<p>How competitive are admissions to the Acting BFA program at UArts (Philadelphia)? The overall numbers are more encouraging than many schools, but I don't know whether the Acting Department might account for a high proportion of the rejections. They have a rolling admissions policy; does anybody have a sense of what acceptance ration is for those who audition and reply early (they begin auditioning on campus in October or November, I think)?</p>
<p>I’m curious, too. We live nearby and if my daughter were to audition early and were accepted, it would make the rest of audition season seem less scary.</p>
<p>I am speaking as the parent of a kid who did her audition at UArts (for musical theater) in early December 2007 (my kid was a member of the Class of 2008) and admission was quite competitive back then, and I hear it has gotten even more so. My D was fortunate enough to receive her admissions offer within two weeks of her audition, along with a quite generous financial aid offer. She chose to audition on the very first date that auditions were offered for that reason: because if she got accepted, she could go into the rest of her audition season knowing that she had somewhere wonderful to go, which made the stakes a bit lower (at least emotionally) during all those other auditions in January and February. Back when my kid auditioned, they didn’t have callbacks as part of the UArts process, but I think they might do that now.</p>
<p>It is my understanding that admission to the Acting program at UArts is significantly less competitive than admission to the MT program.</p>
<p>They have callbacks for MT auditions, I’m pretty sure. I don’t know whether they have callbacks for Acting auditions.</p>
<p>It would be interesting to know the numbers.</p>
<p>The admissions officer we met said that there were no callbacks for acting majors. We toured UArts with a dancer, and I inferred that the no-callback policy applied to her, also.</p>
<p>These things are hard go gauge as all these programs are competitive and have low acceptance rates. Generally speaking, I think the acting program at UArts is less competitive than some programs like Purchase or NCSA for acting or UMich or CMU for MT. </p>
<p>I’ve had two students attend UArts where it was the only BFA program on their list they got into. BUT, this is not a pattern you can count on at all. I also had a student in the past who had a very strong academic profile, a mile long theater resume, some very significant theater awards, and who had gone to UArts pre-college program and loved it (and got a sense that they loved him) and one of the faculty members at UArts wrote a rec for his college applications to all his colleges, and he was rejected at UArts and ended up at NYU/Tisch. </p>
<p>So, you can balance your college list in terms of very rough ideas of artistic selectivity as I mentioned at the beginning, but it doesn’t always turn out the way you might predict because all the programs are still selective and the odds are chancy and anything can happen!</p>
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<p>soozievt, my daughter’s drama coach tells an almost identical story about one of her female students and UArts. It makes me wonder about the internal politics in their department.</p>
<p>(Edit: unless you and she are the same person-- but I don’t think so.)</p>
<p>I’m definitely not a drama coach!</p>
<p>I don’t see this as internal politics. Simply, ALL these programs have low acceptance rates and talented and qualified people will still be rejected. Also, there is a subjective component. So, while there are some programs considered more competitive than other ones, it is not too black and white when the acceptance rates are so low.</p>
<p>Many would say my kid got into several very competitive programs and she was not admitted to Emerson who many consider to be less competitive than the programs she got into. This happens all the time in BFA admissions.</p>
<p>While several years ago UArts may have had a more regional appeal, for the past 4 years it has drawn an increasingly national audition pool of very talented and competitive students. There are students in both the acting and MT programs from east coast/west coast, north and south who had significant options including well known schools with national reputations. While it is an “arts university” and admissions criteria are skewed towards talent, the number of students it draws who were high academic achievers in high school is in contrast to the “arts university” image. The school has reduced acceptances because of increasing yields while the number of applications has steadily increased. Anyone approaching UArts with the notion that it is not a highly competitive, selective school will be doing a disservice to themselves.</p>
<p>Moreover, the anecdotes about rejections of summer program students who were well regarded in the summer program is reflective of nothing more than the selectivity of the admissions process. My daughter attended the UArts summer program as a rising h.s. junior and most of the seniors in the program who applied for college admission were rejected. For that matter, my daughter also attended the Syracuse summer program as a rising senior when it was a 6 week program for 6 college credits. Again, most of the seniors from the summer program who applied to Syracuse were rejected. Neither had anything to do with politics; it was all about the competitiveness of the process. Attending a summer program gives you great opportunities for training and experience and professors may get to know you, but when it comes time to audition, what you do in the audition room is, of course, what’s really going to matter.</p>
<p>^^^Agree with ALL of that!</p>