@DramaJan, you have been through the process before so you have the upperhand over the first timers! Best wishes to you this season!
@SaddrButWiserGal Which school did she ultimately choose?
I will be happy to tell you where she ended up if you can message me privately. Not sure how to do it on this site, but there should be a way.
There is so much that I would like to say, but with limited time today I will try to hit the high points.
She really had her head turned by suggestions from her coach about the elite school BFAs, many of which were in the Northeast. (She hates cold weather.) I had a bad feeling about 1. Climate and 2. 4 more years instead of 2 . So here is point #1: You know your child better than anyone else, even your child. Sadly, point #2 is that it is really hard to tactfully redirect, even if you are heading for a train wreck.
She also was completely uninterested in choosing a non-audition safety school. She refused to budge from that position. So the remedy for that was to audition at a lot of places.
She agreed to visit some “back up schools” in the South. So I crammed a trip full of school visits into a 10-day period. She went from a negative attitude to finding something to like in almost all of them. Only one school was completely dismissed. We attended fall musicals or plays or rehearsals, and she had voice lessons with faculty or sat in on voice lessons. One school that really impressed her was Florida State: gorgeous campus, excellent facilities, fine quality, perfecly cast show, gracious program director who spent time with her and really opened her eyes to the reality of 4 MORE YEARS. It was so nice that the wise words that she needed to hear came from someone other than mom. Fortunately, some of our schools were BAs that would accept some of her credits, allowing her to graduate earlier.
Without exception, she liked the faculty at each school. There are gifted professors with excellent credentials everywhere. Our campus visits returned the human element to the discussion, away from the school reputation focus.
Attending productions was another eye opener. One school’s show had terrible sound issues throughout the show, despite having the most impressive facility of any school we visited. Her remark was, “My high school would have been able to fix that problem immediately.” That school got crossed off the list. She felt regret because she had really liked the program director.
Got to go for now. More to follow. Parenting is hard, even when they are 23…
I PM’d you!
I have a few more minutes…now where was I?
And then it was time to visit the last southern school on our fall tour of “back up schools.” (The one that mom thought would be the best fit of any school.)
We attended a musical and a play - both excellent. Her meeting with the program director went well. She really liked him, and he had some helpful suggestions for the audition songs that she sang for him. She was happy to hear about the school’s graduates performing all over the country, including Broadway, Disney, cruise ships. And the tight and helpful connections among alumni.
The large beautiful campus, famous school spirit, and charming school representatives sealed the deal. The transfer department was optimistic about many of her credits, as it was a BA degree with a concentration in musical theater. Indeed, Mom was right. It was the perfect school for her.
(Foreshadowing begins.)
So perfect that she was no longer interested in any other school…
Cue that minor key music again
My mom fell at Christmas and had to have brain surgery and extended rehab. My husband offered to take over the travel arrangements for all auditions. Which was wonderful because i had my hands full. The two of them would take care of Everything. Every now and then, I would ask how things were going, and he would say soothingly that our daughter had everything under control.When i came up for air some time in February, to my horror, I discovered that she had not bothered to apply to many of the schools that she had formerly been considering, because she was so in love with the Perfect School. She had not even bothered with the so useful and practical mass audition in Chicago whose name I can’t think of now - Unified, that’s it.
I am getting so annoyed revisiting this subject that i have to stop. To be continued when i have a better attitude…
@SaddrButWiserGal I pm’d you and OMG you left us hangin!!! I am so sorry for all you went through with your mom and the timing must have made the situation so much more difficult!
That horrible feeling when you are placed on a waitlist at your favorite school and the application deadlines of most of the other schools have passed. And you didnt apply.
2 Important Facts:
- If you are a student trying to transfer into a BA with a MT concentration: these schools will take 0 -2 transfers each year. That means you must audition at a lot of schools to increase your chances of getting an acceptance.
- If you are the parent of a student trying to transfer into a BA with an MT concentration: if your student can be described as occasionally "impractical" or "unrealistic" this is no time to step away and let them take care of Everything.
Before our back up school tour, she had about 7 schools on her list. The tour gave her 7 more to consider. Knowing that a BFA would take a full 4 years, I had suggested that she apply to 3 other BA programs that we had not visited. From this 17 school list, I think she should have auditioned at least 8 schools. And then she should have increased her odds by auditioning at Unified.
First of all SaddrButWiserGal- You are a wonderful storyteller. As I caught up on the thread I was excited to find out the next chapter in your saga. I’m so sorry for everything you have had to deal with for your Mom and hope she is doing better!
My D also was a transfer. Against our better judgement she was set on attending a BFA Conservatory program, even though we were concerned that she would miss the academics found at a regular university. You guessed it- after one semester she was very unhappy and decided to move back home to figure out a new path. She attended our local CC for the next 3 semesters and earned enough credits to transfer into a BA program as a junior. However, when she re-auditioned, she threw in a mix of BA and BFA MT programs and did them all at Unifieds. While there, she ended up doing a walk-in at a BFA program that she had really not looked at closely before. Long story but even though it was a BFA program at a large university, they accepted her as a sophomore and she was able to graduate in 3 years.
I am so glad your D has found a new program that fits her better. I love your comment about “if your student can be described as occasionally “impractical” or “unrealistic” this is no time to step away and let them take care of Everything”, and you are so right. Even though transfer students are a little older, they sometimes need someone to help them set priorities and to bounce ideas from. It sounds like you and your husband did a great job. Best of luck!
