Carnegie Mellon is one of the most expensive schools in the US. It costs $61,422 to attend per year.
The acceptance rate to CMU for the university 10 years ago was 36%. The most recent acceptance rate is 25%. For the Drama/MT program the acceptance rate 10 years ago was approximately 2 1/2% and it still is today. CMU is not hurting for applicants. Their total number of applicants to the university has gone up and their acceptance rate has gone down (more selective than ever). Their BFA Drama program has a high number of applicants and an extremely low acceptance rate, despite it being one of the most expensive programs out there.
CMU does not help the selectivity argument at all since it has so very few slots.The calculus at a school like CMU with such a small class is different than at NYU/BoCo where the class size is much larger. And even at $61K it is 10K or more less expensive than NYU. And the cost of living in Pittsburg v. NYCâŠ
Nevertheless, many families do not choose to let a kid apply to a program that they know they could never afford. We made that decision; I teach in an independent high school (over half our students pay full tuition), and we have many families who make that choice for any type of college. This is reality, not somebodyâs theory. Yes, CMU and other expensive schools are still deluged with applicants. Their tremendous reputations are part of why they can sustain such high tuition rates, obviously!
evilqueen, I used CMU and other universities beyond the MT realm to explain that even some of the most expensive schools in the country are not hurting for applicants and in fact, their applicants have increased and their acceptance rates have gone down, despite the high price tag.
Jkellynh, yes, CMU offers need based aid. Some very expensive schools that are highly selective such as Northwestern, University of Chicago, Columbia University, Tufts, etc. only offer need based aid and NO merit aid. My kid went to NYU and need was considered in her financial aid package.
time3, I agree with you that some hugely expensive schools enjoy high numbers of applicants and low acceptance rates due to reputations. People will always apply to them, even those who canât afford them, though some apply and wait to see what their FA package will be before deciding whether to attend.
A friend of mine with significant need whose kid got WL for CMU said that it was the lowest net cost of any of the schools her kid applied to. So thereâs that, if your child is extremely talented and you are extremely poor.
^^ExactlyâŠyou have to see the net cost after FA and not necessarily the ticket price. My kid also got WL at CMU and got a good FA package from them, as she did from NYU, another expensive school. I will add that one doesnât have to be extremely poor to get decent FA. I am not extremely poor. Also, I had two kids in college at the same time which demonstrates more need. My kid at an Ivy League school which is only need based aid, had her FA package shoot way up when her sister entered college a year after she did.
None of these schools are hurting for applicants but that doesnât mean anything in terms of selectivity for MT or people deciding that the cost of a certain school is beyond their reach or that the cost/class size benefit is not there. The landscape is constantly shifting and perceptions of value are driving the reality of where these kids are applying NOW and why. The perceptions the class of 2015 has on where they will get the best bang for their buck is not the same as it was 5 or 10 years ago.
Arenât we talking about really narrow shades of grey at this point? If you think a school is too expensive- choose a different one. If you donât like the geographic area of a program (D did nothing west of the Mississippi or south of the Mason Dixon) find another. There are SO many options out there- find what works for your kid and your family- and go for it. Letâs face it- no reputable MT school is hurting for talented applicants, and the people who hire MT grads, even from âthe bestâ programs, are not hurting for people to castâŠChoose your path- and let everyone else do the same.
Evilqueen, you are right about the âconstantly shiftingâ landscape, not just in terms of program quality but also in terms of the availability of financial aid in general. My older children were in the applicant pool in 2003 and 2008, and things were very, very different by 2013 (and have only gotten more unpredictable in the last 2 years). Our schoolâs college counselors have confirmed that since the economic downturn, financial aid is a different ball game, and most schools have changed their approaches to merit aid, not to mention needs-based aid. My 2013 theater kid got offers that were all over the map, just for needs-based aid, whereas with the older two kids, the EFCs were consistent among schools. It would be a bold strategy for anyone to assume that expensive schools will just come through with the necessary aid; itâs really crucial to strategize and, as toowonderful says, choose the path that works for your family now.
In terms of selectivity, and cost, Iâm simply saying that the high cost of a MT program like NYU still is not diminishing their number of applicants or their selectivity ratings. Their acceptance rate for MT has held steady at about 6% for a number of years and their acceptance rate of 32% to the university has as well. (as an aside, you mention âcost/class size benefit,â and I never saw the cost in relation to the MT class size as relevant. My kid went to a large MT program of about 64 students/year, and the class size in studio was never more than about 15 kids in a classroom)
That said, Of course people are going to consider cost in where they apply or enroll, unless very wealthy. But even though costs to attend have risen, they were relatively still high 10 years ago in comparison to incomes and so forth. Many people, like ourselves, in the middle class, do not have all the money in hand to pay for four years of college, let alone for more than one kid. Some have saved, can spend some money from current income, get some financial aid, and are willing to take out loans to spread the cost over many years (we had to do that).
I wholeheartedly agree with âtoo wonderfulâ's post #129. People have to weigh what considerations are important to them in their selection criteria of where to apply.
