<p>Hello, all. Just back from CMU, now my D’s #1 choice (stats notwithstanding). They were encouraging about her upward movement in grades. She’s trying not to be intimidated (starting Stella Adler Teen Conservatory next week, so that should help for now), trying to enjoy her summer- and I’m trying unsuccessfully) not to bully her into getting her college apps/essays out of the way before mid-August.</p>
<p>Hey everyone, </p>
<p>I’m a little late getting to this forum but I thought it might be a good place for my first post…I’m a rising senior from Alabama who is looking to pursue MT. I’m extremely passionate about theatre, but not sure what to think about my stats compare to others my age. I didn’t start performing until my freshman year of high school. Since then, I’ve been active in school theatre, as well as community theatre, but have played very few leads. I’ve had 4 years of voice lessons, but my only dance experience is from being in shows. I’ve been in about 20 shows since freshman year, which hopefully speaks about my determination. I also have earned some statewide theatre awards and hold leadership positions in school and community theatre organizations. I have a strong academic record, a 4.0 and 32 ACT, which I’m hoping will boost some of my acceptance chances.</p>
<p>My biggest issue right now is just figuring out what type of schools I am the right fit for…I feel that shooting for top schools (CMU, CCM, Elon, etc.) will be too long of a shot, but a less prestigious but still reputable school may be right for me. Some schools I’m interested in are University of Alabama, Birmingham-Southern, Emerson, Belmont… Just looking for feedback in any way.</p>
<p>Thanks,
MTinBama</p>
<p>MTinBama -You may want to check out this thread in the Musical Theatre forum. It has lots of good information on getting ready to apply:
<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>Some of the MT schools have there own forums at the top of the MT page so you may want to read through some of those as well as the Big List:
[Musical</a> Theater Major - College Confidential](<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/musical-theater-major/]Musical”>Musical Theater Major - College Confidential Forums)
<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/musical-theater-major/801037-big-list-mt-colleges.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/musical-theater-major/801037-big-list-mt-colleges.html</a></p>
<p>I would suggest reading up first and then it will be easier to post questions about specific schools or the application/audition process in general. Good luck!</p>
<p>MTinBama, I think that going for the “less prestigious” programs is a good idea, but I also would encourage you to go for some “top schools” as well. They will be seeing how you audition, not basing their decision just on what you did or did not do in high school, what your potential is and how open to their training you will be.</p>
<p>Hi everyone, not much news here except that show #1 is done, and show #2 opens tomorrow night for a 2-weekend run. Show #3 goes up the last weekend of July, and show #4 is in callbacks, starting rehearsals in August. Plus the HS fall show has a week of rehearsals in the middle of all that. She’s definitely having the “theater summer” she dreamed of. We’re even able to start talking about SEEING some plays, too, once she gets to the point of only doing one show at a time! </p>
<p>She’s learning so much about what she likes, what she can handle, and how much she loves doing this as much as possible. It’s very affirming. Luckily she has some nice theater opportunities through the school year to enjoy, along with working hard at her audition material. </p>
<p>Our list hasn’t changed much. We have a few local visits to make, specifically to the theater departments. Once show #2 is done, she knows the emphasis is on getting the applications done. I think of the 10 schools on her list, only 2 don’t have rolling or EA available, so she should have her safeties and maybe a couple of the non-audition BAs in hand before the holidays. That would really be wonderful. Then the winter worries will just be for the more selective auditioned programs. </p>
<p>I can tell that it’s going to be a looonnng year; I’m not assuming it’ll be done by April, since there’s always the added issue of waitlists. But then we’ll be done - next summer will feel very different from this one! I think a lot of it will be exciting, and she’s starting off with some great feedback and support. The programs that look at her will know what’s right for them and for her, and she’ll end up where she needs to be. I’ll just keep telling myself that, over and over and over …</p>
<p>There is a great chapter about acceptances, rejections, wait list and deferrals in the college audition guide, I GOT IN! . I can’t tell you how helpful it has been to us. You may know some results earlier than you think and can relax and enjoy your summer. Wouldn’t that be nice! We are hoping for the same:)</p>
<p>I’ve looked for that book through our library and some bookstores here, might end up ordering it online if that’s the only way. </p>
<p>About the only way she’ll have trouble with her BA safeties would be to delay applying, so she knows to get those done ASAP. The publics around here fill up quickly (as they probably do everywhere). Really it’s amazing how many of her schools she can apply to and even hear from (at least academically) before the holidays. WAY better than waiting for everything until April. I can’t imagine having to deal with that.</p>
<p>I GOT IN! is available on Amazon (where I ordered it) and also from the author’s website, Mary Anna Dennard, and the Drama Book Shop in NYC and Samuel French in L.A. Actually, her website is awesome and has lots of podcast interviews with heads of theatre programs. Very helpful stuff.
