doctorjohn

We've made some small but significant changes in our application process for this year, most notably a requirement that students be admitted to the College before they audition. Not before they request an audition date, just to clarify, but before we actually see them. Here's a draft version of what we plan to put on our website and send to prospects. I'd appreciate responses from you diligent readers, so that we can make editorial changes. Thanks!

doctorjohn


Otterbein College
Department of Theatre and Dance
August, 2007

Here is the process for applying for admission to Otterbein College’s BFA programs in

Acting
Musical Theatre
Musical Theatre with a Concentration in Dance

Step One: Apply for admission to Otterbein College

Fill out the application (http://www.otterbein.edu/admission/a...g/applying.asp) and submit your official high school and/or college transcripts and your official test scores, either ACT or SAT. If you wish to be considered for additional scholarships, write a 500 word essay. (There are prompts which you may use, or you may submit an essay you’ve already written.) We strongly encourage all applicants to do this!

You must submit an application form before we can schedule your audition. Deadline for submitting applications is February 1, 2008. But we strongly encourage you to apply sooner.

Students may apply for admission on-line now. The $25 fee for paper applications is waived if you apply on-line. Review of applications will begin in mid-October.

Step Two: Request an audition date

Once you’ve submitted your application, you may e-mail Harriet Hill, our audition coordinator (hhill@otterbein.edu) and request an audition date. Decide whether you wish to audition on-campus or at one of the unified sites. In your e-mail request, please include your full name, mailing address, telephone number, the BFA program you are interested in, and your preferred audition date.

There is no audition charge for on-campus auditions, but there is a new $25 fee for the Unified Auditions. This is to help cover our expenses in sending faculty to these sites to see auditions. Ms Hill will respond by e-mail with your audition date (and for Unified Auditions, the specific audition time). If you audition for us at the Unified Auditions in New York, Chicago, or Los Angeles, the $25 fee is due at the time of your audition. Make checks payable to Otterbein College and put “audition fee” in the note field.

BFA Acting auditions are held on the following dates:
Friday, November 30, 2007
Friday, February 1, 2008
Saturday, March 8, 2008

BFA Musical Theatre auditions are held on the following dates:
Friday, November 30, 2007
Saturday, January 19, 2008
Saturday, January 26, 2008
Saturday, March 1, 2008
Saturday, March 15, 2008

National Unified Audition Dates, 2008:
(all degree programs)
New York - February 2-3, 2008
Chicago - February 4-6, 2008
Los Angeles - February 9-10, 2008

For more information about the Unified auditions, go here: www.unifiedauditions.com.

You must request an audition date by February 1, 2008. Since you cannot request an audition date until you’ve applied, this means that you have to apply for admission no later than February 1. See Step One, above.

Harriet Hill will begin responding to requests for auditions after September 15, 2007.

Step Three: Complete your application for admission

Make sure that your test scores and transcripts have been submitted and that your file is complete. You may check with Debbie Byrne, our admissions liaison (dbyrne@otterbein.edu). She will be happy to tell you your status. Once your file is complete, you will be notified within two weeks whether you have been admitted to the College. Admission to the College does not constitute acceptance by any program in Theatre, Music or Dance, but it is a necessary pre-requisite.

You must be admitted to the College prior to your audition. This is a new rule for us this year, because we have encountered too many problems with incomplete applications in March, when we’re trying to make decisions about the class. Given that the College can process applications in two weeks, this requirement should not be difficult. But you must plan in advance.

The only exception to this rule will be walk-ins at the Unified Auditions. Walk-ins will have to apply for admission within one week after their audition.

Step Four: Audition

The audition requirements are described in detail on our website, at http://www.otterbein.edu/admission/t...atre_dance.asp.

You can also see a detailed description of the audition itself at Otterbein College.

See “Auditioning for Otterbein, Part One and Part Two.” The only difference is that the time limit on auditions is now three minutes, not four.

Step Five: Notification

In order to keep students better informed, the faculty will review the auditions and send you notification of your status. The status letter will indicate either that we are (1) keeping you under consideration for the class entering in the fall of 2008, or that (2) we are releasing you from consideration. No offers of acceptance to the BFA programs in Acting, Musical Theatre, and Musical Theatre/Dance will be made until all auditions have been seen.

Students auditioning in November, January and February will be notified of their status within three weeks of their audition. Students auditioning in March will not receive a separate status notification letter, but will be informed, along with the applicants held for consideration from earlier auditions, of their final status by April 1, 2008.

If you have been held for consideration, or you have auditioned in March, you will receive a final status letter. In it, you may be offered acceptance to the program you auditioned for, or offered acceptance to another program (BFA in Acting, BA in Theatre, BA in Music, BA in Music Education, Dance Minor), or put on a waiting list, or not offered acceptance. Those offered acceptance will have until May 1, 2008 to accept or reject the offer. Those on the waiting list will be notified as close to May 1 as possible about their status.

Questions?

If you have questions about this process, you may contact Harriet Hill, our auditions coordinator, or Debbie Byrne, our admissions liaison, or Debbie Lee, our departmental administrative assistant. They’ll be happy to help.

Harriet Hill: hhill@otterbein.edu

Debbie Byrne: dbyrne@otterbein.edu, 1-800-488-8144, or 614-823-1500.

Debbie Lee: 614-823-1657

Thanks for your interest in Otterbein College!

mezzomom

DoctorJohn, just curious...were auditioners previously offered BMus acceptance? I'm just wondering if that's not an option that's offered, or if it was left off the list of possible alternative acceptances.

