<p>Porathor, would you mind letting us know which studio you’re in? do you think your experience has to do with your specific studio?</p>
<p>Adler.
And possibly. I think I would have really liked ETW. They have some cool stuff happening over there.<br>
Like Bville Lady said, her son loves New School. Some people love Adler. The problem I kept seeing was that it seemed like half the people loved their studio and half did not and with so many people in a studio, that’s a lot of unhappy people. The biggest plus to Tisch is our faculty, they are incredible. A lot of my negative experience had to do with the amount of students and the attitude of students.</p>
<p>Thanks Portahor42 for providing an open and balanced critique of your program. Many of posts here about schools tend to fall into either its the greatest school ever or its the worst school ever – neither of which is all that helpful. </p>
<p>If money is not a barrier, I think its hard not include Tisch in a list of schools because it does take so many kids and because the quality of training IS so well respected in the field. My daughter is leery about Tisch having gotten a fair bit of feedback similar to yours from one kid going there now and a second who was just accepted. We’ve gone back and forth a bit about even including it because its not really the environment she would prefer but if your mindset is I really can’t even fathom my life as other than a working actress its hard not to include it because they do take so many kinds and because it’s still a better option to reach that goal than all but a handful of top programs.</p>
<p>My son said he likes that there is so much competition at NYU. He believes if you are in a program that takes less than 20 students, then those 20 students will almost certainly get cast. He believes the tough competition prepares him more for the real world. Sure, he has some kids in his class that he questions how they got there but he doesn’t dwell on that. He focuses on what he needs to do and how best to work with them. :)</p>
<p>Supportive makes a good point. NYU is not going to be for everybody, but if you really want to go into the acting business you really need a thick, I mean really thick skin. If you are competing with only 20 kids, are you really getting any taste of reality?
If my kid is not cut out for this (and who could blame her if she is not!) I’d rather know sooner than later.
And any school, even Ivy league, sometimes let’s in people that has others scratching their heads. Less qualified kids get in all the time depending on where they are from or who their parents are.</p>
<p>I think you can make a case that you need to have much thicker skin in a class of 20 because you have nowhere to hide. The posts we’ve seen on Purchase, as a counter example, is that the expecations are different with respect to what each and every person of the class is expected in terms of commitment as compared to what Portathor42 described at Tisch.</p>
<p>Yes, there are definitely benefits and negatives to both. At Purchase one would need a really thick skin then, because with their attrition rate usually the class ends up being closer to 12 people!</p>
<p>Just to respond to some comments made, I don’t believe that being in a conservatory about being competitive. The point of putting students together in a small group and to have them study for 4 years together is not to put them head to head. Theater is a collaborative process. It is for students to work and hone their craft together. The best part is that it fosters an environment for them to create art together. Then after 4 years you enter the world with a strong hold of your craft and a stronger view on what you want to do with your artistic ability. Then the “competition” begins, if you would like to call it that. But I don’t think you need to develop a thick skin while training- I don’t really think that’s what the focus of a conservatory is. </p>
<p>Is there minor competition between people within my studio? Yes. There always is. But our ability to work together and create art by far surpasses the competitive aspects of being amongst so many talented artists everyday.</p>
<p>It seems to me that you have to be pretty competitive to even GET IN to one of those programs that only takes 20 or so people . . .</p>
<p>Let’s face it folks, this is not a science. There will be brilliant and NOT so brilliant at both the large and small programs. I’m sure I’m not the only one here who personally knows a kid who got into one of the very “prestigious conservatories”, and everyone who knows his/her work was surprised. I also know a girl that got into one of those “under 20 accepted” conservatories and didn’t get into NYU, her dream school. She was disappointed at first, but ended up happy at the small program. </p>
<p>No program is perfect and they all have their pluses and minuses. It’s all about what your priorities are. For those who would like to continue their education and take some academic classes other than drama, the tiny conservatory route is not an option.</p>
<p>Agreed. also would just like to add that unless you were in the room and personally saw that person’s audition, you really have no argument as to whether they were “worthy” of admission.</p>
<p>^ yup.
as someone who came to the scene later and got her start in theatre in a somewhat competitive theatre dept at the magnet program, i never was given many opportunities in hs. and at the time, my parents weren’t very supportive about paying for training so i didn’t have much room for growth in hs. nobody really thought i had the acting or singing ability to really pursue acting or mt based on the fact that they had only ever seen my work occasionally, especially things that i was never adequately prepared to take on at the time.
