<p>*By Thesbohemian (Thesbohemian) on Tuesday, September 07, 2004 - 06:11 pm: Edit *</p>
<p>If anybody is lurking who hasn't posted their current choices, now is the time. How are those applications coming? Mine are ready. I'm just waiting on my teacher recs. </p>
<p>*By Camge (Camge) on Tuesday, September 07, 2004 - 07:39 pm: Edit *</p>
<p>Thanks! It sounds as if you are really ready! My S. is only a Jr., and at present we are worrying about PSAT's and SAT's, and summer programs for MT, and T. I don't know if anyone needs information re NYU Tisch. My elder son is a Sr. Acting/ Directing Major at Playwrights Horizon. He spent 2 months in Florence Italy in the Comedia dell arte program. It was a fabulous experience... I also have best Friends D. at CMU. She's a Sr. acting major, and would help anyone with questions. My younger son is starting to look at schools but is not sure if he will go acting or Musical theater. We don't think his grades will be up to NYU par, so we are looking into alternatives. He loves Ithaca( my alma mater) CMU, and Emerson. Anyway... If anyone has NYU conservatory questions fire away! </p>
<p>*By Catherdingmom (Catherdingmom) on Wednesday, September 08, 2004 - 03:29 pm: Edit *</p>
<p>Camge, two months in Florence Italy in the Comedia dell arte program? Oh, that's enough to move Playwrights Horizon to the top of anyone's list! Just the thought of that warms this rainy day a bit. Your younger son has the start of a good list. This time last year my son didn't have a clue about the different schools. We've learned so much from this thread along with the MT thread. My s. is a senior who will be majoring in acting and is in the process of finalizing a list, whereas Thesbo has hers all ready to go! </p>
<p>Thesbo, good for you, girl! My s. is getting caught up in sending the "perfect" application. As a result of trying to do it perfectly, nothing is getting done at all. (deep sigh) Guess he'll have to be chained to the computer this weekend! </p>
<p>*By Marissal (Marissal) on Wednesday, September 08, 2004 - 07:44 pm: Edit *</p>
<p>I suppose i'm still finalizing a list, too.
Right now alot of my options are limited because of my SAT scores and the school I was at - their grading system was insane and, as I have found out, it's unfair to my GPA. Plus, i'm being picky about what kind of a school I go to and its location. (stress stress stress) </p>
<p>*By Doctorjohn (Doctorjohn) on Wednesday, September 08, 2004 - 10:59 pm: Edit *</p>
<p>We had our fall faculty conference today, and I heard a good line from the guest speaker, an expert in assessment from Southern Illinois U-Edwardsville. Doug Eder said, "The enemy of the good is not the bad, but the perfect." The greatest obstacle to getting any kind of work done, much less good work, is the fear of doing it badly. I suffered from perfectionism for years; still do. My advice to your son, Cat, is "Just do it. Do it well, do it with feeling, proof it once, get someone else to proof it too (just so you don't misspell the name of the school or put the wrong school's name on the application), and then put it in the mail!" </p>
<p>Good luck. </p>
<p>*By Dancersmom (Dancersmom) on Wednesday, September 08, 2004 - 11:39 pm: Edit *</p>
<p>Doctorjohn, </p>
<p>I have to 2nd your advice on perfectionism. As the Nike ads say,"Just do it". At some point we perfectionists have to learn to say, "This is my best", and then forget about it. </p>
<p>My own D had to send in a recommendation letter to Florida State that had the wrong school mentioned in the body of the letter. Her vocal coach wrote recommendation letters for each school to which she was applying. He tailored each letter to the specific school; he didn't simply change the name of the school. In the letter he wrote to Florida State he inadvertently referred to the school as the University of Florida. A couple of days after she received the recommendation letters, the vocal coach got a call that his long awaited liver transplant was on! He was in the hospital for a week and a half and recuperated at home for several more weeks. My D, naturally, could not ask him to correct the mistake. So she mailed the letter with her application to FSU and hoped that the auditors would get a laugh out of it and not hold the boo-boo against her. I guess they didn't since they accepted her! </p>
<p>*By Gadad (Gadad) on Thursday, September 09, 2004 - 09:40 am: Edit *</p>
