting class, and somehow both managed to work, get equity cards, book soaps , commercials, new plays , theater companies, etc. I do remember thinking "if I had only gotten to go to great college it would be so much easier to get an agent. " But with persistence and determination, we did get agents and managers, and jobs. At the age of 35 we had two children and decided to open a business. We now employ 125 people and have extremely successful business, my husband has said that after marketing yourself for theater regular business was a cinch! Now, my husband (who held onto all of his union cards), is going back at 55! Amazing amount of parts for 55-year-olds! Wild things have happened! It is a long journey in life , it brings many surprises. Hang in there, the college is not the be-all and end-all for success! How you persist, how determined you are, and what you make of your situation is what determines your life. So remember, these college auditions are just one in a lifelong journey of auditions. There is no cap on creativity or time to blossom as an artist!
@mtmcmt That’s why it is so important to have an academic safety that is also a financial safety in this process.
@mtmcmt – I think affordability is a problem for many applicants every year. This is not just a simple “yes, you’re in” or “no you’re out” process. You have to a) be accepted academically b) be accepted artistically c) be able to afford it. It is hard to understand the economics of it all until you have those financial award numbers in hand. We definitely found some schools we had thought would be more expensive actually became the more affordable of our choices due to the generous amount of scholarship offered. And we were disappointed in what some others offered.
As far as financing goes, if at first you don’t get a package you can afford, call the financial people at the school of your choice and see if there is anything additional they can work out for you. Sometimes it could be an additional scholarship to which you can apply. Sometimes it may be some sort of work/study arrangement. Sometimes, they may increase the value of an award they have already given you. And unfortunately sometimes, they cannot do anything additional at all. But we did have some success getting increases in awards by talking with the schools in which we were most interested. So it is worth asking.
One last caveat: make sure your student and you understand what is being offered. Sometimes our D got confused about the amounts being offered to her in the form of loans and mistook those for being scholarship dollars. Those are two very different things as I’m sure you know. We had to teach her how to read those financial award offers to understand what was being given to her and what she would be expected to repay.
In addition, sometimes the amount of scholarship being offered could be confusing … for example, a school could offer a $20,000 scholarship - which to them meant $5000/year over 4 years. And D sometimes thought it was a $20,000/year offer. Obviously a big difference! if the school is $50,000/year.
All that to say, read financial awards carefully. And if it is not enough, follow up and see if there are additional ways to bring your cost down at the school of your choice.
^^^^ditto. Let me second what @vvnstar said. Once your child is accepted they will get an award package of some combination. The amounts and types of awards/scholarships/financial aid vary so greatly that you have to wait and analyze everything. Schools that you thought might be out of reach become affordable (or at least semi-affordable) and other schools not so much. And definitely go back to your favorites and see what they will do. Remember, at this point they want your son or daughter to attend their school. They WANT them! They chose them over hundreds of others. They WILL try to make it work (most of the time). You never know till you ask. Can the cost of one school over the other affect where you choose to attend? Of course. But you need to ask and compare apples to apples. It can be daunting at times.
We have totally had this happen this year. Awesome school, accepted but can’t afford it. Fortunately, we have an affordable option D loves.
It wasn’t hard to figure out the award. Zero. As in no loans, grants, merit aid, work study, etc… So perhaps we will call them and convince them that a couple other colleges of similar caliber have given her some academic award ( though not yet an artistic acceptance).
We tried in our 16 schools to apply to a variety of schools; some affordable on our own, some not affordable without help and eliminated those schools which were unaffordable even with some help. She is not an academic star so no one will offer her that money.
Some were reaches, some not. The trouble is her affordable schools are also the reaches, the schools we need aid for are a little safer bets.
She did know the risk of applying to schools that were not pricey but still not doable for us without aid, and she chose to apply. Her bad luck may be that those are her only accepts.
As per a safety, she has no interest in going to college for an academic program only.
It’s not over yet.
My daughter’s safety ended up being the most expensive on paper but with merit aid and working as an RA has ended up being less than $10,000 a year. She is loving it there and will leave for NYC to pursue her career debt free. Sometimes what our kids have as non negotiables change… baby steps
We only had one school not offer ANY aid but some were definitely much more “reserved” in their aid offers. And it really had no correlation to the sticker price.
It never hurts to ask… S didn’t have any scholarships or grants initially, but after an inquiry he was awarded a faculty scholarship which lowered his out-of-state rate to in-state level. 
@mtmcmt , you are absolutely right: it’s not over yet–not even that close, actually, although you might be able to just barely see the finish line in the distance! (It wasn’t over for my D until May 8th or something like that–after the May 1st decision date. She’s one who was able to drive down the cost of two of her top choices in those last weeks after already receiving generous scholarships from both. I’ve heard of others who make final decisions in the summer after getting of waitlists.) Hang in there! There’s hope!
This time last year I think we had heard from only 3 of the 15 schools applied to. Didn’t hear from the last one until right at the first of April. This is not a sprint, its a marathon (unfortunately). In my opinion it just gets more stressful. From preparing for auditions, to auditions, to waiting, to final choice. Each step is a little more stressful than the last.