Oh, I feel your pain and anguish! Just when you think you’ve made it through the worst of the process by obtaining the acceptances, you are faced with the challenge of make a decision and, possibly, letting go of a dream school because of financial considerations. Wish I could wave a magic wand and make financial challenges disappear for everyone, but all I can do is send good thoughts your way and hope you’ll find a choice that, overall, will work well for your DD and your family.
Yikes about Fordham! That is beyond toxic. My daughter is considering them but there has been some shady stuff with the acceptance process as well. Not happy to hear that they were doing shady stuff in auditions.
Has anyone heard anything from UMinn? my daughter got a call back from them in early Jan and hasn’t heard a word since. She was already accepted to the university- just waiting on BFA decision.
No my daughter is waiting to hear as well, but she was invited to the welcome weekend that is happening this weekend. She wasn’t sure if that meant they have cut people or if everyone is still waiting to hear.
I don’t think my daughter received that- so it might be a good sign for your daughter!
It would be her first acceptance so fingers crossed, but still wishing luck to your D!! Crazy they haven’t sent results either way.
Some parents over on the BFA Acting Dreams page have reported their kids getting UMinn decisions a few weeks back. But don’t despair. They make their offers on a rolling basis, with more offers going out after declines come in. Last year, my D heard nothing for about three weeks, then got a WL email, then got an offer 3 more weeks after that. UMinn is very definitive about its class size, so they don’t want to make an abundance of offers upfront. Sending positive vibes to both your D and @JC424’s D!
Hello everyone! I am extremely overwhelmed with the decision portion of this process and am struggling to find ways to compare programs and see unbiased information about programs (i.e. not on a schools website). I’ve been accepted to Pace FTVC, Rutgers, Montclair, Point Park, Rider, Shenandoah, and Columbia College. I’m only waiting on NYU at this point and can’t afford it anyways. Any information would be greatly appreciated.
A couple of possible approaches: have a family member print out the curriculum for each school and mask the name of the school, then you can do an unbiased comparison to see which program appeals to you the most. Or, you can make a list of all the factors that are important for your choice and rank each category on a scale of 1-5 to create a total score for each school. Also see if each program has an Insta for the current students. You can possibly connect with students already in the program to get some insights.
One obvious distinguisher I see among your choices is environment. Do you want to be in an urban setting with a vertical “campus” – Pace, Point Park & Columbia. Or in a suburban campus setting with access to a city – Montclair, Rider and Rutgers; Or a small town, Shenandoah. Also Rutgers’ training is heavily focused on the Meisner technique.
I have tried to find out if the Calarts BFA in acting includes any singing opportunities. However I’ve failed. Chapman for example has Chapman on Broadway. But I don’t see any crossover with the music department or any recent musicals. Does anyone have first hand knowledge of any singing opportunities or voice lessons for acting students?
Hi all, My daughter’s decisions are all in (except from UMInn but it wasn’t in her top choices anyway). So she’s deciding between UArts and Syracuse. Any feedback on these programs? We’re going to go to the admitted student days for both. The schools themselves are so different and she did get way more aid from one than the other (I’m going to email to ask for more --I really don’t want cost to be the deciding factor— mom guilt).
I would like to know this as well. My daughter’s first choice is CalArts, but she’s an actor-singer so I would really like to see opportunities for singers as well.
Congrats! I’ve only heard that Syracuse is an excellent, very competitive program. In other words, it’s really hard to get in.
We had the same problem. My daughter got into 20 programs and she really liked 10 of them. I asked Chat GPT to create a score card and ranking for me. I gave it a ton of information about what my daughter was looking for and it actually created an amazing score card (where you choose maybe 3-5 categories such as location, classes, etc. and give each school a score from 1 to 5). It also ranked them for us and it was completely consistent with our own ranking. You can even feed it your essay or any other information that you have about yourself.
I would also recommend joining the Facebook groups for your top choices – they have groups for parents and students. You learn a lot from their questions and answers. It’s also a good idea to look at showcases for the current class to find out if these are the type of people that you would like to work with for the next 4 years.
You can also make a list of questions and email each program with your questions. For example, do you care about what non-acting classes you will be required to take? Then, find out exactly what those are. Do you care about personal attention from faculty? Then, find out class sizes and whether you will work with professors or grad students. Do you want to be in musicals or get voice training? Then find out if this is possible. Do you care about acting techniques? Then, find out what type of classes they teach – e.g. Meisner, Adler, etc. Also, make a spreadsheet with ratings in each category as well as tuition, scholarships, etc.
Thank you! Those are great suggestions. It’s looking more and more like cost is going to be the factor. Good luck to your daughter- I thought comparing 6 programs is tough but 20!! Congrats to her!
I’ve asked on all the forums which is leaving me to assume that there aren’t any. I love your idea of using AI to provide a comparison scorecard.
Hi! I’ve been having trouble deciding between my current schools due to a few different factors, but a school having diversity is something that’s really important to me (as a minority) but my situation makes it a bit difficult. I’ve been accepted to MSU’s BFA, Rider BFA Acting, Point Park BFA Acting, LMU BA, and UWashington BA and waitlisted from UCI’s BA. I’m heavily leaning towards MSU and UW, but each has their own strengths and weaknesses. I would love to get any and all insights - all information would be greatly appreciated!
Congrats on the acceptances. My D is a senior acting major at Cuse . Feel free to message me with any questions. 
Thank you- I messaged you!