<p>My S is currently a junior in high school. We are researching colleges & would appreciate any input. He would like to go to a relatively small liberal arts school with a strong musical theater program. A few that he is seriously considering are Carnegie Mellon, Emerson, University of the Arts & Northwestern.</p>
<p>Here are some LAC’s and conservatories that you may find of interest:</p>
<p>These are normally regarded as “highly-selective” for MT:
Baldwin-Wallace College
Boston Conservatory
Elon University
Ithaca College
Oklahoma City University
Otterbein College
Roosevelt University
Shenandoah Conservatory</p>
<p>These LAC’s are also well-regarded for MT and may or may not be as selective as the list above:
Catawba College
Illinois Wesleyan University
Millikin University
Muhlenberg College
Nebraska Wesleyan
Viterbo University
Wagner College
Webster
Westminster Choir College</p>
<p>This is far from an all-inclusive list. You can find more at:</p>
<p><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>Many of the schools mentioned aren’t really liberal arts schools with strong MT programs, if that implies that you will have a strong grounding in the liberal arts part of the curriculum; they are liberal arts schools that have conservatory programs within them that allow little time for liberal arts classes (or they are actual conservatories). </p>
<p>These include:</p>
<p>CMU
UArts
Roosevelt
Baldwin-Wallace
Ithaca
OCU
Shenandoah</p>
<p>Not sure about the extent of the academics at Otterbein and Webster, which are also conservatory-style training programs.</p>
<p>^^^ I was working from the list in the OP, which was a mixed bag.</p>
<p>@11drose - as CoachC correctly points out, there are different types of programs which can fall under the objective of a “small LAC with a strong MT program:”</p>
<ol>
<li><p>LAC BFA MT “Conservatory” or “Conservatory-style” with limited Gen Ed</p></li>
<li><p>LAC BFA MT with “more” Gen Ed (the program may or may not use “conservatory” somewhere in the description)</p></li>
<li><p>LAC BA MT program with maybe the “most” Gen Ed</p></li>
</ol>
<p>You pretty much have to look at each individual curriculum to see if it has what you are looking for in a program - there can be a lot of variance from school to school. Some BFA programs can require a fairly substantial core of Gen Ed. courses.</p>
<p>My d is a senior in a BFA program for musical theatre and I have looked over her bills for theatre books and plays. Some of the books were for elective courses and some for required but none of them are light weight in content. It concerns me that some students want to avoid academics and will not receive all the intellectual growth that makes for strong actors. Those students who enter college with strong SAT scores in language arts might never have a problem but many students that wish to avoid academics in college, avoided them in high school too.
I have no background in the study of theatre but my d opened my eyes this summer. She spent the summer in NYC and took me to a play called “Jerusalem” and she told me the following, " I don’t want to be a presentational actor", She said, “I know you think singing makes or breaks a show”. " This is what the standard is for acting, it doesn’t matter if it is a play or a musical". After watching that performance I got it. Good acting is intellectual, even when it doesn’t appear to be. It’s a commitment to a life of study. And because “Jerusalem” wasn’t a musical, I was better able to see great acting isolated. My d was able to teach me through this play what I wasn’t astute enough to see before, that a musical theatre student should be every bit as strong in drama as a BFA in theatre, with top notch skills in singing and dancing to add to the resume.</p>
<p>To CoachC’s point - CMU - MT students take 1 (ONE) non-MT class in all four years. Not exactly LAC style!</p>
<p>thecheckbook – Good for your daughter! Good for you! Excellent observation.</p>
<p>Regardless of musical theater, the term “LAC” is not being used properly in some of these posts. For example, putting musical theater aside, Carnegie Mellon is not a “LAC” even if majoring in English. LAC stands for “liberal arts college.” CMU is a university, not a LAC. Same with some other schools in this thread like Webster and OCU. They are universities , not LACs. Muhlenberg is a LAC, as is Wagner, for instance. </p>
<p>A LAC, or Liberal Arts College, emphasizes undergraduate study in liberal arts. There are no graduate students. Most schools that are LACs have under 2500 students. They mostly award BA and BS degrees. The faculty’s priority is teaching more than research. The majority of students are full time and residential. </p>
<p>Schools like CMU, OCU, Elon, Illinois Wesleyan, CCM, Syracuse, NYU, UMich, Northwestern, and James Madison are universities, not LACs.</p>
<p>By the way, hardly any LACs offer BFA degrees. BFA programs are mostly located within universities, not LACs, or else stand alone conservatories.</p>
<p>This, of course, is not the same discussion as to how much liberal arts are required in a given musical theater program. But the term “LAC” is not being used correctly.</p>
<p>For the OP, CMU’s MT program is a conservatory located within a university but requires VERY little liberal arts coursework for the BFA. UArts is a stand alone conservatory that has a little bit of gen. ed. but is not a regular university that offers liberal arts degrees or an array of liberal arts courses. Emerson is a regional university (offers graduate degrees), but a specialized one that offers limited degrees as is specializes in performing arts and communications fields. Its BFA in MT program does have a significant amount of liberal arts requirements, though not as as much as a BA degree would have. Northwestern in a university, not a LAC, and offers a BA in Theater with a MT Certificate and thus the degree is broader in nature and includes a higher percentage of liberal arts courses than a BFA degree would require. </p>
<p>Your son needs to examine each school’s curriculum. Further, your child needs to decide if he wants a BA or a BFA degree. He needs to decide if he does go for a BFA degree, if he wants a stand alone conservatory or a conservatory style program within a university setting. Then, he needs to examine how much liberal arts each BFA degree program requires (differs widely between schools) and also the challenge level or selectivity level of the wider university in terms of academics. This also varies between BFA programs.</p>
<p>As a senior MT at CMU, I can say we do take a little more outside classes than this board is highlighting. You take both an english and a history requirement your freshman year as well as an 8 week computing skills course which everyone in the University is required to take, and sophomore year you can choose a class that is in the school of H&SS or the Humanities and Social Sciences. The Middle States review found that the musical theater majors lack a course their junior year, so there is also room for a course outside of the school of drama. There are also MT kids who are successfully minoring, it doesn’t always happen, but they find a way to make it work around their schedule. But we are in fact a conservatory in a university setting, so we aren’t a LAC. But, we do get the opportunity to take outside classes, it’s just having the will to find them.
