Aspenwheezer

This is probably a crazy question. Has anyone done an "audition road trip"? I'm looking at the calendar and wondering if we could realistically do UMICH on a Friday, Otterbein on Saturday and Wright State on Sunday... from the east coast. Has anyone done this kind of audition trip by flying? Driving? Is it too much for one weekend? Wright State doesn't do unifieds and when we visited Otterbein it sounded as if they felt the on campus venue was preferred.

noccamtmom

That is a lot of driving over one weekend. I do not believe that Wright State offers auditions on Sundays. As I recall, they schedule their auditions only on Fridays

Aspenwheezer

There are actually two Sunday dates this year.

Sunday January 17
Saturday February 6
Sunday February 21
Saturday February 27

Application link: http://www.wright.edu/tdmp/documents/bfa_app.pdf

doctorjohn

Aspenwheezer:

It can be done without much hassle. The trip from Ann Arbor to Westerville is three hours; it's only an hour and a half from here to Dayton. Fly into Detroit, rent a car, drop it off in Dayton and fly home.

Plan to come to Otterbein on Friday night, so your son/daughter can be up bright and early for our 8:30 a.m. dance call on Saturday. After lunch, we do individual interviews, and we can arrange an early afternoon interview so that you can drive comfortably to Dayton and be there by mid-afternoon.

Incidentally, if it sounded as if we preferred on-campus auditions, we gave you a mistaken impression, and I apologize. We give equal weight to on and off campus auditions, and the statistics that we've kept over the years bear that out.

Hope to see you soon.

amtc

One "road trip" many MT auditioners did last year was Ithaca and Syracuse. They're about 1 hour from each other and were on the same weekend.

Aspenwheezer

Thanks doctorjohn. We didn't get a chance to meet you when my daughter visited earlier this year. They did say that both locations were fine, but that only half the staff went to unifieds and that the on campus audition was a "better experience". In any case, it's kind of crazy NOT to do on campus when Wright State doesn't do Unifieds and she has to make the trip anyway! Thanks for the advice!

soozievt

While I haven't done the same road trip that you just explained, we did do two audition weekend trips. One was a long road trip to Syracuse and Ithaca by car with two nights, two auditions but the two schools are an hour apart. Both are far from us though. The other weekend audition trip was to Penn State and CMU. We flew to PSU and spent 1 1/2 days there including the audition, show, observe class, tour, etc. and rented a car and drove three hours to CMU which had an entire visit with current student, show, audition, etc. and flew home from CMU. So, I do advocate for trying to combine two auditions, or if three are possible even, on one trip, given the time and expense. This could be done for Emerson and BOCO perhaps but my D did Emerson in Dec. and BOCO in March and also we only live 3 1/4 hours away. But I think one of my students who lives out of the country is combining NYU and Fordham on one trip. So, whenever you can, do so.

KatMT

In the past we have had students audition for us at JMU on Saturday and travel up to DC to audition on Sunday for Syracuse University at their DC auditions in January. This past year I believe it was the weekend of the 16th of January.

It looks like it could also be possible to audition for JMU and Shenandoah on the weekend of 1/15 & 1/16 (although Shenandoah says their audition is a 2 day process, so one would need to check with Shenandoah to understand what that means).

The other closest Musical Theatre Programs... American and Catholic Universities... do not appear to have common audition weekends with consecutive audition dates to ours at JMU.

I think YEARS ago before the earth was formed when I was auditioning for MT/ Theatre programs I combined my Ithaca audition in NYC one day with my Rutgers audition in NJ the next. I am not sure why I did not combine Syracuse on-campus with an Ithaca on-campus audition. Those two schools are pretty close together and if they have common audition weekends with consecutive days they would be easy to schedule back to back assuming the weather cooperated .

I think all this was easier back then before the earth finished cooling.... I applied to 6 schools for MT/ Theatre, auditioned at 5 (1 non-auditioned safety), was accepted at 4, could only attend 1... chose Syracuse. Now there are many more programs, but I think there are also many more applicants, and it is much more competitive. Although I think the fact that there are so many more terrific programs makes it more competitive.... more students apply to more schools, but all can only attend 1.

Wishing all the best to those of you about to embark on this exciting audition year! Break Legs!!

MusThCC

I agree that your proposed trip is absolutely feasible. My D did a Fri/Sat double. Other than Unifieds, I hadn't previously heard of anyone doing any Sunday oncampus auditions. Kudos to Wright State for adding something to make the audition trail a little more user-friendly for some people!

Aspenwheezer

KatMT - Thanks for the laugh about the earth forming and cooling. I think laughter is an amazing coping skill ... especially when you're about ready to pull your hair out! : ) (Daughter is struggling with college essays....)

KatMT

Aspenwheezer -- Glad I could provide a laugh... ESPECIALLY while your D is struggling with college essays. When I was writing mine I had a standing "date" with my mom to help edit. Hang in!

BrownEyes

I second Dr. John's suggestion that your proposed 3-in-1 audition weekend is very do-able, especially if you rent a car and drive from Michigan to Ohio. Flying between cities would be much too stressful. The road trip will afford you and your child the opportunity to spend some great quality time in the car, along with the opportunity to compare programs, campuses and audition experiences first-hand ... best of luck to both of you!