<p>Exactly monkey!</p>
<p>LOL Monkey13!!! Hard to argue with most of what you said. Throughout my career as a performing musician, having done the audition circuit myself to secure a job plus having served on audition committees listening to thousands of preliminary, semi-final and final rounds over the years, I do understand the trials and tribulations of a life in the arts. I have thick skin, but it can be injured. It heals. Maybe I’m a bit overly protective of my D, but I’m human. She’s absolutely fine with the results, and this CC forum has helped me-blunt and all! There are ways of handling things, even in 2012, that can be done to avoid the YA announcement scenario, which I still believe is in bad form. It would be very easy to notify all of those who were not passed on from the Preliminary to the Intermediate round immediately so that the kids who aren’t being considered don’t have to wait and wonder. That’s what we do on the professional level, and it works very well. Once the committee’s vote has been taken, all contestants who were not passed on are excused. YA can narrow down their choices, and notify as they let people go until they are at the point of having a slightly larger group than what they need for the pool of Merit, HM and Finalists. Whittle it down and then sort it out. Once they choose the winners and the Finalists accept or decline, make the necessary adjustments by moving up the next person(s) on the list, they can announce 600 winners all at once. No one will have to write anything on CC wondering what’s going on, stressed out, unable to concentrate at school, etc. because they already know…they’ve dealt with it, moved on and are working on their next project. Social media can be buzzing, and everyone knows the score. (Pun intended.)</p>
<p>I was surprised to learn about on-the-spot acceptances at college auditions. Interesting.</p>
<p>I guess part of the reason that I’ve posted about this YA competition is that I wanted to encourage people to keep working and not give up on their dream so easily at this very early stage. I hadn’t really noticed anything too unusual…just disappointment and perhaps some need of common experiences shared with others.</p>
<p>Received my 2 rejection letters. It took a toll on me… I would randomly burst out in tears for about three days straight but I must say I’ve come out much stronger and a bit stone-hearted. I’m glad for this “rejection” experience and I will definitely try again next year… best luck to all!!!</p>
<p>ProMusician, thanks for being so kind about my rant. Sorry about that…it was a rough day. 
I agree, it seems as if there would be a kinder way to do a lot of this, but it is what it is! I didn’t mean to imply that it doesn’t sting…of course it does. There is so much in this process that can hurt. But ultimately, we have to hope that our kids will end up where they belong, at a place where they fit and are happy and can thrive and learn. </p>
<p>With regard to on-the-spot acceptances, yes, it happens all the time! There are several threads on this topic. My view is that these kids were going to get in those schools anyway, whether now or later, and it has no bearing on whether your child gets into that school.</p>
<p>You know, social media really does make all of this a whole lot harder. It’s not just Young Arts, it’s schools, regional, and even community theater. You have a good audition and are in the waiting phase when you start to see casting buzz and freak out. I’ve spoken to parents who were still waiting for news weeks after a kids audition. Well, the reality is, if you haven’t heard in that much time there’s a pretty good chance they went with someone else. Stumbling into that info on Facebook or Twitter is kinda awful, but it is what it is, I guess. Were all just going to have to toughen up.</p>
<p>the list of winners have gone up on the youngarts website! how exciting, i get to read the names and demographics of all the people who beat me!</p>
<p>This is certainly a contest where PA schools do well. Overall, almost one quarter (24%) of the award winners come from these 9 schools (counting all awards):</p>
<p>Interlochen Arts Academy
Los Angeles County High School for the Arts
Booker T Washington High School for the Visual and Performing Arts (Dallas)
Alexander W Dreyfoos Junior School (Palm Beach, Fl)
South Carolina Governor’s School for the Arts and Humanities
The High School For the Performing and Visual Arts (Houston)
New World School of the Arts (Miami)
