<p>I believe the program at Temple is currently a BA, but they may add a BFA in the near future. I heard this from a student of mine who has just been accepted into the MT program there; you should check with the school about the details.
I’m highly in favor of attending early auditions, for a number of reasons; you will most likely avoid winter weather, as well as winter cold & flu season. Also, there are fewer students at the earlier auditions, so the faculty may have more time to spend with you. It also gives you a chance to work out any problems you may have with your audition material. But don’t write off those early auditions as mere practice sessions – my daughter was accepted at the first school she auditioned for, in October!</p>
<p>That is so inspirational I think I might have to just forget I heard it! I can’t imagine being in such a good spot so early in the game. But maybe! </p>
<p>Another thing my D is doing this summer is auditioning for anything and everything she can get her hands on. She just wants to have the audition experience. Already she’s had a couple, and she feels so much more “pro” (even without getting a part). I think she’s realizing how wonderful it feels to be really, really prepared.</p>
<p>Hey everyone, </p>
<p>I’m a current Junior who’s a Straight Theatre (Acting) major at a public performing arts high school in Pittsburgh. I’ve got a 3.7 (unweighted) 4.2 (weighted) I’m taking 3 AP courses (exams start next week! And SATs on tomorrow- got a 195 on the PSAT) I’ve been involved in theatre for a long time, with a pretty fair resume (lots of educational and non-professional credits). I want a BFA in Acting but I have some interest in Directing and Spanish Studies. If I were to get a BA I would probably double major or minor in something related to Spanish. I would love to spend some time in South America working in theatre. </p>
<p>The factors I’m mainly considering are:
-Intensity of program
-Location (I’d love to be in New York or Chicago. Also, through a scholarship program with Pittsburgh Public Schools, I have an automatic 5,000$/year scholarship to any school in Pennsvylania)
-Price (I’m the fourth kid going to college, but my dad makes enough that I probably won’t be offered much scholarship money. My parents have about 50,000$ saved and the rest would be on me. And I’m not very interested in going into a career in acting with 200,000$ of debt dragging behind me)
-Whether the school is part of Tuition Exchange
-If they do any study abroad (would love to go to London w/ a good BFA Program. Oh, how UMinn is calling my name!)</p>
<p>Where I’m looking:
BFA-
University of Minnesota (Dream school, I’m waiting to hear if I got into their Stage Elements summer program)
NYU (would probably only be interested in Playwrights Horizons)
CMU
Rutgers
Boston University
Emerson
Point Park University
Syracuse
Marymount Manhattan
DePaul</p>
<p>BA:
Fordham University
Temple University</p>
<p>Correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe the Theatre program at Temple is non-audition. You audition (your second year, possibly second semester, I think) into the Acting concentration.</p>
<p>A big question I have is how often are scholarships given through theatre departments? Through audition. I’ve been told that BU offers half and full tuition based on audition but I’m curious as to how many programs offer this. Is it based at all off of aid? </p>
<p>And I’d love to hear more about the audition/scheduling process. My parents aren’t heavily involved in this sort of thing, so it will mostly be on me </p>
<p>This whole process is so stressful!</p>
<p>Edit: I have no interest in not being in a city (hence not having Penn State on my list) Just thought I’d clarify.</p>
<p>^^You might want to consider Pace. It is in NYC and they have an honors program with merit scholarships. Also, Purchase which is close enough to NYC that you shouldn’t rule it out and OOS costs are still decent. </p>
<p>My S will be attending Fordham in the Fall and on the accepted students day they talked about their Study Abroad programs. Sounds like you’d be interested in their program at [London</a> Dramatic Academy](<a href=“http://www.fordham.edu/academics/office_of_the_senior/office_of_internatio/london_dramatic_acad/index.asp]London”>http://www.fordham.edu/academics/office_of_the_senior/office_of_internatio/london_dramatic_acad/index.asp). They also have summer and winter break Study Abroad programs specifically designed for Theatre students but you could do any Study Abroad program, you are not limited because of major, so Spain might be a great option for you as well. </p>
<p>You can definitely double major or minor in Spanish with Fordham’s BA program. It is a competitive audition program but you can still be admitted to the school if you don’t get into the Theatre program and you can minor in Theatre without an audition. You can also audition again for the major after Freshman year but it is even harder to get in this way. Fordham’s audition scheduling opened up around Sept 1 and it was not necessary to submit an application prior to scheduling. There was no audition fee either.</p>