Hope this helps,
CarnegieMT2012</p>
<p>Overall, the liberal arts requirements at CMU are less than at many other BFA in MT programs. There is great variation between BFA programs in terms of amount of liberal arts required. For someone who wants a BFA in MT that has a significant liberal arts component, CMU would not be a good fit.</p>
<p>If I had to do it all again, I’d start by comparing side by side, year by year, the schedule of classes for each program. We did that sort of late in the game - earlier is better. It’s surprising how much variety there is between programs. Some schools have lots of electives available to the student, while others are a tight “mummy fit” with little built-in flexibility.</p>
<p>I like this quote from Otterbein’s web page:</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>If your focus is MT and you are interested in smaller liberal arts-type schools, it seems to me to be splitting hairs to some extent to worry about whether Otterbein (for example) is in fact, not an LAC. They (like many of the others listed above) are “a small Unversity with a liberal arts college focus” - an SLAUCF(smile)? You are probably going to have to look through a mix of programs to find a decent list of reaches, possibles and safeties.</p>
<p>Ok, since I used the term “LAC” incorrectly, here are some facts and figures from the school’s web pages:</p>
<p>(Official Name Undergrad/Grad Enrollment “What they call themselves”)</p>
<p>Oklahoma City University 2100/1700 “Liberal Arts and Professional University”</p>
<p>Elon University 5225/691 “Liberal Arts University”</p>
<p>Shenadoah University 1840/1840 “Liberal Arts and Professional University”</p>
<p>Otterbein University 3000/? “Liberal Arts and Professional College”</p>
<p>Ithaca College 6173/429 “Residential Comprehensive College…offering graduate degrees”</p>
<p>Baldwin-Wallace College 4032/231 “Liberal Arts college offering bachelor’s and master’s degrees and professional programs”</p>
<p>Boston Conservatory 534/132 “Performing Arts Conservatory”</p>
<p>Roosevelt University 2730/1735 “Metropolitan University educating socially conscious citizens”</p>
<p>My mistake stems from a bias induced by three technical degrees from two huge universities - anything with less than 10,000 students looks like a LAC to me (smile).</p>
<p>Looking through the US News and World Report list of “National Liberal Arts College Rankings” the only schools that I noticed that are frequently mentioned as strong (or fairly strong or sort-of-strong) MT schools were:</p>
<h1>71 Illinois Wesleyan University</h1>
<h1>81 Muhlenburg</h1>
<h1>144 Nebraska Wesleyan University</h1>
<p>UR Marymount Manhattan</p>
<p>I may have missed one or two in my scan down the list.</p>
<p>Thank you all so much for the responses. I will have to make a spreadsheet to help manage all of this input.</p>
<p>Upon further review (to use a football phrase) it turns out that US News and World Report defines a “National Liberal Arts College” as:</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Under this definition fall many “Universities.” So, the definition of a LAC varies(!). The call on the field has been reversed (smile).</p>
<p>I found the Carnegie Foundation website to be a very cool search tool:</p>
<p>[Carnegie</a> Classifications](<a href=“Carnegie Foundation Classifications”>http://classifications.carnegiefoundation.org/)</p>
<p>If you start with “Institutional Lookup” and type in say, “Muhlenberg,” you will see how they classified it. You can then select one or more of the boxes and find similar schools. Lo and behold, up comes “Illinois Wesleyan” if you select things like “Basic Arts and Sciences” and “Highly Residential,” etc. If you look up “Elon” and then check some of the boxes, the resulting list will include: “Baldwin-Wallace,” “OCU,” and “Rider (Westminster Choir College has a new emphasis on MT).” What fun!</p>
<p>@11drose: we all end up with spreadsheets, binders with many tabbed sections, “war boards,” etc., etc. A great thread to review is:</p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/musical-theater-major/477658-preparing-apply-information-h-s-juniors-seniors.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/musical-theater-major/477658-preparing-apply-information-h-s-juniors-seniors.html</a></p>
<p>Also, the book, “Accept My Kid, Please!: A Dad’s Descent into College Application Hell” is a fun read and describes one dad’s systematic and hilarious approach.</p>
<p>Chapman is a liberal arts university that has a strong program.
[Chapman</a> University - College of Performing Arts](<a href=“Page Not Found | Chapman University”>College of Performing Arts | Chapman University)</p>
<p>Chapman does not have musical theatre- but they do a musical each year (Urinetown this year). They have drama and music.</p>