Times3, yes, the FA picture has changed over the years, but it is not all in a negative fashion. Need based aid, for example, at many of the Ivy League schools is now WAY better than it was a dozen years ago. My kid who went to an Ivy got very good need based aid (she graduated UG school in '08). However, right after she graduated, the FA policies at her school and others of its ilk, shot up a LOT to offer much better need based scholarships to the middle class than the already good aid my D got when she attended. So, changes that are good and bad have happened in the interim.
I may have missed this on an earlier post, but donât forget that at some schools, you need to pass academic muster first before they will audition youâŠWagner is one of these, CAP 21/Molloy is another. My D is at CAP 21/ Molloy. For a ânewâ program (itâs a new partnership, but hardly new training), the Class of 2018 is from all over the countryâŠmy Dâs roomie is from Texas; there are kids from MD, FL, NVâŠthe list goes on. Any school that goes to Unifieds is going to pull from all over the talent pool. Does that make it harder to get in? I donât know. Having lived through all this just last year, I can tell you with 100% certainty that NONE of these programs are easy to get into. My D wanted to go to a NYC-based program; thatâs all we applied to. It was a very risky move, and she was darn lucky it worked out. I donât recommend it!!
After carefully reading all these posts, I think an answer to the original question is to not feel as if you are âsettlingâ for second tier programs, rather look for programs that work for your situation. There are so many programs that get passed over because they do not have a high name recognition but do provide a wonderful education for a reasonable cost.
FYI I heard on the radio today that college costs have gone up 75% in the last 10 yearsâŠ
Also, are we on some level comparing apples to oranges? Someone might be willing to pay/borrow 70K for their kid to go to medical school, but not necessarily to go to school for MT (unless itâs CMU where the perception - not necessarily the reality - is that you will then have a ticket to Broadway) which doesnât even require a college degree and where the average wage earned is close to that of working at McDonaldâs? I do think cost does limit what schools people apply to in MT, especially as the application process has gotten more and more expensive and many require travel to auditions which adds another level of cost.
Everyone approaches this differently. There is no right or wrong way! I would pay the same amount no matter what my kids chose to major in. Medicine or MT, no difference. We considered that we were paying for our kids to get a good education. Their major was irrelevant. Our willingness to pay was not tied to potential income, careers, etc. But not everyone agrees and that is totally fine!
We also cared about fit over cost. One D got a full ride at a school but the school would not have been a good fit and we let her go to her first choice. For grad school, again, she turned down some larger scholarships to some schools and went to her first choice which fit her best. Not everyone is willing to approach it in this fashion.
Further, not everyone is willing to borrow money to pay for their kidsâ education. But many of us donât have that sum of money on hand for more than one child and need to pay it over a period of time. We chose that, but I respect those unwilling to do so.
I applaud the idea of trying to get the admit percentages nailed down but I think @artskids pretty much nailed the problem with that exercise in post #110. I wish you well with trying to aggregate it because it is helpful if it can be done. Skeptical but I get the interest in attempting. Iâd like to think prescreens should count as âat batsâ but at some schools you can prescreen before actually applying so Iâd wonder if there is such a thing as submitting a prescreen and then not bothering to apply. I know for live prescreens that is true because my daughter âaccidentallyâ passed prescreens at a thespian event for schools she never ended up applying to. Anyway, good luck with the aggregation but not sure youâll be able to truly get something that is apples to apples so the debate will continue.
In a moment of insanity can I ask⊠Who cares? Saying this as one who just remembered the moment when her kid got into the dream school and the world around her stood still. I promise, when that happens to you, you are not doing the math about odds. You just are glad you were accepted to play in the cool sandbox, similar to the one you thought was the cool one to play in, like when you were 3 and were asked to join by kids who didnât know you at all but just wanted to play with you anyway. Remember that visual? Itâs like that.
Hey just to correct one thing. CMU is $64K total coast estimate now on their own website and tuition there is actually equal now to what one pays at NYU Tisch almost dollar for dollar. Until this year, Tisch tuition was actually less than CMUâs by the way. This assumes that CMU doesnât charge more for tuition for the BFA folks than it does for the rest. (NYU does and I used the Tisch numbers.) The total cost difference is largely explained by housing & board for Pittsburgh vs. NYC. Iâm sure that surprises no one. Doesnât really matter in this conversation but people sometimes hang onto numbers and that becomes repeated as fact from that moment on. Wanted to set the record straight.
@halflokum you bring up a beautiful point- and and even more special memory. I am the type of person who tends to re- think, overthink, analyze (to death) scenarios long gone, and second guess far more than is probably healthy. Thank you for the reminder. And I love the point about CMU too I spent some time today googling âmost expensive colleges in americaâ. What interested me was that different sites (reputable sources, cnn, time, etc) had some very different schools. Most arenât related to the theater world- but it still made me smile
I spent some time today googling âmost expensive colleges in americaâ. What interested me was that different sites (reputable sources, cnn, time, etc) had some very different schools. Most arenât related to the theater world- but it still made me smile