<p>Every applicant is considered for scholarships but you need to file the FAFSA and CSS Profile. I believe that your entire academic profile is considered not just your audition. We were pleased with the awards they gave my S.</p>
<p>Have fun with the search! :)</p>
<p>A student of mine will be attending the Temple MT program this fall – she was required to audition. Don’t know if their Theater program is different, but you might want to double-check that.</p>
<p>At Temple, for ACTING (not MT), there is no audition to be admitted. There are auditions later to get into certain level classes.</p>
<p>I’m hoping we can do a Philly trip at some point - my D has always been fascinated with UArts, and Temple seems to be a great BA alternative. We could swing by Muhlenberg, too. We’ll see how our summer works out, or what she ends up wanting to do.</p>
<p>Her list is down to 10 right now - I think 2 LAC BAs, 2 safeties (one with 2nd year BFA option), and 6-7 audition schools at various levels of selectivity. </p>
<p>I hate having to pick at her - with AP and other testing, plus end of the year concerts and a bunch of auditions for summer and fall coming up. But it’s also time to get those monologues going … she’s trying to read plays and is talking with her theater mentor. It’s a lot on their plate! But that’s life … and it’s a wonderful test for how much intensity she’ll want to have in the future.</p>
<p>Good luck emkolb! It’s nice having a student join our thread. Keep writing!</p>
<p>In my opinion, if she has to let something go for now, it would be monologue selection. I think more priority should be given to prepping for standardized tests, getting good grades, continuing her training and exploring and developing and eventually finalizing her college list, with some visits. She could wait to start exploring her monologues until after school gets out. That is plenty of time, in my opinion. She’ll have six months to prepare, which is plenty.</p>
<p>EmmyBet, I agree with what soozie wrote. The summer, after h.s has ended, is plenty of time to find monologues. I remember spending many fun filled hours with my daughter, during the summer before her senior year, sitting on the floor in the drama section of our local book store perusing monologues. She spoke to directors and instructors she had worked with to get suggestions for monologues that would be a good fit and also looked at monologue books (with monologues from published plays only) to find monologues of interest. She would then pull the actual play off the shelf and read the scene in which the monologue appeared to get a better sense of the context and the character. If at that point she thought the monologue had good potential for her, we bought the play so she could read the entire thing. It was a lot of fun doing this with her and by the time September came, she had selected 4 monologues to get audition ready and had 3 months in which to do so. One of the other things she did to facilitate the process was to have all of her applications and essays completed by September 1 and all of her h.s. report forms and teacher recs in the hands of the correct h.s. personnel the week before classes started. That way, the only things left to do were to administratively track her colleges receiving all the “paperwork” and preparing for her auditions. Because the audition prep can be so time consuming, it’s great if your daughter can get all the “paperwork” done and in as far in advance as possible.</p>
<p>If you come to Philly over the summer, UArts’ summer program in acting and MT will be in session from July 12 through July 31. The heads of the acting and MT programs will be on site, as will instructors from the BFA programs, and there will be 2 current acting majors, 2 current MT majors (including my daughter) and 2 recent MT graduates working as T.A.s. Temple is about a 15 minute drive straight up Broad St from UArts and Muhlenberg is about an 1 1/2 hour drive or so from center city Philadelphia.</p>
<p>You have some exciting times with your daughter ahead of you!</p>
<p>I’d say that it is a great idea to work now on getting teacher recommendations and artistic recommendations lined up. Find out which schools on your list require artistic recommendations. You might want to send artistic recommendations (no more than 2) even to schools that don’t require them. There are threads on this.</p>
<p>We found that there were certain things that could not be done before September. My son’s school was not prepared to supply the required GPA info until a couple of weeks into September, which held up submitting his applications.</p>
<p>Check to see if any of the schools on your list require the Common Application. If you have not done so, look at the Common Application on its website. They ask incredibly detailed questions about things you might not have thought of. It’s never too early to start collecting the info.</p>
<p>The Common App requires that the guidance counselor and teacher recommendations be submitted in accordance with certain specific guidelines. As I recall, the teacher recommendations must be submitted online by the teacher(s), whereas this is optional for the guidance counselor materials.</p>
<p>I don’t think many juniors begin focusing on choosing monologues before summer. 
