fishbowlfreshman

I suppose you could call the schools and get numbers who auditioned versus numbers accepted if those aren't in your books. If you really want to pursue things this way, one other thing to ask about is "yield" or how many of those accepted outright actually matriculate versus how many tend to come off whatever waitlist system they might have. To murk it up even more, some schools "overaccept" and have a waitlist plus consider MT applicants for acting so you would have to somehow figure all that into the equation. Even with all that, I'll hypothesize that you'll find yourself looking at only a few percentage points between the schools you've mentioned and there are just soooooo many subjective variables that I'm not so sure the numbers will be all that reliable of an indicator. But ... I am shooting from the hip and could indeed be wrong. Maybe some of the faculty people who read have some ideas?

I'm thinking that another thing your son should be looking into with these schools is what is actually taught versus his preferences. For instance, I notice that you listed Rutgers and Syracuse as reaches. As I recall, Rutgers emphasizes Meisner Technique and I believe Syracuse emphasizes Strasberg. (correct me if I'm wrong) Those approaches to acting are very different and different students are going to react to and grow with them well ... very differently. Then, considering that he only has one year of experience, he might not have any such preference at this point. In that case, my view is that he might do better looking at schools that don't prescribe any one technique but instead expose students to a variety of influences so they can in a sense develop their own techniques and use what works best for them. Nothing against Rutgers, Syracuse, Meisner, or Strasberg because they've obviously all produced some very good actors. Just something else to think about ... as if you didn't already have enough on your plate.