Toughest schools to get into

College Majors Musical Theater Major
1

<p>I had to laugh when I read this today...boy, I would have loved some of these odds!</p>

<ol>
<li><p>Stanford University, 5.69 per cent
Applications received: 38,828
Applications accepted: 2,210</p></li>
<li><p>Harvard University, 5.79 per cent
Applications received: 35,023
Applications accepted: 2,029</p></li>
<li><p>Yale University, 6.72 per cent
Applications received: 29,610
Applications accepted:1,991</p></li>
<li><p>Columbia University, 6.89 per cent
Applications received: 33,531
Applications accepted: 2,311</p></li>
<li><p>Princeton University, 7.29 per cent
Applications received: 26,498
Applications accepted: 1,931</p></li>
<li><p>Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), 8.15 per cent
Applications received: 18,989
Applications accepted: 1,548</p></li>
<li><p>University of Chicago, 8.8 per cent</p></li>
</ol>

<p>Applications received: 30,069
Applications accepted: 2,676</p>

<ol>
<li><p>Brown University, 9.16 per cent
Applications received: 28,919
Applications accepted: 2,649</p></li>
<li><p>Dartmouth College, 10.05 per cent
Applications received: 22,416
Applications accepted: 2,252</p></li>
<li><p>University of Pennsylvania, 12.1 percent
Applications received: 31,280
Applications accepted: 3,785</p></li>
</ol>

2

<p>I know you are just kidding monkey13, but I’d like to point out that it is not the same thing. </p>

<p>5% at Stanford is not equivalent to the 5% at the competitive MT programs. No one in their right might would pay the application fee to Stanford with a C average and horrible SAT scores. BUT there are plenty of unqualified applicants applying to let’s say CMU or Michigan for MT.
Its a subjective area and Parents often can not see their children clearly. And we all know there are plenty of kids getting the leads in high schools across the country that are not very talented. They leave high school thinking they are better than they probably are.</p>

<p>I point this out, because sometimes these percentages can scare kids. My daughter thought she had no chance after reading all the cc threads. I told her to ignore “the odds” because probably half the kids are truly competition.</p>

3

<p>MOMMY5’s post does offer some perspective however I do think there is still a whole lot of separating the wheat from the chaff that goes on at the highly sought after academic schools too. Yes, anyone with a C and horrible SATs that isn’t also a recruited athlete is wasting their application fee but there are plenty of students that fancy themselves in the range that really are not who are applying to all of these schools too. I hear about that sort of thing a lot in my circle.</p>

4

<p>^Agreed, halflokum, and it’s even more true at flagship state universities and competitive liberal arts colleges…especially for parents going through the process for the first time and assuming everything’s the way it was 30 years ago when THEY applied to college! I hear regular complaints from kids and parents who believe our school’s college counselors are “negative” and “discouraging” when in fact they are just realistic.</p>

5

<p>I think there are plenty of parents who don’t see their kids clearly in academic circles, and kids who don’t see themselves clearly as well. I agree with Times3…there are SO many parents, especially those sending their first off to college, who think it is like it was decades ago. </p>

<p>That being said, yes, it was tongue in cheek. :)</p>

6

<p>Well, at least in academics there are standards. In arts, it’s just so subjective and seemingly random. It’s darn near impossible to find local feedback that is honest. A kid’s voice or drama teacher is probably not going to tell them they are not very good and would most of them really know what the bar is today? In music circles is much easier to say to a student, “You have a lot of potential but are probably not Julliard material.” There are clearer measurements. And then again, I’ve heard stories about the kid a coach will tell not to try for the top schools who ends up getting accepted.</p>

<p>These school also vary so much in what they consider important. Some want very trained, ready-to-work students, some are dance heavy, some are looking for chorus prospects, some value academics, others don’t even look at them unless they want you first. I would guess many auditioning are pretty clueless about all of these crazy specifics.</p>

7

<p>^^^And people wonder why so many of us feel the need to hire coaches to help us navigate the process!</p>

8

<p>I feel the need for a really bad SNL parody moment. “In my day, stupid people like me could get into Stanford and Cornell, and we liked it….”</p>

<p>Look the reality is in any highly competitive situation be it a hot academic school or a hot selective performing arts program, any one of us that either land there (if we are the student) or are lucky enough to have our kids land there – won the lottery. That pretty much sums it up. The number of 4.0 perfect SAT kids that are rejected from any of the schools on the list above would make your head spin. Any one of them could be swapped out for the kid that was in and I’m sure would do fine. They just were not the lottery winners. Same can be said for the mind-blowingly talented kids that get rejected from the top audition-driven programs for whatever reason. And in both of these examples there will also be lines of applicants that were never really in the race to begin with. Hope springs eternal. I’m a fan of hope but I’m educated enough about how things work to know that is better to hope where there is a chance than where there just isn’t.</p>

