<p>My son has gotten into SUNY Purcahse as a technical lighting design major, He is still waiting to hear from Ithaca College and Carnegie Mellon. I am not sure, but how prestigous is SUNY Purchase as a conservatory program?? We have visited the school and know its hard to get in.. so we are happy about that. But would he be better served at Ithaca or Carnegie??<br>
I ask for some feed back as I stumble in the dark.</p>
<p>My impression is that CMU is to conservatory theatre programs what Notre Dame is to college football. But as merely a Dad with theatre kids, I would hold Purchase in at least as high esteem as Ithaca. And with NYC so close, I'd have to imagine that internships and connections would be readily available.</p>
<p>where are your kids going? or where did they go. This is pretty virgin territory for me and even though SUNY is in the top 351 princeton review I have seen negative commnetns from students. But most of them are non theater kids. I apppreciate your comment and your time</p>
<p>Mbryant</p>
<p>My first daughter was initially looking at Musical Theatre, then became a classical soprano and switched to Opera, then took an Early Action shot at an Ivy, got in, and fell in love with Anthropology. She may still plan to try the conservatory route post-grad.</p>
<p>Daughter number 2 is a HS junior who enjoys theatre and wants to pursue it as a college extracurricular, but doesn't plan to major in it.</p>
<p>Had her older sister not gotten into her reach school, she'd have leaned towards Northwestern, where there's a good working relationship between the Voice and Theatre Depts. However, the Theatre program at NWern is a B.A. in the School of Communications, not a BFA.</p>
<p>BTW, here's a link to another CC thread under "Arts Majors" in which participants discuss the merits of the top theatre schools in the country:
<a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=166214%5B/url%5D">http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=166214</a></p>
<p>It's hard to evaluate the various programs. My s got into Purchase, Ithaca, Syracuse,UCONN and we're still waiting to hear from CMU and Emerson. In looking at a program, we've been looking at location, tuition (and I've been making a list so we could compare scholarships to tuition). I think my s wants to go back to each one and sit in on some theatre/lighting classes and check each one out a little bit more. (and I thought our long drives were over....) That might be the best way to see if there's a real "fit" between student and program.
Purchase's price tag is better than CMU or Ithaca, and its location near NYC seems a real plus. Purchase's theatres were cool looking although I don't know how much the students get to work in them vs paid outside professionals. (A professor from another college told us we should check that out)
I wish I liked the "look" of Purchases's campus better.</p>