<p>As an occasional poster on the Musical Theatre thread, let me try this question over here. My D may decide to major in MT, but has a broad range of other interests as well. In addition to MT programs, she'd consider a different major in a good college or university that might not offer a MT major but which regularly stages musicals (or, has musicals for which auditions and roles are not just reserved for MT majors). Such a list might include Northwestern, Yale and Brown. Miami tells me that despite their multiple MT programs, their theatre and MT production auditions are open to the whole campus. Furman doesn't do "musicals" out of their theatre program, but their opera series in Music has included My Fair Lady, Gilbert & Sullivan, etc. What other selective colleges and universities should be on the list? </p>
<p>*By Catherdingmom (Catherdingmom) on Friday, September 10, 2004 - 09:36 am: Edit *</p>
<p>Thanks, Doctorjohn. I passed your words on to my son, and it did, indeed, take some of the pressure off. I'm good for telling him how long to cook the microwave popcorn, but information about college apps. has more credence if it comes from a responsible adult other than mom. </p>
<p>Dancersmom, I loved your story about your D's rec. letters. It also makes me think highly of FSU's auditors because they didn't let someone else's mistake become a disadvantage to your D. </p>
<p>*By Catherdingmom (Catherdingmom) on Friday, September 10, 2004 - 09:42 am: Edit *</p>
<p>Gadad, I don't know how many of their productions are musicals, but I like what I have read about UNC-Chapel Hill's dramatic arts department. </p>
<p>*By Doctorjohn (Doctorjohn) on Saturday, September 11, 2004 - 06:23 pm: Edit *</p>
<p>Gadad: </p>
<p>You (and anyone else interested) should look at Princeton. Here's the link that has all of their extra-curricular arts offerings: </p>
<p>Princeton</a> University - Arts, Events & Exhibitions </p>
<p>The Triangle Club dates from 1891, but there are many other groups. When I mentioned a couple of months ago that some old-line Eastern schools had terrific theatrical opportunities, even though they didn't have formal training programs, this is the kind of thing I had in mind. </p>
<p>If I can grab some time tomorrow, I'll look for other examples. </p>
<p>*By Doctorjohn (Doctorjohn) on Saturday, September 11, 2004 - 09:21 pm: Edit *</p>
<p>OK, this was fun. I had some time tonight, so I started looking at the Ivies and some top-ranked LACs. The search method was to find student organizations, and from there to find those for people who want to perform. The range is quite amazing, from improv groups to VetTheatre--veterinarian majors who do a play once a year in the spring, presumably on horses. Anyway, here's a sample list, in alphabetical order. Enjoy. </p>
<p>Brown
[Student[/url</a>] </p>
<p>Columbia
[url=<a href="http://www.columbia.edu/students/org_gov.html#performing_arts%5DColumbia">http://www.columbia.edu/students/org_gov.html#performing_arts]Columbia</a> University: Students](<a href="http://www.brown.edu/Departments/Theatre_Speech_Dance/Student.html%5DStudent%5B/url">http://www.brown.edu/Departments/Theatre_Speech_Dance/Student.html) </p>
<p>Cornell
took forever to find it, but here it is
Welcome</a> to SAO - Cornell University </p>
<p>Dartmouth
no clubs I could discern, but department is fairly open, with minors and double majors
Major</a> & Minor Information </p>
<p>Harvard
<a href="http://www.college.harvard.edu/student/organizations/arts.html%5B/url%5D">http://www.college.harvard.edu/student/organizations/arts.html</a> </p>
<p>Northwestern
ASG</a> | Student Group Directory </p>
<p>Penn
<a href="http://www.vpul.upenn.edu/parts/programs.html%5B/url%5D">http://www.vpul.upenn.edu/parts/programs.html</a> </p>
<p>Princeton
Princeton</a> University - Arts, Events & Exhibitions </p>
<p>Smith
Swarthmore</a> College | Student Life </p>
<p>Swarthmore
Swarthmore</a> College | Student Life </p>
<p>William and Mary
Student</a> Activities - Clubs and Organizations
look for Arts groups </p>
<p>Yale
Yale</a> University </p>
<p>*By Soozievt (Soozievt) on Saturday, September 11, 2004 - 10:40 pm: Edit *</p>
<p>Dancersmom, I really can relate to your story about your daughter's rec containing the wrong name of the college in the text. The same thing happened to my daughter who just began her freshman year at Brown! One of her teachers who wrote her recs, wrote the first one for Yale and then when he submitted the other recs for subsequent colleges, he went to change the name of the school throughout the text as he mentioned "Yale" quite a few times in the body of his narrative. After all her recs went out to colleges, I noticed that in every rec, while he changed the name of the college each time, he missed the final time he wrote "Yale" and so the right name of each school is in most of the narrative til the reader gets to the end and then it refers to her contributions (paraphrasing here) to YALE ! He