<p>In the end though, let’s be honest about it. None of us will ever know if the reason that our beloved daughter/son (or yourself if you’re the student) got into the hot school of your dream (whatever level school/program we’re talking about) because you were just freakin’ fantastic and heaven and earth was moved to bring you on board or if it was because this other kid who was even more freakin’ fantastic who would have taken your seat had the planets aligned differently didn’t even audition for your program. Or if you are, in all objective reality, way better than anyone at a given dream school but had an off day for whatever reason at your audition and regretfully, the school will never know that. It’s a whole lot of collective “whateverness” that in the end comes together in some random fashion and produces whatever it does. Sure, preparedness can certainly stack the deck in your favor just as having perfect grades and SATs stack the deck for academic admissions, in the end it does come down to: did you win the lottery or not?</p>

9

<p>Agree totally with Flossy, tracyvp, and halflokum! Yes, the arts are so subjective. I look at some of the results this year, and I think, “Why the heck did that incredibly talented friend of my D’s only get into one school?” or even (yes, I admit it), “THAT person got into top school XYZ? Wow…what are the adjudicators seeing that I’m not?” And the answer is, we’ll never know. But obviously, they are seeing something that they want, or don’t want. Or maybe they are seeing more of what they want in someone else. And I think, Flossy, one of the benefits of hiring one of the major coaches is that they WILL say, “I think your list is too top heavy,” or “Why don’t you add this non-audition BA school, QRS University?” Our coaches were pretty blunt with us…they said things like, “This school won’t know what to do with your voice,” or “If you want to try for this school, if you really have to know, go for it, but we don’t think you are their type.” That’s as close as you are going to get to an honest assessment. (BTW, our coaches never said, “Don’t audition for this school.” They made suggestions, but NEVER told us not to try for something.) The coaches don’t have a crystal ball, but they know better, I think, about what the schools want/like (because they see who they accept and reject, year after year), and they see a good slice of the talent level/competition for this particular year. </p>

<p>And yes, it IS like a lottery. I’m sure these schools, both MT and the Ivies, are not picking people out of a hat, but I’m sure that there are far more viable candidates than there are slots. Who knows why certain kids get selected and others don’t? It might be things that are totally beyond our child’s control, like looks (height, eye color, hair color, facial structure), or personality, or attitude. I kept saying, “I would love to be a fly on the wall in that decision room…”</p>

<p>So, unless someone writes a tell-all book, or a documentary is made on the process where there are cameras in the adjudicators room, filming how the decisions are made for each particular school, we won’t know.</p>

<p>I think the motto is that hope is great, but expectation is dangerous. Anything can - and does - happen.</p>

10

<p>^^^ Love that idea for a reality show!</p>

11

<p>

</p>

<p>Back when my kids were applying to college, I read the best selling book, The Gatekeepers, which is about elite college admissions (regular colleges, not performing arts) and the writer had unprecedented access to the admissions committee at Wesleyan. It was a real eye opener to the selective admissions process. I wish someone could get on the “inside” of such a process in musical theater! What a read that would be too!</p>

12

<p>While it isn’t “cameras in the adjudicators room” if you go to about 29:40 of this video from an episode of the PBS Documentary “Broadway or Bust”, you’ll see judges in a room narrowing the field at the National High School Musical Theater Awards. Obvously not the same thing, and the stakes a different, but it’s probably as close as we will ever get to being a fly on the wall. Some very frank banter in the room by judges who are college profs and industry pros. </p>

<p>[Video:</a> Episode 3: “And the Winner Is…” | Watch Broadway or Bust Online | PBS Video](<a href=“http://video.pbs.org/video/2281566792]Video:”>http://video.pbs.org/video/2281566792)</p>

13

<p>Amazing how decisions can be so quickly and in a pool of outstanding kids, it’s really important to show something special and understand your material well enough to sustain it. That was really interesting. I had never seen that (I turn my TV on maybe twice a month), so I bookmarked it and will have to watch it when I get some time. Thanks for sharing.</p>

14

<p>That’s why I qualify the video by saying it’s not the same thing and the stakes are different, mtcoach. But there are probably parallels in both processes, and it is an interesting glimpse. It’s seemingly impossible to decide on finalists amongst that pool of kids in 15 minutes, but they do it. These are kids who won Best Actress/Best Actor in various local high school “Tony Award” type things around the country and spent a week in NYC doing classes and putting together a show, which is done on Broadway. They each do an individual audition for all the judges at some point before the live show, then do group medleys during the show in the character for which they won the award, and they are judged on both. It was interesting to watch.</p>

15

<p>Yeah I’m definitely going to have to watch it. I’m familiar with the Jimmys, but I didn’t realise they had made a documentary. There are surely differences, but the commentary during the decision making process is insightful… including the “yeah get rid of him” without any second thought.</p>

16

<p>That PBS documentary is amazing - and I also never saw it. I can’t wait to sit down and watch the whole thing. WOW!</p>

17

<p>mtcoach, I remember thinking that part was far more real than any “reality” TV I’ve seen. “he can go,” “she’s out.” I’m sure those kids come away from that week not bummed out at all if they don’t win given the experience they have.</p>