<p>Five minutes was not the extent of the NYU Tisch trauma at our house. My son literally hung onto to the ED statement all the way to school before deciding not to sign it and have his counselor sign it. He had already signed up for an ED date for the auditions. The only problem was that NYU was not his true first choice school--CMU was. And has always been. But CMU does not have any early programs though he did get an early audition in November. Also, only CAP21 is truly MT, and you are basically stuck in whatever other studio they assign you unless you ask for only CAP21 and he wasn't sure he wanted to do that either. He wanted to have his cake and eat it too. </p>
<p>For Michigan, they let you know in two weeks to the the day if you are definitely in or out. My son's childhood friend whose mother was a wonderful friend to me in days of need in Pittsburgh who now lives in Westchester--had not seen her for years but met up in Michigan was rejected from Michigan on that time line. The vast majority of the applicants are rolled over and compared with each new group of kids auditioning and that is what happened with S. No notification was given other than the academic office at UMich asking for his Midterm report. Only a few got in at Michigan at this point, but considering that only about 25 kids auditioned, that is really a pretty good yield for that first group. S auditioned on the first available day at Emerson also, and there are a number who applied ED, not EA and they are in, he informed me. Since he could not apply early under any program in conjunction with the SCEA for Yale, he has no idea where he stands there. His friend who auditioned on Emerson, probably the same day you did was also deferred there for MT, but accepted to the school. That puzzled S as they told him that they did not want kids in a program where it was second choice for them, as he specifically asked that question--if you don't get in for MT, are you automatically considered for the Acting program. I believe he indicated that on his application. His friend was very disappointed as he believed that he had an excellent auditon at Emerson--he had applied early decision for Tisch and he and another young lady (now my son's girlfriend) are the only two denied for Tisch and they both indicated CAP21 or bust, something they now regret since EVERYONE (according to them, and I don't believe it for a moment) was accepted at Tisch who applied early if they did not. S was antsy about this as there are not that many freshman spots for CAP (15-20? ,maybe) and he already knows about 10 spots taken which did not leave much left for S's ED chances.</p>
<p>Although S loves MT, he is not as gung ho as some are. His experience has been more with classical drama lately with classical voice lessons. He had been concerned that this was an issue in his audition pieces as he has not been active in MT in the last year. He has just recently been cast in a major role for the school musical and had put together a cabaret type show this fall, and worked at a youth theatre and put on a resounding success of a fundraiser with a terrific "Wizard of Oz" production, but he directed, and only participated in the tail end cameo that pulled in some "Wicked" numbers which was done by the highschool and college kids running the show. He currently has the title role in "Hamlet" and has done work with some Shakespearean directors and it was through this connection that he made his Yale contact.<br>
MT was his entree into theatre as he was a musician first, and went into drama much later, and did only MT for a while, got a professional straight drama role, and then started down that path. So things change with him. He enjoys working on MT productions the most, however. He did get notification from OCU that he is accepted to their MT program but I think he will pass on that. He will withdraw his other apps except for CMU and will continue with his plans to audition at Juilliard, for both voice and acting though he is pretty sure at this point that the voice is a no go. He did learn quite a bit from this process, not the least of which is where is voice stands relative to others his age which even with all of his experience and all of the encouragement and assessments from voice teachers did not really hit the reality level of what his own ears heard. The kids that are getting their acceptances for MT that he knows pretty much have opera quality type voices, and he skirts the edge for that. For the Northeast, he says that there is a top level recognition for kids who go to All State--the next level beyond and I don't know exactly what that is, and those are the ones getting in. He said that his best voice performance by far was at OCU but he did not do well with his monologues there, but voice trumped acting. At Michigan, he aced his monologues, piano piece, fine in the dancing-only one kid stood out, he said there, but he had a very slight rasp in his voice that day. He had kind of blown off his Syracuse audition as a first try since he hated the school when he visited it--it was one of those visits to hell you read about, rainy, cold, they forgot about him, the kid showing him around was not a good guide to put it nicely, but when he went to audition, he loved the school and it went right up there with CMU, NYU and Michigan which were his top choices. He had entertained voice possibiltiess at Juilliard and a couple of other schools but he pretty much dropped those after the MT tour, except he wants to give Juilliard a try, just to do it. He did not like Emerson, Harrt, OCU, CCM, Santa Fe. He felt that the rest of the campus life outside of the programs were too limiting for him. We went to Trinity the same day he auditoned for Harrt and I believe the contrast was striking--he did not apply to Trinity; I was just taking a bunch of kids there who were since I was heading that way, and we visited Vassar the next day. </p>
<p>Right now, he is basking in the aura of his acceptance to Yale, and my hope and bet is that he goes there. He got a bunch of Yale stuff for Christmas that my nephew and future Son in Law brought down from New Haven, and he is getting a lot of attention for this. Tisch is now out of the picture, yes, from nearly ED to out, but CMU is still a consideration. Since he has done SCEA, he has the right to keep his irons in the fire but we have already told him that unless he thinks there is a good chance he will go there if accepted, he needs to free up the spaces at the schools because some of these programs do not do a one to one correspondence as kids do not accept an offer. It is a bit more holistic than that and taking up a spot can have some consequences. He will keep his apps in for Harvard and Princeton, but without an inside advocate, I doubt those will pan out, though his school gets alot of them into P. His best friend was accepted early there.</p>
<p>I know from your D's experiences that she has a powerful resume for MT, and with her spread of schools I feel strongly that she is most likely to get into a couple of them. But she may just want to consider adding a regular school to her list since she is an excellent student as well. I don't believe my son even considered that the environment of a school outside of the MT program would be a factor for him until he started looking with a more mature set of eyes. He loved Emerson when he visited Boston last Spring and did not compare the campus life to that of BC, BU and BoCo--he did not bother to visit Tufts or Harvard while there and he could have. He was eyeing MT only. He did not like BoCo for reasons that I felt were trivial, and due more to their visiting policies and nothing to do with their curriculum, but this year, he noticed that Emerson is shut down on weekends, unlike many of the other colleges he visited. There is a huge difference between schools like Penn State, CMU, Mich and the ones like Emerson, BoCo and schools with a less selective student body outside of the MT group, something that struck him at Harrt and OCU when this caught his attention. It may not hurt to have a reach (say, Brown), sort of match (say Wesleyan, Tufts, Smith), and safety (maybe Muhlenberg) in the pocket which I would say is an improvement over an academic admit at some of the schools with this half way process of accepting academically but not for the program. </p>
<p>Frankly, I believe most of these kids are resilient enough that they will flourish whereever they end up at school. S was accepted immediately to our state U which has an excellent music department and if he were not accepted to any program, he could take private voice, dance and major in theatre (without audition) there. He could then have reauditioned the following year which a young lady he knows here did. She was just not ready and was not accepted anywhere for MT during her highschool senior year auditions despite a truly beautiful voice, and a lot of acting experience and a lifetime of dance. She transferred into Tisch this past year after spending a year focusing on the disciplines necessary to get into such a program, and she had her pick of a few programs after that. So there are a number of options always available and those who can see the glass half full will not have any problems with the empty half of it. </p>
<p>I just think that right now there is time to pick from nearly any college in the US whereas to come to this point in April, kids will be limited to those school that still have openings. </p>
<p>But the point I was making to the OP is that kids do vacillate in their priorities and choices. Just because she feels that the EA is not tenable now, does not mean it will not be a joyful choice later. As you and I both noticed, S's pen was right on the sign on the line ED for NYU and now he is celebrating a non MT choice.</p>