Thanks for your kind words @takeitallin . I’m so happy that your daughter found a program that she likes. I am convinced that all of these life experiences are learning opportunities to be appreciated. The grey hair that they cause maybe not so much…
My mom has made an excellent recovery. She had an issue with one of the plates -yes, she literally had a screw loose! That required another surgery and hospitalization to fix, but she is a good sport, and easy to care for. Thanks to all of you for asking.
@SaddrButWiserGal , even transferring to another BFA MT program and having to start all over, they seemed only take 0-2 transfers per year.
I have often wondered- does anyone know what % of the audition pool is transfer? And since many bfa programs still want/expect someone to do all 4 years - do schools really “limit” the number of transfers to >2 or does it just work out that in a program of > 20 a couple are transfers? Ex- D knows someone who started at Boston, and then “transferred” (though he will end up doing 4 years there) to CMU. If I am recalling correctly- CMU auditions well over 2000- it would be interesting to know how many tried somewhere else. Just from her graduating class D knows several people who have or are thinking of changing. It seems more common to me than I would have thought in earlier stages of bfa knowledge…and the people I have known who have wanted to leave their schools have all ended up with acceptances- maybe b/c they know more of what they are looking for?
Curiouser and curiouser. . .
@toowonderful, it was an answer The D couldn’t seem to get no matter how she phrased the question. Are transfers considered differently in the process than high school seniors? There wasn’t a direct response. She encountered a number of people who were transferring and many others who just talked about it. In her case, her list was different than the first time and she knew what to expect in the audition process. That could be why transfers end up with acceptances. I remember reading an article of the large percentage of first year students that transfer, in general, so it makes sense that it would include BFA programs.
In my D’s, case she did feel that transfers are considered differently than others, although if the school is going to require them to do the whole 4-years, I’m not sure why. We could not get an answer to that question either. Several of the “top- rated” MT programs told her they do not consider transfers at all. She had great results from her transfer auditions but only the BFA she ended up attending let her start as a sophomore. They did have to modify her schedule a bit that sophomore year to accommodate her transfer credits, so she was not in the exact same track as the other students in her very small class. During her time there she was the only transfer student accepted to the program. We don’t know statistics for other programs she was accepted to except for UCLA where she was the only transfer accepted that year and where she would have gone in as a Jr. in their BA program.
I’ll offer another dimension that maybe just specific to Tisch but I doubt it. One needs to examine the graduation requirements of a particular program to get an idea of how many years it will take to get through it. As an example, NYU Tisch requires a minimum of 48 credits from “professional training” which is code for their studio classes. As far as I know, they don’t transfer any studio type credits from other schools. (I’m not the expert but I think this is correct.) Studio classes combined at Tisch earn you 8 credits per semester. Doing the math, that means 6 semesters needed to complete the minimum requirements… in other words, 3 years in studio is the minimum.
Real life example: My daughter (rising senior) has a classmate that was in her freshman group who was a transfer from another school. Though he was with the freshman MTs, this was his 2nd year of college. He graduated from NYU this past spring. a full year ahead of my daughter even though he was in her grade for MT classes. His total time in college was 4 years. I actually don’t know the particulars of his story but I assume he was done with degree requirements for Tisch because he hit his 48 and he also had enough things that did transfer like maybe the theatre studies classes (28 credits needed), general education classes (32 credits needed) and electives (20) to have fulfilled graduation requirements. 3 years and out of NYU plus a year somewhere else even though he was always in studio with students that started college a year after he did.
Long way of saying that even though you might have to start as a freshman if you transfer, it doesn’t always mean you will have to elongate your time in college. It depends on the specifics of a program’s graduation requirements.
@halflokum My daughter also has a friend who transferred into Tisch. She did her freshman year at Cornell. She only had to attend NYU for three years. But she entered studio (her sophomore year in college) at Tisch with the freshmen. So, she did her 3 years of studio with the grade below her grade but still graduated on time with four years of college total.
The above posts just got me to thinking, would it be possible for a kid with lots of AP credit to graduate a year early, or maybe even a semester early, from Tusch? That would save a lot of money!
My kid didn’t apply there (applied and was accepted to Steinhardt, but chose to attend elsewhere), but since my kid had about 60 hours of credit from a local college before graduating from high school, all of the gen eds were completed. Would that have meant my kid could have graduated in 3 years from Tisch? That would be very nice to know for advising future students.
@Dusing2 I believe that is possible, yes. My daughter had several friends at Tisch who graduated one semester early. They had enough credits to do so. I don’t know of friends who graduated an entire year early, but I imagine it could be possible. When I went to college (not a BFA), I also graduated one semester early. The kids I know who did that at Tisch had AP credits and perhaps attended a summer session in college, etc.
Thanks, that’s good to know. Most programs you have to stay with your class. I assumed since Tisch assigned you to Studios, everyone would be taking a prescribed curriculum of performance classes as a group and therefore would be unable to graduate early. I think that’s how it is at most places like CMU, Michigan, CCM, etc., and that is why they make transfers stay the entire 4 years. Everything is sequenced or taught together, making it impossible to do the theatre curriculum in less than 4 years even if you have already completed the gen eds.
Tisch would be a great option for someone with lots of credit looking to finish a bit early. And doing so, would save some money making the cost more in line with some other schools.