Whittling down the list of colleges...the Safety School

College Majors Musical Theater Major
21

<p>Tulane - be aware that you must audition at the end of freshman year to get into the BFA program for performance. From their website:</p>

<p>“The Bachelor of Fine Arts degree with a major in theatre is designed for students who want professional training in theatre performance or production. The student concentrates in either the acting or design/production area. For admission to either program, students must apply no earlier than the end of the freshman year and no later than the first semester of their junior year. Entry into the B.F.A. Performance Track is by audition only.”</p>

<p>So, it really isn’t a safety if you want the BFA. No auditioned program can really be a safety.</p>

22

<p>Terpizzle, you wouldn’t believe what a relief it is for these kids to get their first acceptance. That’s what makes the whole thing real at last.</p>

23

<p>Does anyone have any thoughts about the MT program at American university? I guess it wouldn’t be a complete safety since some sort of audition is involved, though it sounds like you can do that once you are there?
Also - Hofstra close to NYC/ has music / theatre / dance but an auditioned minor once you are there?
Most schools we’ve been looking at you audition up front, but are there any pros to doing so once you are at a school?</p>

24

<p>I’ve read some good things about American on here over the last couple of years, and I know there was somebody whose daughter chose it for MT and just finished her freshman year. If you do a search on the MT forum, I bet it’ll pop up.</p>

25

<p>@lcoulter32724 - there is an entire subforum dedicated to American. You can find it at the top of the list of schools posted at the top of the MT forum main page. Here is a link to the subform page:</p>

<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/american-university-mt/[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/american-university-mt/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>These two threads seemed to have some fairly recent information about American:</p>

<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/american-university-mt/1326041-american-university-mt-vs-muhlenberg.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/american-university-mt/1326041-american-university-mt-vs-muhlenberg.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/american-university-mt/1310587-current-student-parents.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/american-university-mt/1310587-current-student-parents.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

26

<p>Thanks all!</p>

27

<p>Another potential school to look at is Hofstra. You go in as a BA Drama major (no audition required). As a sophomore you have the opportunity to audition for the BFA in Theater Arts or BFA in Performance and there’s a Musical Theatre minor you can opt for as well. College Board categorizes it as ‘somewhat selective’ with 59% of students being accepted, so it’s not as much of an academic reach as a school such as Muhlenberg, which only accepts 46% percent of its applicants. </p>

<p>Just something to look into. Both Hofstra and Muhlenberg were two of my safety schools!</p>

28

<p>Hofstra was my D’s safety. It’s been awhile now(!) but I believe she received a priority application offer (made it quick and easy to apply) and received a very nice scholarship.</p>

29

<p>Just discovered this thread as it mentions Tulane (hi, Monkey13!), which might be on my S’s list of safety schools. I wanted to point out that Marbleheader’s comment applies to the BFA in Theatre through the Dept. of Theatre & Dance, but the BFA in Musical Theatre is through the Dept. of Music. Same pre-BFA audition requirement, though: </p>

<p>“The Department of Music offers both a BA and a BFA track for music majors. All students seeking music degrees will begin under the BA music track. Students may then apply to the BFA track “by audition.” No audition is required for admission into the BA program. Ordinarily, BFA auditions will take place during the third semester of matriculation at Tulane. […] The BFA in Music is a rigorous program of study with separate concentrations in Performance, Composition, Jazz, and Musical Theatre. All students share a core curriculum in musicology, performance, and composition, with additional required courses in the appropriate areas of concentration.”</p>

30

<p>^^ Thanks for making the clarification! LOL - my S is an acting kid, so I was looking at that info on Tulane’s website.</p>

<p>BTW - we have a large number of kids from our high school go to Tulane every year. They all love the area and the school in general. No theatre majors, but kids are still auditioning and getting into productions there!</p>

31

<p>I am taking my S to visit Tulane in a few weeks, and hope to get lots of info on the BFA Musical Theatre program, so I’ll be sure to post it here. If there is anything in particular you would like to know about the program, let me know and I’ll be sure to try to ask the questions when I am there!</p>

32

<p>S and I visited Tulane last week. We visited my D, who is a senior at Tulane and who has loved every minute of her experience there, but she is a Business major, with not much interest in MT, theatre or dance. S went to an information session, took a general tour, met with Professor Michael Howard (head of the MT department) and had a Dance Composition class with Barbara Hayley (head of the Dance department). S is interested in the school because they offer a BFA in MT, and it is an auditioned program, but it seems to have fewer people auditioning than a lot of the bigger programs. At the same time, it offers strong academics and the opportunity to double major, though it is a bit of an academic reach for S. A couple of notes: if you are interested in Tulane, apply Early Action (it isn’t binding). It is free to apply, and the application is not terribly onerous (the essay is just a personal statement), and they tend to almost fill their class just from EA. Plus they give a lot of merit aid, and for most scholarships you don’t have to fill out anything additional - you just apply by early November and then in December they tell you how much money they’ll give you. Those scholarships can be as much as $30K per year.</p>

<p>Impressions are below. Note that this school might not be for everyone - I am not trying to convince anyone to go there; I just wanted to put down what we learned and experienced because there doesn’t seem to be a lot of info on the program out there. Use it however you want to. </p>

