<p>Shaywood, if you are looking at Carnegie Mellon and Northwestern in the same light, you have been somewhat misinformed. </p>
<p>Northwestern theater students are admitted based on the very high academic standards of that university, and your grades, curriculum, and test scores will all matter a lot. </p>
<p>Carnegie Mellon’s theater program is part of their arts conservatory (the oldest degree-granting conservatory in the country, though most people think of CMU as a science and engineering school). Admission is primarily audition-based. If you read about CMU you will see statistical data that do not include the drama and music students. The CMU conservatory is extremely selective, maybe one of the two or three most difficult to get into, along with Juilliard. And it’s Juilliard you would want to compare it to, not Harvard or Yale or MIT. I know it is confusing.</p>
<p>Some of the top schools have an approach that is somewhere inbetween those two examples. NYU and Michigan, for example, are auditioned programs where they seem to look at grades and scores more than some other schools do.</p>
<p>One more factor – some colleges that admit based almost solely on auditions, will give academic scholarships based on the high school record and test scores. Good scholarships can make a seemingly expensive private university actually less expensive than in-state tuition at a public university.</p>
<p>It sounds as if you are taking advantage of a lot of opportunities. Your resume will be fine. That piece of paper is part of the requirement for your applications, but the paper is not what’s important. What you have learned through your various artistic experiences, that you have integrated into your personal performances, counts the most. </p>
<p>At conservatory-style programs, rules for double majors can vary a lot. Many people will say it is next to impossible to complete a double major in four years, so do your research. AP credits can help. </p>
<p>My son wanted to double major in Acting and Vocal Performance. He ended up as a Musical Theater major because at his school (Ithaca) the MT major is essentially that double major plus a minor in Dance. The Acting and MT majors are all mixed in together and take the same acting and theater classes for the first two years. At other schools they would be completely separate programs and MT might be less acting-oriented. Or might not. That’s something else you would need to know about each school. Some of the top acting programs do not have a MT major but do have a vocal faculty and stage musicals every year.</p>
<p>Break a leg as you enter on this terrifying and exciting college application process!</p>