| You are right, Angst....on the general admissions. If your child chooses to pursue a BFA degree in musical theater (do not know that she will go that route or not), you'll now know that it is a different ballgame than regular general admissions to these very same colleges. So a college that otherwise does not seem that hard to get into (for instance for your older D who was a very good student) might be very very very hard to get into for the BFA program. Here is an example for you.....Penn State. Good school. My niece goes there and she is definitely an above average student. You do not have to be a stellar student to get in nor have very high SATs, etc. It is not super hard to get into but not easy of course. So, for example, I recall your older D as being a top notch student. She'd get into Penn State no sweat from her stats as I recall them last year. But say she was a candidate for the BFA degree at Penn State. They auditioned 350 kids (if I recall the number accurately, I hope) and they admitted approx. 15 kids into the program. Them are tough odds. Not what you think of when you hear Penn State, right? That's what I mean.
I thought the admit rates at the elite (not BFA) colleges my older D applied to were very very tough odds but the BFA degree program odds my younger D applied to were even worse. It is an eye opening statistic and better to learn it now if you are remotely considering this. I recall several years back that an older friend of my D's (four years older) was applying to BFA programs and her mom was telling me of these 5% admit rates and I thought, for sure, that CANNOT be true. Her D ended up at NYU/Tisch/CAP21. Now, we have gone through this and have learned that indeed that is a typical or average admit rate to most of these programs. It is quite a shock to hear it for the first time though!
Susan |