The time is quickly approaching...YIKES!!!

College Majors Theater/Drama Majors
1

<p>My S is off this weekend to Cherubs at Northwestern. I am hoping when he returns he will have some clarity as to if he is going to go the BFA or the BA theater route. He is a looong college list right now. I am constantly on the websites of his BFA schools searching for the 2013/14 audition dates and also some of his LAC BA's who audition for scholarship. This is a VERY intense process that requires a huge amount of diligence and organization. I really don't think my S could do all of the work that it requires himself. As soon as he gets back from Cherubs, the next day he leaves for Scotland to put on a play at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. He then goes right into HS auditions the day he gets home from that....and then it begins. He is taking 4 AP's along with his theater, singing and college app commitments.. I think he should have his head examined. </p>

<p>Any tips would be most appreciated. We were all excited to find out he was nominated to receive an award from Young Arts for his role this year in his HS's play.</p>

2

<p>No tips. Congrats on the nomination!!! But yes, it is arduous. We have decided to focus mostly on merit scholarships and likely BA programs because pursuing both merit aid and a BFA at the same time is truly daunting. And also BA is a better fit for mine. I guess I do have one tip. We have prioritized schools and will work on the higher priority and/or early deadline schools first. That way, if we run out of time at least the most important apps will be in. Similarly, if kiddo gets burned out in the proccess and decides to drop some or all of the other schools off the list, they can do so knowing the most important apps are in.</p>

3

<p>Good luck, 5boys. I do think the effort needed to stay organized and on schedule is extraordinarily rough–not just on them, but on us secretaries to the stars. </p>

<p>I have no real advice, but a suggestion that you allow this process to be an adventure with your son and if time conflicts arise, to give yourselves a break! Try to select a good safety (where you know he has a good chance of being admitted and you can afford). That can be a big challenge, frankly, for our high-achieving theatre kids when the audition process is so unforgiving!</p>

<p>Good luck.</p>

4

<p>^ omg, “secretaries to the stars” almost made me spew. that is exactly what I feel like right now, as I organize a binder, bookmark sites, send her links, and otherwise coordinate her life while she goes to conservatory all day and rehearsal all night.</p>

<p>5boys, your son sounds like an amazing performer who has some fabulous opportunities…which I"m sure will translate to fabulous college choices. congratulations on the award!!</p>

5

<p>I think your son should be giving the rest of us tips . . .</p>

6

<p>I am sure you guys are already on this- you sound super organized already. But, for what it’s worth, get the resume completed this summer and have your son work on his essays while he’s on the planes or waiting for rehearsals. I can’t say strongly enough how much of a help it will be to have those out of the way. Even if he isn’t certain where he’s applying yet, he can have the bones of a few essays already in hand and can fine- tune them and make them more specific to his schools a little later. Also, buy one of those open top, rolling file carts, and make a file for every school under consideration. Make an Excel file or just with Word of the schools, the audition dates as they become available, what types of LOR they want, their deadlines, special essays, etc; look at which schools give "demonstrated interest " A LOT of weight and take it seriously, make sure senior year is fun by not trying to do absolutely EVERYTHING- it will create far too much stress. My child is a designer, but there was an enormous amount of back and forth this past year for those in MT and acting about the pros and cons of hiring a coach to select monologues and songs, etc so it might be worth looking at some old threads. Your son sounds like an amazing young man. We’ve all been through this so we know what you mean- it is a very intense process but as other posters have said, it can be a lot of fun. We had a ball touring schools and he made incredible contacts at every school he interviewed with. We had a chance to travel together and the interview/ audition process was actually a lot of fun for him and gave us some great memories before he heads off to college. Most kids in this arena seemed to apply to between 8-12 schools. It isn’t unusual. Your friends will think you guys are nuts and won’t really understand what all the fuss is about unless they’re in theatre too. Oh, I also suggest your son work on the common app over the summer ( I think it’s online already) and reach out to whoever will write his LOR. Having these tasks out of the way, and which can be done in his dorm/hotel room on weekends, will enable him to focus on school and his auditions in the fall. Grades will count a great deal for merit aid, even if admission is primarily based on the audition. It is fairly typical for parents of these kids to primarily handle the "secretarial/administrative/travel agent " plans. Sounds like you guys are in for an exciting year! Have fun with it!!</p>

7

<p>lightingmom… WOW!! Your awesome… thanks:)… Thanks everyone for all the positive and helpful info… I just love the people on this thread and am really happy to be on this journey with all of my 2014’ers and all the wonderful posters who are always available for help. It is so nice to know I have all of you in my back pocket:).</p>