missed that one. I almost died, thinking that is like a big no no, though would be worse if a kid did that on their essay of why I want to attend X college. I worried a little bit that her "safety" schools might say, no way, this girl won't go here, if she is applying to Yale. Well, after a while, I forgot about it cause it is not like there is anything you can do, right? And I just remembered this the other day and so, I now realize it did not make one bit of difference. So, when I am reading your vignette above, I also realize that it has happened to others. But at the time, ya tend to stress over all these little aspects of the application process, no? We can laugh now and realize it did not make a bit of difference. My daughter did well overall with her admittances, and the safeties also came through! </p>
<p>GaDad, others have given you excellent responses to your query. While I don't have a list of colleges where your daughter may pursue musical theater, but not as a major or not in a BFA degree program, I can comment on both Yale and Brown, having been to both three times and my D just began at Brown. There is a LOT of theater going on at Brown for both majors and nonmajors. There is even a student organization specifically for musical theater called Musical Forum. My daughter's advisor happens to be from the theater department. She is also assigned a senior student advisor and hers so happens to be very involved in theater, including musical theater. By the way, this daughter is not majoring in theater, but has done musical theater growing up, but is not pursuing that field (my younger D who is now applying to college is, however). She has looked into doing musicals at Brown but the committment is six nights per week from 7-11 and it does not look likely for her as she is involved in several other EC endeavors including sports and dance. But there is lots going on. An older friend of my younger D who she knows from her summer theater program, opted to go to Brown and is heavily involved in musical theater there. As well, there are many theater happenings that nonmajors can participate in at Yale. We know a girl there from our state who my D has done theater with, who is very talented at musical theater, and in her freshman year at Yale, was in several productions, student run, including playing leads. When we were there visiting, another student run musical was taking place and the lead in that one was a girl my younger D knew from her summer program in theater. So, you are on the right track with those two schools as far as excellent theater opportunities for those students who did not opt to do a BFA program or even major in theater but have talent and interest. Actually, there are good opportunities in this area at Tufts as well. Obviously there are more schools where there is a lot going on with musical theater for nonmajors. I just wanted to confirm that those schools are excellent picks when it comes to what your daughter may be looking for. Just to add, so far in the ten days since my D has been at Brown, she has LOVED it immensely. If you ever go to visit and need a current student to talk to or show you around, find a way to connect with me as I am sure my D would be happy to help a prospective student out. She likely could arrange for your D to talk to these two upperclassmen whom I mentioned are very involved and are on the board of the musical theater organization at Brown. </p>
<p>Susan </p>
<p>*By Musicalthtrmom (Musicalthtrmom) on Sunday, September 12, 2004 - 07:54 am: Edit *</p>
<p>DrJohn said...."The range is quite amazing, from improv groups to VetTheatre--veterinarian majors who do a play once a year in the spring, presumably on horses." </p>
<p>DrJohn...you crack me up! Great list! </p>
<p>*By Doctorjohn (Doctorjohn) on Sunday, September 12, 2004 - 08:18 am: Edit *</p>
<p>Musicalthtrmom: Glad you liked the list. The Vet Players really exist--although they don't do their plays on horseback, or at least they don't claim to. Go to the Cornell link and you'll find them at the bottom of the page. </p>
<p>The point, everyone, is that there are ways to gain experience in theatre and musical theatre without actually majoring in the field. I've written before that I think professional training is necessary, it's just a question of when. Participating in extra-curricular clubs as an undergraduate and then doing professional training in graduate school is one valid path. (Worked for Meryl Streep.) You just have to find colleges with lots of drama clubs. The old-line Eastern schools are the obvious places to start, and that's how I compiled the list. But there must be others, and it would be fun to find them.</p>