NotMamaRose

Doctorjohn, chiming in here with a question, too: when will the essay prompts be available? Should students who do wish to submit an essay but are sunmitting their applications online simply send the essay by snail mail under separate cover, or email it to someone? Please advise. Sorry if this is a stupid question ... consider the source! I am a complete newbie.

mezzomom

NMR, here's the link to the scholarship app: http://www.otterbein.edu/admission/A...arship_app.asp

When my daughter applied, she completed this online. She did wait until she was accepted before submitting the app; there was no way she was going to write an extra essay if she wasn't accepted! But Otterbein was also one of the first schools to which she applied, and as DoctorJohn said, she had her acceptance notification within weeks of her application.

NotMamaRose

mezzomom, thanks so much! I noodled around the site quite a bit and did not see that. I also have another ? that perhaps you can answer. At one point on the application, it says "Do you plan to audition for a Music Participation talent award (for non Music Majors)?" What is this, and it is something that most MT kids would be contenders for? Oops, yet another ?: under the "programs of study" page on the application, it asks kids to indicate their intended majors in order of preference. Musical theater is listed twice: once as "Musical Theatre (BFA)" and once as "Theatre-Musical Theatre BFA." Is there any difference, or did they list it twice (once under "M" and once under "T") so that kids wouldn't miss it?

mezzomom

NMR, I'm going to defer to DoctorJohn on your new questions; I suspect I know the answers but don't want to risk leading you astray!

doctorjohn

Great questions! I knew you guys would be good editors. Here are the answers:

1. The Bachelor of Music in Vocal Performance is a possibility, but we ask that students come back and do a separate audition, because the audition requirements are different. I'll work on making that clear in our document.

2. The essay prompts are being reworked right now. Don't use the prompts from the old scholarship application form. I'm told that we're waiting on a consultant to get them to us, and it should be soon.

3. The Music Participation talent award is for students who are not majoring in Music (or Musical Theatre) but who want to participate in band, orchestra, or choir. MT majors are automatically given talent awards. No need for a separate application.

4. The MT major is indeed listed twice so that students won't miss it. It's also a shared degree, with Music and Theatre & Dance jointly administering it, so there's some logic in listing it under both departments.

Thanks again.

NotMamaRose

doctorjohn, thanks so much. I am sorry to bug you with yet another question, but here goes nothin'! : should candidates for MT just send their regular applications (transcripts, grades, etc.) first and THEN send in the scholarship application and essays if and when they are admitted to the college? Or does the essay and scholarship app have to be sent at the same time, or around the same time? I am guessing you will say that they just need to get their basic application materials in so that the admissions committee can say "yes" or "no" to admission first. But I try not to assume, as you know what they say about that!

doctorjohn

NMR:

I checked with Admissions. The College has revised its application process, and is now asking that an essay be submitted at the same time as the application, if the student is interested in being considered for scholarships. The exact wording will be: "The scholarship essay is optional; however to be fully considered for merit based scholarships it is required to complete an essay question of your choice." There will be two prompts; students can choose to write to one of them, or to submit an essay of their choice.

I'll post more details as soon as the new application form is finished.

Since Harriet Hill won't begin processing requests for audition dates until September 15, we have some time before students need to apply. I'll do my best to nudge the process along.

Hope this helps.

NotMamaRose

Dr J!

Thank you for the answer. FWIW, I think it does make sense for kids to just submit their essays at the same time as their applications. My D will attempt to wait patiently until the prompts are online.

However, in the meantime, she has a question and I have the honor of expressing it, as she is now back at school and not online in the daytime!

It's this: several pages into the OC application, it asks kids to fill in and describe various activities in art, drama, community service, etc. However, it seems that there is only a very small space in which to do this. My D tried to put in one activity under one category (community service) and then made a hard return, hoping the form would move down one space and allow her to then insert another. Unfortunately, this didn't work: the form just went back one whole page. We tried various things but could not figure out how she was supposed to list more than, say, one community service activity or more than one drama activity, etc. If you can help us figure this out, it would be appreciated. We know you want kids to apply online!

Best,

NMR

nydancemom

Last year D had the same issue, and called Otterbein while she was filling out the online application. She asked if she could apply online, then send her activity sheets (which she had done as a word documnet in a generic chart format) by mail. They said that would be great, so that is what she did. Maybe that would still be ok this year?

NotMamaRose

nydancemom (great to "see" you here, btw! Hope all is well!), thanks so much for the suggestion. Did your D just leave that section on the online app blank, then, knowing that the admissions office would later get her sheet?

cartera45

The prompts on the scholarship application online are current now, correct? There are 5 from which to choose. The application deadline page is not current. My daughter will likely apply for vocal performance as opposed to MT and is working on the Otterbein as we speak.

NotMamaRose

cartera45, I wouldn't count on those prompts being correct until we hear back from doctorjohn, or someone calls Otterbein.

cartera45

When the forms are update, I would suggest adding a date to them so it will be obvious whether they are up to date or not. Here is something else that is confusing to me. Take a look at the paragraph below, particularly the sentence about how composites are calculated. The language in parentheses suggests to me that you take the best verbal score from reading OR writing and add it to the math. However, that can't possible yield a 1650 since 800 is the top score. It must mean to add the best score from reading and writing?

Otterbein Scholar Awards - $8,000
These are awarded to first-time freshmen who are in the upper 10 percent of their high school class or who have a 3.5 or better grade point average on a 4.0 scale and an ACT composite score of 24 or higher, or a total of 1650 or higher on the SAT. Composites for scholarships based on the New SAT (March, 2005) will be calculated by adding the best verbal score (Critical Reading or Writing) to the Math score. Recipients must maintain a yearly college grade point average of 3.0 or better to retain the award.