Yes on getting apps ASAP. Some are already online.</p>
<p>Getting down and dirty tomorrow - meeting with her main coach to shorten her monologue list. The all-theater-all-the-time summer has been going great! August 1 is the kickoff for the application season, and she’s pretty excited about it.</p>
<p>I think we’ve been able to whittle her Unifieds list to 3-4 schools max, mainly by going east a couple of times, primarily to schools that don’t travel (so we can avoid video), but throwing in a couple of the Unified schools while we’re there. I’m actually starting to imagine that this all will be logistically possible. </p>
<p>We’re just hoping that there aren’t (many) curves thrown by her HS schedule. Already we’re dealing with an enormous concert the Monday night of the Mon-Tues-Weds Chicago Unifieds. But we’ll just work it out - luckily just a couple of hours’ drive. Missing school days will be a whole different issue, but we’ll just have to handle it.</p>
<p>OK - it’s official. This summer is definitely all-theater-all-the-time. She was just cast in a show that literally starts the day after the next one closes, and will be performed the last weekend of August! She couldn’t be happier! Then she moves into the fall HS musical, and the week after that goes up, this last summer show has an encore performance (mid-October).</p>
<p>THEN it will be all about auditions for schools. I’m also relieved that only the first month or so of HS will be affected; she’s done it before with sports and the HS show, so she’ll eke it out. It’s true, though, that first quarter grades are important ONLY in Senior year. They never get recorded otherwise, but they’ll get sent out with apps … except she’s going to apply before first quarter ends to the majority of her schools …</p>
<p>Who mentioned rollercoasters? LeftofPisa, how do you feel about funhouses?</p>
<p>EmmyBet - You may want to consider adding some additional auditions at Unifieds. My D did MT at the LA Unifieds last year and was signed up for 5 auditions and she did 2 walkins for a total of 7. She was easily able to do this over the 2 days. Just a suggestion.</p>
<p>Thank you, yes, I wouldn’t be surprised if she does some extra at Unifieds on the spur of the moment. I’m a little concerned she might only be able to do one day, because of school. I guess we’ll have to see.</p>
<p>Our HS has gotten ridiculously strict about missed days - parents cannot excuse their own children more than 5 times, even just for part days. You need documentation, and you still might be “refused” an excusal. In the next weeks I’m going to talk to the school administration and explain that my D will probably have at LEAST 5 full or part-day absences just for auditions. I guess she’s not allowed to get sick at all this year, or need a doctor’s appointment, or anything else. Grrr.</p>
<p>EmmyBet! That’s going to be an issue for us too, possibly. Our school allows two absences in the senior year for the purpose of visiting schools.</p>
<p>They probably figure that is enough to do the trick.</p>
<p>HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! <em>gallows humor, smacking of desperation</em></p>
<p>We have to go to the guidance center this week to get d’s schedule straight (as yet again, her guidance counselor inexplicably failed to comply with a simple but important change, this time to make a class change we requested at the beginning of the summer. My d almost did not get to take the PSAT because this person FORGOT to inform her she was qualified…I could go on but I digress)</p>
<p>While we are in there I am going to have a good “we are all on the same team here” visit, I hope, with the assistant principal about exactly when and why d is going to be absent so much this fall. And I DO expect that as long as she keeps up her obligations as far as notifying teachers, make up work and so forth, that they will NOT penalize her grades. In other words none of this make up tests are harder or graded lower or any such thing. </p>
<p>They have got to understand that this is a special and unique course of study that these children are going into. It is not like an academic subject in which admission can be gained by test scores. It is required to be on site and if they will not co operate with the requirements of the audition process, then they will be guilty of denying our children access to the education they want and basically getting in the way of their opportunity to achieve their dream. The onsite college auditions will be crammed with plenty of kids whose high schools DO realize this, and I for one really hope that my high school does not want the reputation of interfering with their student’s chances of matriculating to the school of their chosing. </p>
<p>I was under the impression it was the role of the high school to HELP them get into the area of higher education they want to pursue, not keep them from doing it.</p>
<p>I hope I won’t get flak on this because they sort of threw my d under the bus a few times in the past 3 years and I never did go raise heck with them and I don’t want to have to, but, I am so not giving in on this one. If they do not understand the nature of getting admitted into theater, they WILL by the time I’m done I promise!</p>
<p>I am going to find out exactly what the state requirements are. Those they cannot bend. Everything else is their discretion and they can too bend the “rules”. Especially when the rules could possibly have a profoundly negative influence on her entire future, which, one could argue that not letting her audition and therefore not get into college, is no exaggeration.</p>
<p>We haven’t had many kids from d’s high school major in drama recently - like most drama kids, my d has been good friends with all the grade levels since her freshman year and I don’t recall that any of them did. One of her friends who graduated last year intended to, but she got very dissappointing offers and is staying here going to CC and planning on transferring, I guess. (yes, I know. I don’t know if she really didn’t get the memo or if it was a family issue, I think it may have been a family thing)</p>
<p>The one and only audition event she went to was TETA. From what I can tell, there’s at least a few (and some of the good ones) Texas colleges that do not even attend TETA so if that’s the only event she went to, it’s not too surprising she didn’t get much attention. She usually had a lead role and was always viewed as a very strong actor and singer but she did not do as well as the drama teacher thought she would.</p>
<p>I intend to bring that up, if I need to, as evidence that one little bitty ol audition day just isn’t going to cut it. Does our high school want a reputation of turning out graduates who get into the schools they want to get into, or not? is the question.</p>
<p>I blame this (as I do many things) on football. 