Carver Center Arts & Tech (Towson, MD)
Orange County High School of the Arts (CA) </p>
<p>Within Theatre, 28% of the award winners come from these 7 schools:</p>
<p>Interlochen Arts Academy
Los Angeles County High School for the Arts
The High School For the Performing and Visual Arts (Houston)
New World School of the Arts (Miami)
Orange County High School of the Arts (CA)
Booker T Washington High School for the Visual and Performing Arts (Dallas)
Coral Reef Senior High School (Miami)</p>
<p>Where did you find those percentages? I’m just curious. I noticed that for the Interlochen winners, some names were listed under Michigan, and others were listed under the home states of the Interlochen students (at least for my D and another theater friend from her school). So it’s hard to tell how many from each school if they are at a boarding school and some kids used their home address while others used their school address. Did your percentages include the ones listed under their home state? Side note: D was the only winner in our state (don’t know how many actually entered), and I think the only one that was listed with two HM awards, so I vote that we get an extra award for that, like maybe some air miles would be nice…that way we could still fly to Florida for YoungArts Week and watch the finalist performances! Doesn’t hurt to dream!</p>
<p>@ATLAS - I just dumped the list into an Excel spreadsheet, built a pivot table, and then ran the percentages based on the school (each winner has their school listed). It took like two minutes - YoungArts used slash marks to delineate the entries so text-to-columns worked very nicely. It didn’t matter what state they were from, the pivot table took care of that in the built-in sort by school (I actually ignored what state they were from because that attribute was not included in the line items for each student).</p>
<p>I ran two pivots - one by school (to get the overall breakdown by school) and then one by discipline/school (to the Theatre breakdown by school).</p>
<p>Excel has some very powerful features that make data analysis very simple.</p>
<p>For example, here are the actual numbers for Theatre:</p>
<p>Interlochen Arts Academy 9
Los Angeles County High School for the Arts 6
High School Perform & Vis Arts (HSPVA) 4
New World School of the Arts 4
Orange County High School of the Arts 4
B T Washington High School Arts 3
Coral Reef Senior High School 3
Fiorello H. Laguardia High School 2
Home School 2
Minnetonka High School 2
Ramon C. Cortines School of Visual and Performing Arts 2
South Carolina Gov School for the Arts & Hum 2
Tri-Cities High School 2
Walnut Hill School 2
A N McCallum High School 1
Alabama School of Fine Arts 1
Alexander W Dreyfoos Junior School 1
American Heritage School Boca 1
American Heritage School Plantatn 1
Baltimore School for the Arts 1
Benjamin Franklin High School 1
Berkeley High School 1
Bishop Ireton High School 1
Branson School 1
Briarcliff High School 1
Broadneck Senior High School 1
Canfield High School 1
Carmel High School 1
Charlotte Catholic High School 1
Chicago High School for the Arts 1
Columbia High School 1
Coral Springs High School 1
Dr Phillips High School 1
Duke Ellington School of Arts 1
Episcopal High School 1
Farmington Senior High School 1
Farragut High School 1
Fontainebleau High School 1
Guilderland High School 1
Heritage Hall 1
Home Schooled 1
Inglemoor High School 1
John H Pitman High School 1
Kapaun Mount Carmel Cath High School 1
Lincoln Southeast High School 1
Lincoln-Way East High School 1
Lone Oak High School 1
Los Gatos High School 1
Memorial Senior High School 1
Merion Mercy Academy 1
Miramonte High School 1
Mooresville Senior High School 1
Mount Lebanon High School 1
New Trier Township High School 1
North High School 1
Oak Park & River Forest High School 1
Olathe East High School 1
Our Lady of Lourdes Academy 1
Packer Collegiate Institute 1
Palisades Charter High School 1
Pius X High School 1
Ponte Vedra High School 1
Portland High School 1
Professional Perf Arts School 1
Professional Performng Arts School 1
Punahou School 1
Red Bank Regional High School 1
Robert E Lee High School (North East School of Arts) 1
Saguaro High School 1
Salem High School 1
Sayreville War Memorial High School 1
South Lakes High School 1
Southington High School 1
Staples High School 1
Sycamore High School 1
The Austin School for the Performing and Visual Arts (ASPVA) 1
Toledo School for the Arts 1
Tower Hill School 1
Vancouver School Arts & Academics 1
