Wagner College's program - Page 2

nydancemom · 03-02-2006, 10:28 PM

We also visited Wagner college last weekend. My D is only a junior, but we visited Elon, PSU, FSU, and ended our 12 crazy days at Wagner since we live in NY state. We went to see their production of Into the Woods on Saturday night and had been invited to attend the meeting for auditioners the next morning and to take the tour of the theater facilities and speak with current students, to give us an idea of what the program was like. I'm sorry to say that we thought Into the Woods was not anywhere near the quality we saw at the other three schools. Actually even our youngest daughter, who does some theater but isn't interested in it as a career (she is 15) after about two minutes said to me, "well this is the only school we've been to this trip where I feel like I haven't left high school". I personally have seen Into the Woods four previous times, one of which was Syracuse University's production, and there was absolutely no comparison in quality for our family anyway. We also were not impressed with the theater facility itself. We have good friends whose daughter is a current freshman, not in MT, and loves Wagner as a school and we liked the location right outside NYC, which is why we decided to visit. But after seeing the show, we didn't even get up the next morning to go to the meetings and crossed Wagner off our list. I'm sorry to sound so negative, but I thought I should at least let people know that we had a very different impression. And I think it was particularly noticeable since we had seen Urinetown at Elon, The Boyfriend at PSU and The Mystery of Edwin Drood at FSU all within the 10 days before we got to Wagner.

soozievt · 03-02-2006, 11:21 PM

NYDanceMom, I wish we could have seen productions at all the schools my child applied to. We only got to see ones at PSU and BOCO which landed on audition trips. You are fortunate to have done that at several schools because that is another aspect to observe. As I said, I've thought about Wagner as a back up school (though not a safety) for some BFA candidates. For those that want MT and may not get into the more regarded BFA programs, options like Wagner are ones to know about. As far as the part that is NOT theater, a girl I am working with who is not going for a theater program (but does theater) liked Wagner as a college and wanted to be near NYC and is a fallback school for some students. I've never been there myself. My D was not interested in looking into it but we know of it because of other kids who have ended up there.

nydancemom · 03-02-2006, 11:41 PM

Soozievt
Living in Syracuse, and being quite familiar with the quality of their productions, having seen several (not to mention both of my D's were in Carousel there as Snow children in 1998) we decided that if we were going to visit a college, we would only go when we could see a production (specifically a musical if at all possible) while we were there. It has required an incredible amount of time and energy to plan. I am not even half way through. We did the 4 schools this month, but April promises to be just as crazy. We already have tickets to Seussical at Michigan, and hope to also visit SUNY Buffalo, SUNY Fredonia, Point Park, Ithaca and Muhlenberg. And in May we are definitely visiting Otterbein to see 42nd St. The only other we wanted to visit is OCU, but it is just too expensive to fly there (most of the others we drove to including the 11 hours each way to Elon. We did fly to FSU, but combined it with 4 days of vacation so that was ok too), so we've decided we will just have to visit at audition time. I have arranged campus visits, tours, information sessions, meetings with department heads, sitting in on classes, etc. at all the schools. May sound crazy to some, but boy did we learn a lot this trip! And we have 4 definite auditions planned for next year because of the information we've gained already.

freelance · 03-03-2006, 06:17 AM

Seeing performances is a plus. When that isn't possible, try to get permission to observe rehearsals. Class observation is also very key. It is a way to see what lies "beneath" (the training). The more you see, the more educated you become.

chrism · 03-03-2006, 07:39 AM

Nydancemom details a very thorough and complete way to see all the colleges under consideration, but I don't want people coming up to think that that is the only way to do it.

If money is an issue, it's possible to do auditions at Unifieds (colleges at Unifieds plus the ones that audition in the same city but are not part of the unified group) and never make any actual college visits until acceptance(s) come. My view is that given the odds, any student would be fortunate to get 1 or 2 acceptances at the schools for which she/he auditioned/interviewed, and after that, there would be plenty of time to visit/evaluate whatever school(s) sent an acceptance. That assumes that a student is not getting 9 letters of acceptance.

[I understand that the children of some posters here were in that situation, but most students will not find themselves in that category.]