But if you are going to schedule any auditions for the fall, you’d need to have monologues prepared before then. I believe that it is much more common for students to schedule all auditions for January/February/early March and spend the Sept - Dec period preparing monologues.</p>
<p>Re Temple and UArts. If you are sure that those schools are on your list, a visit would be a very good idea. Both schools have somewhat untraditional campuses. Temple is an excellent university that is located in a part of Philadelphia that is more grittily urban than the area where UArts is. Its setting might appeal to your daughter, or possibly it might not.</p>
<p>NjTheatreMOM, I couldn’t agree with you more. Things may have changed with the Common App regarding the use of electronic submissions since my daughter was applying back in the fall 2006, but here’s the time line we used:</p>
<p>May of junior year - Solicited teachers for h.s recommendations and obtained mailing addresses where the rec forms could be sen to them in early August. Same with artistic recommendations.</p>
<p>July - Watched Common App website for publication of that year’s app as well as watched school websites for those schools that didn’t accept the Common App</p>
<p>Late July, early August - Mailed teachers all the rec materials.</p>
<p>Late August (a week before h.s. classes started but after faculty returned) - Gave guidance counselor all the forms and materials necessary for school report and transcript.</p>
<p>By September 15 - Student portion of all apps and essays, including any school specific supplements, completed and sent to the schools. After that, just monitored receipt of the various materials by the schools.</p>
<p>Scheduled auditions a soon as each school opened up it’s audition schedule. By first week of October, all auditions had been scheduled starting in December (no E.D.). Watch the school websites frequently, as each school opens up the scheduling based on its own timetable.</p>
<p>This type of schedule got all of the normal application stuff off of my daughter’s plate in plenty of time to focus exclusively on audition prep.</p>
<p>Also agree that Temple and UArts are 2 very different schools. Temple is a full liberal arts program even for students that major in acting or MT. There are mandated core L.A. courses as well as a mandated L.A. distribution that must be met. UArts is more of a conservatory BFA program with L.A. a much smaller part of the curriculum and also very different in the way it is structured. The neighborhoods and campuses are also very different, with Temple having an encapsulated, discrete, urban campus in north Philadelphia and UArts having a “campus” that consists of buildings spread out and interspersed with performing arts venues, office buildings and retail establishments in center city Philadelphia. Both are excellent schools, just very different in approach and structure.</p>
<p>Thank you for these thoughtful and informative messages! For anyone who’s new, I really recommend you read the “As you prepare to apply” and “Tips for juniors” threads in this forum (I don’t know how to do links - maybe M&K can do this for us?). I’ve read them and find them very helpful and inspiring.</p>
<p>Yes, I agree about the monologues. She’s starting to read plays anyway, just enjoys doing that, and she needed one monologue already for a summer theater audition, so the issue has come up. She’ll be fortunate to be in one summer Shakespeare production (very low key) and see several terrific professional Shakespeare plays, among other things, so that will help a lot. There’s nothing like seeing a play.</p>
<p>We met with the guidance counselor on Friday, in fact, and he has her on pretty much the exact schedule you all suggest. She says she’s happy to get the essays done this summer, and she’s already talked to teachers about recs. Thanks for the heads up on the arts rec - she might not have put that together, although she sees those people really regularly, luckily. One of her teacher recs is retiring, so she knows she needs to be on the ball for that. He’s on board and a very nice guy - a math teacher who knows very well what she’s done artistically, too.</p>
<p>The one thing she’s definitely agreed on is to have her applications done by early October. That way she can get a couple of quick safety acceptances (UMinn and UW Milwaukee), and also have the academic acceptances ASAP at the schools that require that before scheduling auditions. </p>
<p>I had a small fantasy that she could audition in the fall maybe - several schools had November audition dates this year - but if that can’t happen, so what. We’ll see how it works. I don’t want to rush anything, just thought a BFA in hand early would feel awfully good. We’ll see. </p>
<p>Thanks for the PA school info. She’s OK with less of a campus, more urban. She doesn’t feel comfortable in Manhattan proper, but is fine in other cities. She loves BU, feels very invigorated every time she’s in that area. She likes nice collegey campuses, but can go the other way, too. Maybe the visit will end up coinciding with auditions, after all. We’ll see. Certainly being from WI she won’t be turned off by a school in winter (she loves a cold climate).</p>