Vestavia Hills High School 1
Walnut Hills High School 1
White Bear Lake Area High School 1</p>
<p>TOTAL = 115</p>
<p>Three anomalies stood out in the data:</p>
<p>B T Washington in Dallas took 12 of the 67 Dance Awards (18%)
The SC Governor’s School took 16 out of 127 Writing Awards (13%)
Alexander W Dreyfoos Junior School took 11 out of 98 Visual Arts Awards (11.2%)</p>
<p>These were the only areas where a single school took more than 10% of the awards.</p>
<p>I’m not surprised that so many arts magnets are represented (overrepresented?). My kid goes to a “regular” high school that has a several magnet programs (theatre, visual arts and cinematic arts) but even at his school, YoungArts was unknown to almost every teacher. Luckily, his private voice teacher was familiar with it, so he sent in a tape. I figure that most “regular” schools in America are as clueless as we were. I also wasn’t surprised to see so many winners from South Florida, where YoungArts gets so much more press.</p>
<p>@megpmom - Yup, at d’s PA HS high school they put a lot of energy into YoungArts. They really value their Presidential Scholars in the Arts. I think across the Arts Schools Network, YoungArts is a very big deal.</p>
<p>Hi again…Monkey13-a good rant is beneficial for the heart and soul! As I’m reading these posts, and enjoying what everyone has to say, I’d like to interject a little humor. My D recently was one of the top prize winners in a state-wide competition, and received the judge’s comments a few weeks later. In keeping with the spreadsheet idea, I decided to make one of my own, based on the judges comments…which we ended up tossing into the air because of the extreme differences of opinion. Read on, and have a laugh!</p>
<p>Posture:</p>
<p>Judge A: What a lovely talent-good body alignment!
Judge B: Beautiful tone! I’d like to see a taller body engagement-if you sound this great like this, I can’t wait to hear you when the body is fully connected!</p>
<p>Poise comments:</p>
<p>Judge A: Very expressive face and good visual focus. Good dramatic contrast between pieces.
Judge C: Lovely focused tone, can you be more expressive?
Judge D: You really put your heart and soul into this piece…you are very engaged. Let your face show the joy. (You have lovely choice in attire!)</p>
<p>Diction:</p>
<p>Judge A: Work on faster passages for clearer diction. Bring vowels a bit more forward.
Judge B: Diction sounds great!!! Nice French…lovely placement of vowels.
Judge C: Beautifully sung and diction! Look for more clarity of consonants.
Judge D: Good German-do even more more with diction! </p>
<p>Choice of rep:</p>
<p>Judge B: Amazing that a person of your age is able to bring such depth of maturity to this piece…very rare. I expect to hear great things about you in the future years ahead-Brava!!!
Judge C: Can’t agree with rep choice for #2…let the voice be young and fresh now…</p>
<p>And there you have it.</p>
<p>LOL, talk about subjective!!! That is classic. It should be framed! But congrats to your D for getting such positive comments all around!!!</p>
<p>Can someone please link to the list?</p>
<p>EDIT: Never mind, here for anyone interested:</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.youngarts.org/sites/default/files/2013_YoungArts_Winners.pdf[/url]”>http://www.youngarts.org/sites/default/files/2013_YoungArts_Winners.pdf</a></p>
<p>Does anyone know when the schools are notified about the winners?</p>
<p>Both our D and S received letters from YoungArts to pass along to Admissions folks at the colleges they were applying to. As I recall, YoungArts had no direct contact with their schools since they often don’t even know where you’ve applied, though of course schools can check the YA website to verify winners.</p>
<p>I don’t think YA communicated directly to our kids’ high school either, though I’m less sure about that.</p>
<p>My S received a form letter by email for him to submit to any colleges that he wanted. It arrived on Jan 4 this year. Check your email.</p>
<p>If you were referring to their High school being notified - I have no idea. We had to tell our high school in order to get excused absences for Miami week - but I don’t know if they ever received anything from YoungArts.</p>
<p>I was referring to this statement on the website:
Is my school recognized as well?
All high schools of winners at all levels will receive a congratulatory letter and award, engraved with winners’ names, for display in the school.</p>