<p>So, here is where we stand, as far as the app process. My S is going to be gone ALL summer, so nothing is going to be getting done with the common app or otherwise before he starts schools on Aug 21st( earlier than a lot of kids, which is probably a good thing). He attended an essay writing class before he left for the summer. He said that he didn’t complete an essay, but had a lot of drafts of ideas. He is a great writer, and can just bang out essays that are usually amazing… he has a very unique voice in his writing, so I think this process won’t be daunting or time consuming to him. </p>

<p>Our biggest problem is that we live in San Diego and a lot of his schools are east of us. Right now we are concentrating on his EA schools, and schools that need app’s in before he can schedule auditions. He will do an on campus EA audition at Chapman. He is considering flying out to Emerson’s EA audition in Nov. He is also considering Elon’s EA audition which is also in Nov. He is for sure going out to Muhlenberg for their audition, hopefully in the Fall, and he will probably go out to DePaul for their weekend audition and interview/theater tour type thing. I think the rest of his auditions he can do in LA at the Unifieds… my brother lives right smack in Santa Monica, so we can stay with him. He will probably audition on campus at USC. </p>

<p>Does anyone remember when the schools start posting audition dates? I think the unifieds are up, but not some of the others.</p>

<p>“Secretaries to the Stars”… PERFECT!!</p>

<p>He already has his theater resume done and I am going to have my brother who is a photographer snap a headshot. He will work on his monologues when he starts school in his advanced acting class. He has the luxury of having the most amazing and talented drama teacher ever. This year she had the kids monologues by adjudicated by LAMDA, my S got a Bronze with distinction medal… the highest you can get. That was very exciting for him and some sort of subjective look at his work. </p>

<p>We know this is a very subjective process and my S has a very positive and upbeat attitude about the whole thing. He is very confident, articulate, funny and just doesn’t take life too seriously. This will take him a long way and he is really looking forward to the whole thing. I am confident he will end up where he belongs. </p>

<p>I am looking forward to spending this time with him at auditions… this is my #5 boy, so am just going to enjoy the process as much as possible. I am happy he is a theater kid because I will have an excuse to visit him when he is in college… to see his plays!!</p>

8

<p>Having just been through this process (my D will be a freshman BFA in the fall), I have only one recommendation which is you only need one safety. </p>

<p>In hindsight, my D was stretched a bit too thin as we added “just one more”. When she started the process, she wanted a BFA at an academically competitive, full-service university with a “real” campus. Unfortunately, we wound up adding a bunch of schools that didn’t meet that criteria. Had we been more diligent in defining what she wanted and sticking to it, we would have saved thousands in application fees, audition fees, and travel (money I wish I had now as I write my first check for tuition)! It would have also made it a much less stressful senior year.</p>

<p>Thankfully, all’s well that ends well. When she was making her final decision, she circled back to what was important to her originally and landed exactly where she is meant to be!</p>

9

<p>skewl… all good advice. My S, as of right now, has a HUGE list of schools. The reason being is that he has not decided on the BFA vs BA yet, and he might not until it is all said and done. All he knows for sure is that he wants to major in theater no matter the what’s and where’s. He also has no front runner, which I think is GREAT! Takes a lot of pressure off. We have visited some small LAC’s, some big publics and a medium private. He has yet to visit a conservatory like CMU or De Paul, both of which he has on his list. I think he would be happier at an urban city type school, but he hasn’t come to that conclusion, therefore Kenyon and Wooster stay on the list. It is probably not going to be pretty as far as # of app’s go I’m afraid, no matter how we look at it.</p>

10

<p>There is no one answer for everyone. Some kids are so good with their safety that you might as well just have that one. For other kids, having many choices and the whole school year to figure out what’s best for them is really important. For many kids, the FA is so unpredictable that it’s worth a few extra apps to see what you might get.</p>

<p>I understand with hindsight that you wonder why you put in the time and money on schools that now seem irrelevant. Sometimes kids do apply to too many - but sometimes they don’t know that at the time. The system requires a commitment to apply in the fall; if everything were a rolling process, we could probably manage fewer applications and have just as many options in the spring. But for now, things don’t work that way.</p>

<p>My opinion is that you should apply to as many as you feel you need, because adding new schools late in the game is nearly impossible. My D applied to 12 schools - basically half were BAs and half were BFAs/auditioned BAs. She did like bigger schools but applied to some LACs because there was something that still appealed to her; in the long run I can say that we could have dropped 2-3 schools from her list if I’d made her choose between large vs. small at the beginning. I felt that spending the extra $200-300 on extra apps was important for the process she needed to undergo. And in the long run she got enough FA that it definitely wasn’t worth quibbling over.</p>

