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Northwestern - Theater and MT Certificate program comparing to traditional BFA options
DivaStageMom
232 replies1 threads Junior Member
This thread is to evaluate NU's BA Mt Certificate Program against the traditional BFA MT program.
Last night my d was lucky enough to find out she got into NU. while she has impressive academics I was not sure they were NU impressive and therefore we never really evaluated this program - I figured there may be others in the same boat.
10 replies Last night my d was lucky enough to find out she got into NU. while she has impressive academics I was not sure they were NU impressive and therefore we never really evaluated this program - I figured there may be others in the same boat.
Replies to: Northwestern - Theater and MT Certificate program comparing to traditional BFA options
Accepted
White, Female, NJ
ACT - 32 (SS), 29 not SS
4.3 GPA weighted
2 AP's senior year
all honors classes
President of NHS
great Rec's - one from Tony Award winner Lindsey Mendez
Lots of EC's - including school theater and community theater
Started photo business - headshots and special events
Directs small films
In addition to this, she submitted a digital interview and an essay - which I guess were impressive? I would have to imagine there was some other kind of hook - her grades are good but I was told they took the top 150 according to academics - I'm not sure she would have been in that 150 ranking - but maybe?
Anyway, she spoke to somebody in the program who said the MT certificate program is HIGHLY competitive of the 150 admits very few are admitted to the program at the end of freshman year - and then you are stuck at NU as a BA theater major - granted NU is a pretty great school to be "stuck" at - but still - we just went through this hyper-competitive process and we are leaning against going through this again!
They train students for careers solely in MT.
At NU, she would get the opportunity to branch out in to other fields as well, double major, etc.
So the question is whether she wants a complete liberal arts education at an Ivy-equivalent (and possibly do something other than MT as a career), or go all-in on MT.
I'm currently a theatre major at NU in the MT Cert. program. Want to clarify that there are only 100 admits in the major, not 150 as you said.
Voice, dance, and performance studies people can audition for MT as well. There's usually 2 or 3 of them who get in, but none did this year. You can also re-audition as a sophomore if you don't get in as a freshman.
People who don't get into the program are still very much a part of the MT community. The only thing non-MT people absolutely absolutely cannot do are the private voice lessons. Most of our other classes are also supposed to be certificate-exclusive, but in reality they're flexible. There's usually a few kids every year who work their ass off and beg to get into all of these classes, usually with success.
Non-MT people also do get cast in shows without bias!
Hope that helps.
Unfortunately, NU is a school we didn't visit and since it is non-audition its hard to get a vibe. In a normal year, we would do an accepted students' day - but this is far from a normal year!
Anyway, that's why I started this thread - and I appreciate your input - Thank you for sharing!!