Hello, All. Trying to help my son cull his list of colleges. He has LAMDA, RADA, Guildhall and Drama Centre London on that list, understanding that they audition applicants in NYC, and are highly competitive. Are they each worth a shot? Thank you!
LAMDA has regional auditions around the USA (including NYC) and did callbacks (recall) in NYC in early April for US students called back this past year.
Don’t Know about the others
I will say make sure you can pay up front. We know a few kids either attending or heading to LAMDA and it is expensive with no scholarships for US students. You can use
Student and parent plus loans at LAMDA. Not positive you can do that at the others or not.
Great programs and you never know if you don’t try.
My S attends LAMDA and applied to several of the UK schools you list.
bfahopeful is absolutely right about cost. Definitely understand beforehand that if you not a UK citizen, you will most likely not be eligible for scholarships/grants. Some schools may offer some talent based grants, e.g. Royal Welsh or RCS, but these are not predictable and also quite rare. I wouldn’t rely on them.
Furthermore, several schools do not participate in FAFSA. RADA does not. (You can see whether the school participates by looking it up on FAFSA.) This means you cannot even take out Parent Plus or Stafford loans. LAMDA does participate, which means you can take out the Parent Plus and Stafford loans once you complete the FAFSA. But of course you’d need to supplement borrowing with some of your own money as it’s not a good idea to borrow $150K in Parent Plus loans…
For London schools, estimate about $55,000/year for room/board and tuition for the 3 years it takes to get a degree This estimate is frugal. It is extremely expensive to live in London, the most expensive city on the planet.
For callbacks, each school handles that differently. As bfahopeful says, this year LAMDA had a single callback for Americans in April in NYC (For UK and EU students, they have extensive callbacks in London.) RADA and Guildhall require you to fly to London for their callbacks. I don’t know about Drama Centre. (RCS did not require my S to do a callback; Royal Welsh did have a same-day callback, but that was it.)
All that said, if you can afford the schools, they are truly superlative. They are certainly worth the shot.
The only other thing to be aware of is that your kid has to be very independent. With the exception of Guildhall first years, they don’t provide dorms. Students live in flats, cook their own food, shop, take care of themselves etc. They commute to class and the class schedule is very rigorous, with 50-60 hours of time each week in class, then additional hours outside class, for a total of about 70-80 hours/week. And remember you’re living in London.
But again, the training is incredible, as well as nurturing. Please feel free to pm me with any questions you might have about the training or the auditions.