NotMamaRose · 03-03-2006, 08:19 AM

Breathing out here. Thanks, Chrism. What you say about visiting schools *after* acceptances (hopefully, more than one!) come makes sense. I do hope to soon begin taking my D to visit some college possibilities that are within reasonable driving distance (fortunately, we are in the Mid-Atlantic area, so that encompasses quite a few that are on the radar now!), but it's nice to know that there are other options. I think visiting when we can see a production (or rehearsal) is a fantastic idea. We will try to do that whenever possible.
Best to all.

thespian dad · 03-03-2006, 08:34 AM

On the other hand, it's nice to see the colleges, if you can. The approach we took was to go to the schools at the time of audition, and not make a tour the spring before. We learned a great deal about most of the schools. Thanks to credit card reward miles, only one school was very expensive to fly to. Of course thats also the school (FSU) where my D developed a wicked head cold on the AM of the audition.
It light of this, if you plan on the Unifieds, what do you do if your sick that day? I've learned a lot this year, but there are some questions that just don't have answers.

chrism · 03-03-2006, 08:42 AM

Sickness - last year people suggested cutting a CD or doing a videotape in the fall-early winter before the "sick" season so that at least you'd have something that shows what the student can do and can ask about submitting that if all else fails.

We never did this but meant to...it sounds like a good idea to me. It IS a bit of a gamble.

This stuff belongs in a general thread, not the Wagner thread!

anothermom-w-q · 03-03-2006, 09:25 AM

We missed the Into the Woods production. (oops, we saw Dirty Rotten Scoundrels instead, but it was sure fun!)
Thanks for the comments about it. A parent asked about the acoustics on the stage there during the info meeting, and a student answered by saying "if you can work on this stage- you can work anywhere", or something to that affect.I felt badly about missing their production, as obviously it would have given us a key piece of info, but broadway called.

CollegeMom · 03-13-2006, 03:28 PM

I'm bumping this thread up for Elvispretzel who has an interest in learning more about Wagner College. We prefer to have just one thread on a college when possible rather than start new threads.

CollegeMom · 03-13-2006, 03:34 PM

I also just merged two old threads on Wagner so that the second thread starts on post #13.

abparent · 03-13-2006, 04:10 PM

Elvispretzel,

We've actually visited all three schools, have met the department heads at all, know the most about Montclair. All were considered because we live in South Jersey. A quick rundown is that Montclair is technically the only program considered a BFA (theatre w/ a concentration in M/T) . Wagner is ,I believe, a bachelor of arts major in theatre w/ a concentration towards M/T) - they also offer education courses towards M/T. Wagner has a very early audition tape submission date of Dec ? when they expect to hear from you and then decide whether or not you'll be invited to audition on campus. Muhlenberg is a non audition required theatre/drama major. You can audition for a talent scholarship, though. As with all schools, the each have their pros and cons. I'd be happy to delve deeper for you w/ info - just pm or email me. I haven't looked at some of the literature for a while, so don't want to give inaccurate notes right here. Good luck in your search!

ElvisPretzle · 03-13-2006, 04:32 PM

Hi,

I'm very interested in the QUALITY of these programs (showcases, training, etc..) ESPECIALLY Montclair 9Muhlenberg too, but montclair mostly.) i knwo it is new and the theatre departmeent is beautiful...but since it is very new I'm not sure how the program is. if I had to pick between school like Syracuse and Ithaca..would Montclair be right up there with quality? I know they did Parade there this February but I didn't ahve teh chance to see it.

Please e - mail me with anything you know about it...thanks a bunch.

anothermom-w-q · 06-01-2006, 08:44 PM

Bumped for espn000524

famcruisefun · 06-26-2006, 03:45 PM

My daughter, a rising senior, is interested in Wagner. She is looking for a BA program that has musical theater. She's especially interested in Wagner's program which leads to New York State initial Certification in Theatre Arts Education (K–12) with a B.A. degree in Theatre and Speech Education. What we are wondering is what the audition situation is for someone interested in this focus rather than performance. Would she audition along with those looking for the performance track? Do they accept one group of students and some then follow the performance track, some just do a staight BA theater and speech, or when they are accepting do they accept a certain number for performance, and another group for the other track?
She is planning to email Wagner and ask these same questions - but I thought someone here might have first hand experience they could share. Doing the audtion is not a problem - she's just wondering how slim the chances are (she knows it's very slim if she's competing against all those looking for performance spots - she has an extremely talented friend who was denied 3 years ago.)
Thank you in advance for any help you can give!