<p>We were excited that there is going to be a Performing Arts College Fair in Chicago in October - there is a website with pretty much this name, if anyone wants to look at the schedule - that has gobs of great schools, BAs, BFAs, the full gamut. Unfortunately it seems it will coincide with our HS’s major musical production, so I don’t think she’ll be able to go after all, darn it. We’ll have to see about that, too.</p>
<p>Step by step! This kid definitely knows her limits, and she’s focusing on the here and now. She’s not in a show currently, but she is assisting the director of a children’s show, so she has her hands full. Even if she gets some summer shows that keep her very busy, that will be different from having to juggle the college stuff with school, too.</p>
<p>I did a search for a “preparing to apply” thread in this forum but didn’t find one, so I’ve pasted a link to a thread of that type found in the MT forum. Even though it’s in the MT forum, the discussion is still highly relevant to students applying to acting and other theatre programs.</p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/musical-theater-major/477658-hs-classes-2009-2010-preparing-apply.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/musical-theater-major/477658-hs-classes-2009-2010-preparing-apply.html</a></p>
<p>Yes, that’s the one I was talking about. Thank you! New people - definitely read this.</p>
<p>The “Tips for Juniors” or “Advice for Juniors” is one some wonderful students wrote a year or so ago. I still don’t know how to make a link. NJTheatreMom, can you do that? I believe your son started it.</p>
<p>To make the link, first navigate to the thread. Once there, highlight the address of the thread and right click your mouse to copy the thread’s address. Then come back to this thread and create another message in which you paste the address. When you save the message, the title of the thread will appear as a hyperlink like the one in my message #33. :)</p>
<p>Re post #34…my son did not start the thread in question, though he did contribute to it.</p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/theater-drama-majors/688751-audition-preparation-advice-juniors.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/theater-drama-majors/688751-audition-preparation-advice-juniors.html</a></p>
<p>Here is a link to the schedule: [2010</a> PVA Schedule](<a href=“http://www.nacacnet.org/EventsTraining/CollegeFairs/pva/Pages/pvaschedule.aspx]2010”>http://www.nacacnet.org/EventsTraining/CollegeFairs/pva/Pages/pvaschedule.aspx)</p>
<p>My D is now going in to her second year, so I’m starting to feel a little removed. But I know that one of her friends who went through the process took to heart a suggestion my D made, and it really made a difference for her. My D started looking and working on monologues all summer long. She used the summer principally for monologue searching and prepping. That way, it wasn’t a last minute search. She really had pieces she loved and felt belonged to her. Her friend followed that advice and did very well this year. Others did not… not so good. So, if I had to give any advice about how to spend your summer, it would be to read lots of plays. Find the pieces that speak to you, and start searching for your coaches who will help you fashion the pieces should you decide to go that route.</p>
<p>Thank you! Anything that resembles “making it easier” is great advice!</p>
<p>So, are other rising seniors (or juniors) in the middle of auditions now? My D has had 2 summer show auditions so far, and did get a part in the one she wanted most (small, but a “name,” with lines!). She has auditions for her HS fall musical in 2 weeks, and some other auditions for community shows for later in the summer (she’s planning to crew if she can’t get on stage). She’s had a late start performing, and she’s very excited to build her experience, even just with auditioning. But her end of the year, with AP tests, ACTs, finals, concerts, and celebrations, has this added stress.</p>
<p>She has taken that wonderful CC advice to think of every audition as a chance to perform (love to perform + perform at audition = love to audition). She gets very nervous beforehand, and especially about the results, but when she’s there, it’s fun. She’s also getting a chance to meet different directors, see different ways groups do things, get used to the whole package.</p>
<p>She’ll try to get a part-time job, too, but for now we’re OK with her using this summer to focus on theater experience. Not only is it already putting her miles ahead in being ready to do her college auditions, but it costs practically nothing compared to the past summers of music camps and marching band!</p>
<p>It’s good that your D is getting audition experience. Audition experience is important because auditioning is a skill in itself. Added to that, the more you do it, the more comfortable you are in such situations. College auditions should not be one of a student’s early auditions, but after having auditioned many times previously. It will help.</p>