fast forward to the gap year i took to re-audition. for some reason, the second time was a charm for me as i had spent a good amount of time prepping and growing and a lot of acting and mt programs were interested in me.
i don’t think some of my old hs peers really thought i was “worthy” of half of the offers i received that year.<br>
and i also think that has a lot to do with how some kids get offers at extremely competitive programs but are rejected at others that are statistically a lot easier to get into. yea, i agree it’s a crapshoot and auditions are subjective, but i think people will have off days or on days for auditioning. i can name the auditions that i know were definitely off or definitely on…yea there are some i remember scratching my head about, but when you really let go in an audition, it’s hard not to notice it yourself when you leave the room. and i think everyone has the potential to do that…some people will have the fortune of completely letting go at some big audition and will be lucky to get into the school, but maybe normally they’re reserved and tense in their acting. doesn’t mean they don’t have the potential that is worthy of program admission.</p>
<p>Yes, having a bad day and so giving a bad audition is a possibility why someone might be not admitted.</p>
<p>But I think there are other factors too. I do think, from what I have been studying, that auditors are also looking at how well a given auditionee will “fit” in their program. How they will work with the type of acting training that the program uses, for example. If you don’t get admitted, it doesn’t necessarily mean that someone thought you were untalented, it may just mean they thought you weren’t right for that particular program, and should get your training somewhere else.</p>
<p>KEVP</p>
<p>yes yes i agree with all that…but that aside, it’s also about how much a student was able to risk everything in the audition room which is equivalent to being “on” that day.</p>
<p>i will say that while i agree with what you say, there’s always those kids who get into like every single program they auditioned for or like got 1 or 2 rejections out of like 10 or more schools. i remember when a kid i knew of got into the MT “trifecta” (in addition to like every other school they auditioned for) which i thought was pretty unheard of. in cases like that, i’m not so sure it’s just because the faculty thought the kid was going to be a great fit for the school. i think that’s just a case of an undeniably massivly talented kid who probably also has a very likable personality.</p>
<p>from what i’ve noticed watching other people. there are many talented kids, but some you have to spend some time extracting the ability out and need an extra push…doesn’t mean they’re not gonna be a successful actor in the future, but you’re uncertain as to how long it will take for that growth to happen–they’re just at a place where something personal is holding them back. and then there are those kids who just get up there and you just know they’re an actor because it’s risk after risk after risk and they are able to bring that fearlessness at every audition they go to. also doesn’t mean a kid who once was part of the first group won’t develop into a person in the second group nor does it mean that a person in the second group will never slip into the first group. </p>
<p>more than the factors that you’ve described, i think programs first look for just a glimpse of a kid who’s willing to be bold and risky. if a kid gives them that, they’ll be interested in the kid. then it’s to the discussion table where they sit and look at the factors you’ve mentioned above.</p>
<p>but i mean if you had an off day and had a somewhat wooden audition, you might not have been able to show them the full extent of your acting ability…and so they wouldn’t have been able to see your potential. but there are many programs out there and that’s why people apply to multiple schools. it’s not just with the knowledge that admissions decisions are based on the factors you’ve mentioned, but also with the knowledge that audition performance can vary from audition to audition.</p>
<p>Of course, talent is very important, and someone who pretty much gets admitted to every place they audition is almost certainly very talented.</p>
<p>I think what I am noticing is that people have been approaching their education with the attitude of “I have to get good grades to get into the college of my choice . . .” and now can’t get their head around the fact that since they are theatre majors, their audition may be more important than their grades, and so they should have spent more time working on audition than grades. All of a sudden the “other students” who never worked hard to get good grades because they spent all their time having fun on school productions have an advantage over the drudges who always did their homework.</p>
<p>KEVP</p>
<p>That is very true TheRealKEVP! </p>
<p>I don’t know how it is in other high schools, but in ours, it seems that the kids with the highest GPA’s are the ones doing the plays. They are not necessarily talented, but that is what they participate in. I guess because in a public high school , doing the plays is more forgiving than being on a sport team. If you suck at basketball, you will not play on Varsity BBall, but in our school, if you suck at acting, singing and dancing… you can still be in the play. That’s another whole discussion! haha</p>