(j/k) (not really. We are not football fans unless there’s a musical about football.)</p>
<p>We did 2 things to minimize conflicts with my D’s h.s. over absences due to “college visits” in her senior year. Our h.s also limited college visits to 2; so we claimed she was sick as needed. We had no compunctions about doing so. If her high school admin didn’t understand the compelling need for my daughter to be unfettered when it came to her auditions and instead was creating obstacles, that was their problem and we were not about to let her future college plans suffer. In addition, when possible, my daughter scheduled her auditions for Saturday. That way, we could travel on Friday afternoon and night and return on Sunday. We completed the scheduling process for all of her auditions by the end of the first week of October to provide maximum flexibility in choosing dates.</p>
<p>MichealNKat, I have no compunction over daughter having some illnesses either if that’s what it takes. I’d prefer that they could be trusted to act in her best interest but sometimes you just get the bureaucratic mentality from them.</p>
<p>I agree. Everyone needs to evaluate the mindset of their respective high school admin and the relationship they have with them. Though there are exceptions, far too often, high school admins don’t have the foggiest idea of what is really involved in getting into an audition based performing arts program, how severe the competition is, how time consuming the audition process is and, to boot, devalue the process because it’s not a traditional academic program that “bestows” prestige on the h.s. that can boast about where its graduates are attending. Add to it an inflexible bureacratic mindset and you can end up in a battle. The issue, as we identified it, was that of whether we were up front with the admin by seeking exceptions to the limits in advance, thereby putting our daughter on their radar screen, or whether the better course was to simply treat her absences as “sick days” with the result that she was just 1 of many students who might be absent on a particular day. We chose the latter course with regard to the admin because the totality of their approach to seniors and school life made it pretty clear that this would better serve my daughter’s interests. Fortunately, her teachers were great “fans” of hers because she was an excellent student. Most of them attended her h.s. shows and they knew how committed she was to pursuing theatre in a college professional level training program. So with a nod and a wink, they gave her assignments in advance, allowed her to schedule make up days for tests and quizes and generally accomodated her needs while keeping the admin in the dark. We were lucky in that regard.</p>
<p>It may not work in all schools, but my D’s theatre director got the school to consider Unifieds a “school sponsored field trip” and all the students who attended were given excused absences. In addition, they could use their 2 “College” days for other auditions. I realize that D attended a fine arts magnet, but it is worth a try to talk to your theatre director. After all, the football team gets excused absences to traveling to games, state playoffs, etc.</p>
<p>D did not attend an arts hs and like MichaelNKat we had to call her in “sick” for some of her auditions. I had no problem doing this as D was a top student in the school and was well loved by all of her teachers. She was upfront with her teaches and took tests early in order to attend a couple of her auditions. D is the third student in her hs in the last three years to audition and get into a MT program.</p>
<p>Wow, what a dilemma - be upfront and be turned down, or just go behind their backs. I guess we’ll talk to our GC. He’s always helpful about these things.</p>
<p>This is one of those circumstances where you have to do what is right for you. My daughter’s school also had a 2-absence policy for college visits; we simply avoided conflicts by calling her in sick. Didn’t bother me a bit – when rules are unrealistic, it’s usually possible to find a loophole. Unless you are involved with a performing arts school, most administrative school officials simply don’t get it. (And believe me, now that she’s graduated from college and working professionally, they are the first ones to boast about her!)</p>