<p>But I would say that a kid who is truly happy with a safety or two doesn’t need a lot of extra schools just to round out the list. None of us has figured out the numbers game on auditioned programs - more schools does not mean more admissions, in a probability sense. More varied schools probably means that at least one of them will see you as the right fit for their program. But that still doesn’t suggest a magic number you should audition for. </p>

<p>I think with auditioned programs, you should apply to as many as you can handle, all of which you should want to go to. You should apply to at least a couple of other schools that are non-auditioned likelies, if you goal is to be in college in the fall, or just plan to take a gap year and prepare to audition again with the perspective you gain from the first experience, if you aren’t accepted the first time.</p>

11

<p>Emmybet… Always love having your presence and support on these threads. You are calming and so knowledgeable. Thanks ahead of time:))</p>

<p>With my S, he is in the “wants many options next year” team, and feels he might change his mind at anytime down the line. He is a very good student that actually loves academics as much as he loves acting, so this is a hard one for him. If I had to say, I think acting would nudge ahead of pure academics, but he may in the end choose not to do a conservatory type BFA program. I support him whatever he chooses to do.</p>

<p>He did decide not to do any safety type non-auditioned BFA’s. He thinks if he doesn’t get into one of the BFA’s on his list( it is top heavy), then he would be just as happy at one of his safer BA schools. I think the EA auditions are a good idea for HIM, as he won’t get discouraged if he doesn’t get in, and if he does get in to one, it may shorten his list. Also, I think spreading the auditions out over the fall before the winter season gets here is a good idea. He has NO first choice and LOVES to audition so I feel it can only help him. Right now he has quite a few EA schools, Some BFA’s( Emerson, Chapman and maybe Elon), some BA schools, most of which have already put him on an priority app with a waived fee status, and he has some rolling schools( U Minn and Southern Oregon). So that helps a lot with $. He does have a few schools that aren’t known for theater but are great sailing schools, another one of his passions. College of Charleston is one of them… and their theater program actually looks decent. It is in a great city!!</p>

12

<p>5boys,
I only have 3 boys, so you have me beat.:wink: All were interested in theatre to one extent or another, but in the end, I have two who have not let go of the theatre. One is a double major in Biology and Theatre (!) at a small, academically intense LAC, and the other is at Northwestern, getting a B.A. from the School of Communication with a theatre major. This son also attended Cherubs and fell in love with Northwestern. He did not do any BFA auditions and absolutely loves NU and their theatre program. His very wise high school drama teacher told him that the theatre world needs more educated actors and persuaded him to do a B.A. program rather than a BFA conservatory. Best of luck to your very talented son!</p>

13

<p>One thing we did to keep everything straight–I got a roll of white craft paper (like butcher paper) We made a huge chart in my son’s room on the wall of each school vertically and the requirements across the top (application, Scores, transcripts, recommendations, thank you note, audition dates, audition requirements, etc) </p>

<p>Then he could check off when he had completed something (scheduled the audition, chose his audition material for that school, made sure the transcript was sent, etc). So, at a glance he could see what had been completed. If something needed to be followed up on (e.g. HS did not send transcript), he could follow up. </p>

<p>We had a separate chart for each school with audition date, requirements, anything else he needed (duplicate music CD’s, dance apparel, etc)</p>

<p>I know it seems like overkill since we used the notebook,/file folder system too but senior year was such a blur (my son also took AP classes, was in a community theater show, took voice lessons, was in his HS show and played varsity basketball during his audition season…plus tried to keep up with all the HS fun things–football games, dances, etc). </p>

<p>The good news is that it prepares them well for college! Good Luck–it sounds like your son will have lots of options!</p>

14

<p>I too am a secretary to a star! haha. Love it.
I already have a binder for all the schools my D plans to apply to. She’s reading plays and searching for monos this month! I am making a new list with two items for each school - when the application opens, and when you can schedule an audition. Many of the websites are not updated yet, so I am guessing the set up will be similar to last year. I am finding that scheduling the audition is often linked to the status of your application.
So, I would suggest prioritizing the applications that do not allow you to move forward with audition scheduling until the app is complete.
The common app essay has been released. At least half of my D’s schools require the common app so this was great to have. Kids can start on it now. I told my D I want this essay by August 1! No excuses!!
<a href=“https://www.commonapp.org/CommonApp/Docs/DownloadForms/2013/EssayAnnouncementFinal.pdf[/url]”>https://www.commonapp.org/CommonApp/Docs/DownloadForms/2013/EssayAnnouncementFinal.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;