<p>General: The school itself is absolutely beautiful, and while the September weather was hot and very humid, everyone assures us that October and November are just gorgeous, and the winter is pretty nice compared to much of the rest of the country. Students are welcoming and friendly, and while D and her friends all work pretty hard, they are also generally pretty relaxed and make time to play as well. The campus is within the New Orleans city limits, but it is Uptown, about 4 miles from downtown NOLA, and is in the Garden District, an absolutely beautiful part of town. Audubon Park is right across the street from campus, which is a great place to run, bike, or just relax and do homework.</p>

<p>MT: The MT BFA is part of the School of Music, not the school of Theatre and Dance, so there are a number of Core Music requirements that MT students have to take. S loves studying music, so really likes the curriculum, but others might not want such a music focus. The BFA is only 60 required credits, so there are not a lot of required acting and dance classes, but many classes are offered, and students can take as many as they want to, so S feels he could get sufficient training in all areas should he decide to attend. </p>

<p>S met with MT program head Professor Howard, and he was wonderful. He did a mini voice lesson with S, and it was clear that S could learn a great deal from him in a very positive environment. Prof. Howard said that there were 4 other excellent voice teachers. Students audition for the voice teachers freshman year and then are placed with a teacher, and that relationship will continue all four years unless the student or teacher decide that it isn’t a good fit for one reason or another, and then a change can be made.</p>

<p>The department only puts on one full-scale musical per year, but there are also workshops and cabarets. MT students can audition for the 3-4 plays that are put on by the Department of Theatre and Dance each year as long as there is no conflict with any of the cabarets, workshops, or other performances planned for the MT department.</p>

<p>Dance: S took part in a Dance Composition class (there were no technique classes happening in the hours he was there) and he really enjoyed it. He hasn’t done much with choreography, so he found it very interesting, and the students in the class were extremely welcoming and happy to include him. It is possible to double major and get a BFA in MT and a BA in Dance (there is a BFA offered in Dance, but it would be almost impossible to combine it with the MT BFA because too many hours are required when coupled with the general education requirements that Tulane has). There are 5 levels of Ballet and Modern, 4 levels of Jazz, and 3 levels of Tap.</p>

<p>Unfortunately we did not have time to talk to anyone in the Theatre department. It would have been very helpful, but you can only fit so much into a day! We did feel we saw enough that S wants to apply, and then if he is admitted we would think about going back down and talking to the theatre dept.</p>

<p>Sorry for the length of this post - hopefully if you aren’t at all interested in Tulane you stopped reading a long time ago!!</p>

33

<p>Oh shoot forgot to mention one thing - although the Tulane MT program just puts on 1 musical per year, they do put on the Summer Lyric Theatre, a professional equity theater that puts up 3 full scale musicals (with full orchestra) each summer. Tulane MT students can audition, and they also bring in Equity actors for age appropriate roles. One Tulane student had a lead this past summer, and all get EMC points for whatever shows they are in.</p>

34

<p>If you need a safety school your confidence level is already too low</p>

35

<p>Wow… what a “first post”… of course, you can go night stock at Walmart for a year and apply again if you don’t get into any of the schools you apply to, right? Don’t be stupid.</p>

36

<p>Werdevo, you do realize what the odds are here, don’t you? Schools that audition over 1000 students for a class of 16 and no wait list?</p>

37

<p>On the contrary. If you don’t think you need a safety school, then your confidence is already too high.</p>

<p>Werdevo, So many variables involved in this process, no matter what a kid’s talent and experience level is, they need to have a safety school. With a 5-10% chance of acceptance to most of the programs talked about here, it is just foolish not to have a safety or two. And extra foolish for a parent to advise against one.</p>

38

<p>I think the hardest thing for kids to really get used to is that there are so many talented kids out there. Maybe they have achieved the #1 spot in their limited pool of talent, but then multiply all those top kids by thousands. And let’s assume that the admissions process does work perfectly, so that only the “most talented” are accepted into musical theatre programs. Well here’s the real tough pill to swallow…it’s already been established that everyone in your program is the “most talented”…so now who gets the lead? So everyone hyper analyzes every possible casting option and works their hardest to make sure that they end up on top…and then they graduate and are thrown into the real world of musical theatre. So all the “most talented” and the most confident are thrown together in the real world of auditions and casting. If an actor hasn’t learned the lesson by this time that it’s not all about talent (or confidence) they will certainly learn it when it is thrust upon them as they try to survive as a working actor.</p>

39

<p>I find it interesting to read how strongly people feel about the need to have a safety school. My D had made a personal decision last year to NOT have a safety, but she applied to 12 MT programs (and 3 VP programs) to expand her options. She had thought it through and decided that if she could not get into one of her programs of choice, she would prefer to take a gap year for additional training, and reapply the following year. I honestly don’t feel that she was being overly confident. She made the right decision for HER. I think it really is a personal decision, so I did not force her to choose a safety. After months of carefully researching programs, she reasoned that if she wasn’t good enough to get into at least one of the 12 programs of interest that she had narrowed it down to, she should either train more or choose a different career path, as it really is very competitive out there! But I certainly wouldn’t say it was a “stupid” decision that she made. It was the right decision for her.</p>

40

<p>ATLAST - your D actually did have a “safety” in that regard, which was her thoughtful and careful decision to take a gap year and train for the following year’s audition season, or follow another path. Both very good options.</p>

<p>I think what others are saying about not having a safety is for those kids who are applying to only top programs, with no plan on what to do if they don’t get into any of those. These are kids who plan on starting college in the fall. So they should have a safety that they like, and are pretty sure they can get into.</p>

<p>Additionally, I feel people were reacting to Werdevo’s tactless first post, and may have been more blunt than was warranted.</p>