unifieds

Hi everyone, nervous mom here! I was wondering about unifieds, my daughter applied to just a few schools for MT, I am trying to encourage her to apply to a few more. We were hoping to do a few walk ins at Unifieds. How does that work, doesnt really give much info on the website? How many could you realistically “walk in” for? Thanks, good luck to everyone! =P~

It is a little tougher to walk in for MT if the school has a dance call. The key is to get to the floor early and start asking around. I know in the past LIU Post, The New School, SCAD and Texas State (Acting - didn’t try MT) have had early slots for walk-ins. Some of the more well-known programs did not accept walk-ins two years ago. Be sure to bring your checkbook as many will require you to pay the audition fee.

@overwhelmedmomof#1 - I can only comment on Chicago Unifieds, however, I am sure it is similar in NYC and LA:

  1. Many more schools attend Chicago Unifieds than what you will see on the "official" Unifieds website list (around double the number or more).You can view a list of schools that typically show up for Chicago Unifieds in this post: http://talk.qa.collegeconfidential.com/discussion/comment/19862764#Comment_19862764
  2. Many/most of the walk-in opportunities will be for schools that are not part of the officials Unifieds list. However, "official" schools may have slots open as well, it will vary from year-to-year and school-to-school.
  3. To find out which schools are offering walk-ins, you have to stroll through the lobby areas on each floor of the Palmer House where auditions are held and check for posters and flyers announcing walk-in opportunities. Do this every morning as the opportunities sometimes pop up daily. Occasionally the announcement of walk-in slots will be posted outside a school's audition room, so it can pay off to "walk the halls" as well.
  4. You then go to the room for the school holding walk-ins and sign up at the table for a slot. You may have to pay a fee, usually via check, when you sign up. Sign-ups are first-come, first-served and schools may run out of walk-in slots quickly.
  5. The number of walk-ins that you can do will depend on the openings that you have within your own schedule. Walk-in auditions are typically short (less than 10 minutes) but you may have to wait a little while for your slot. Doing 2-3 per day is easily possible if you have, say, 2-3 hours of time available. I know students that have done 6 or more walk-ins in one day.
  6. Here is a list of schools that have offered walk-ins in the past at Chicago (however, this does not mean that they will be doing them this year, it varies):

UAB
Viterbo
Utah
Western Michigan
Ball State
Cornish
Drake
LIPA
Royal Welsh Academy
Ohio Northern
Oklahoma (Acting)
SCAD
CAP21/Molloy
NYCDA
Long Island U.
Northern Colorado

Just to add a couple more to the great list that EmsDad provided - based on what we noted last year at Chicago

Montclair
University of Wisconsin - Stevens Point

In Los Angeles the list was pretty similar but also noted last year:

University of Arizona
Weber State University

In addition, I will note at LA since they are considerably less crowded, many of the schools you don’t find taking walk-ins at Chicago did in Los Angeles, including several prescreen schools.

Lots of schools have schedules posted on the door or on a table, where you can sign up as a walk-in. When my D was auditioning, I roamed the halls and took photos of the sheets. Then when she had downtime she could decide, does she want to audition for that school, and is there a slot that would work for her. Then we could add her to the list. You would be amazed at how many auditions were cancelled/scratched out - space opened up every day, perhaps as kids received offers or found a school they would rather audition for.
Plus sometimes you get lucky and a school has someone cancel and will accept you as a walk-in “on the spot.” D had applied and not gotten an audition slot at Hartt, we checked every day at unifieds and the lady was super nice and told us there might be a spot opening so I stuck around near the table while D decompressed in the hotel room. And lo and behold, she got an audition with about 10 minutes’ notice one afternoon.
Our goal for unifieds was two auditions per day, max. But you could fit in more, if your kid is up for it. Some are literally ten minutes long and don’t have a dance call, or their dance call is on a separate day.

Thank you everyone for all the information!