<p>My daughter is a senior in high school who will be applying to B.F.A. Acting programs at NYU, Emerson, Ithaca, Elon, Michigan, USC, DePaul, Bostun U and Carnegie Mellon. She is currently attending a summer pre-college program at one of these schools. She is concerned that the pre-college courses are “beneath her” (students are being taught how to stand when you deliver a monologue and spending a lot of time on breathing). She wants to “scratch” this school off her list based on the pre-college program (although she is having a lot of fun). She really wants to make sure she is at a school where she will be learning right from the beginning. I suspect that the freshman year in any B.F.A. Acting program is going to focus on these basics. Unfortunately (or fortunately) for her she has had a lot of acting training. Can anyone provide information on the types of courses that freshman seeking a B.F.A. in Acting (not MT) would be taking at NYU, Emerson, Ithaca, Elon, Michigan, USC, DePaul, Boston U and Carnegie Mellon? She also has an interest in Northwestern and Muhlenberg. I am trying to gauge whether they are all at the same level so she doesn’t have false expectations of what she will be getting out of an acting program. Thanks!</p>
<p>Remember that the “pre-college” classes usually cover the things that the school expects people to know BEFORE the first day of class. And this seems to be what your daughter already knows.</p>
<p>You really need to contact the individual schools and find out whether they require EVERY student to start on day one with learning stage right from stage left, or if they are willing to let a student who has already had some training skip the first semester (or more). Some schools (DePaul I’m pretty sure is one, at least it was in the 90’s) take the attitude of “We don’t care how much training you’ve had, if you didn’t train HERE you weren’t trained the ‘right’ way, so you have to start all over again!!!”</p>
<p>KEVP</p>
<p>Hi HHKMom–hope this doesn’t sound really “Captain Obvious” of me, but I would start with the school websites–not all of them have detailed information, but many do post the specific curriculums for their degree programs. Re: the pre-college programs, all seem to be somewhat different; BU’s is basically the first quarter of the freshman year, from what we’ve been told, so it would in fact reflect the beginning classes. Also, I think KEVP is correct in terms of schools expecting students to start from scratch, as it were, and go through even what they may see as basic skills in their degree program. Certainly it’s something for your daughter to keep in mind as she auditions this year, and perhaps a good issue to bring up at interviews? If she is at her program for more than a couple of weeks this summer, I’d encourage her to seek out somebody from the school–a student who’s assisting, or a member of the faculty, someone with whom she feels comfortable–and voice her concerns. I’ll be curious to see if she feels differently about it all at the end of her program. Will you keep us posted?</p>
<p>I’d say that the core instruction of freshman year at most BFA programs consists of many hours of studio work in voice and movement. </p>
<p>Students find that kind of work useful even if they have had previous training. </p>
<p>It’s kind of like with dance…classes are as much for guided practice at a high level as they are for learning.</p>
<p>Based on my D’s experience at Tisch (Playwrights Horizons) I would say that the beginning fundamentals focus more on training the voice, body and uncovering and understanding your creative instincts, rather than the specifics of actual performance, if that makes any sense. </p>
<p>I will say that the first day of studio they said, “forget everything you’ve already learned.”</p>
<p>I think BFA programs – in any discipline, not just acting – want to start students off with the techniques of that program and have all their students move forward from the same technical foundation.</p>
<p>Most students in any of these programs will have done alot of theater prior to entering, but I daresay any program will include the gamut of students who have acted professionally and those who have done some high school productions.</p>
<p>Here’s a link to the description of first-year courses at Playwrights / Tisch which I think demonstrates what i was trying to say:</p>
<p><a href=“phtschool.org”>phtschool.org;
<p>^^Thanks so much for posting this–very helpful information, hard to ferret out for the uninitiated, and illuminating for high-school seniors who are trying to figure out what to expect.</p>
<p>B.F.A. programs admit students from a broad spectrum of backgrounds: from child actors, with a wealth of professional experience, to novices who managed to demonstrate exceptional natural talent at their auditions. The vast majority of students, however, will have a fair amount of experience in school productions, summer programs, community theatricals, etc. The first year of conservatory training might include elements that will be redundant for some students, but the schools are building internal repertory companies, and so collaboration is a critical element. You should certainly visit any schools you can. Some will allow you to actually sit in on a class. Most of our visits occurred outside the regular school year, however. I think you should try to get a sense of the talent level; I haven’t seen any B.F.A. programs where I wasn’t pretty impressed overall. Most are highly selective in terms of talent; some are also academically selective. It is unusual for students to put themselves through the battery of auditions unless they are dedicated. Think of it this way: can you imagine any freshman enrolled in a pre-medical program not already knowing a certain amount of the material covered in his or her biology or chemistry class? The intensity and commitment involved in B.F.A. training are completely different from any summer program.</p>
<p>I’m guessing she’s not attending CMU or your child and mine are having very different experiences. Mine has been training since nine and spent last summer at Stella Adler and she’s certainly not finding anything beneath her. Still, even at CMU, her experience have been very professor specific. For the most part, these summer programs tend to have a lot of faculty that are not regular faculty so teaching can be uneven. She adores a couple that are regular faculty but there are one or two that she thinks are not as competent as what she had at Stella Adler last number. So I would caution your daughter at making any broad conclusions based on the summer. </p>
<p>Also, whether its sports, acting or any other field – fundamentals are important to go over no matter how “advanced” you are. I’ve coached basketball at the middle school level and I still go over the fundamentals of a layup even though everyone was taught the skill many times before.</p>
<p>HHKMom, does your D have any safety schools? There are so many talented kids auditioning at all the schools, it sometimes seems like a roll of the dice–many kids with LOTS of experience and talent don’t get in–it just depends on how the audition goes on that particular day with that particular auditor with that particular monologue and what other students have auditioned that are just like your D. She needs at least one school that has a higher yield rate than those she already has on her list.</p>
<p>This is a great question that I could appreciate some help with too! Muhlenberg is also on my daughter’s list and I regard it as a safety school for a student with very high grades (above 3.9) and SAT scores (above 2100), since it does not have an audition requirement. We also know of 1 student who was denied admittance to Ithaca as a B.F.A. but offered admittance as a B.A. in theater, so that might make Ithaca a safety school for a very good student. Can anyone suggest other safeties that have excellent B.A. programs in acting (again, not MT) but that do not have an audition requirement? I was wondering about Washington College? My daughter would prefer a B.F.A. program but if she is going to do a B.A. program she prefers to do it at a school without a B.F.A. program (like Northwestern, Vassar or Muhlenberg).</p>
<p>Your D has to keep in mind that one of the things that good programs are looking for is a student’s ability and willingness to learn. They are entering into a 4 year program to be taught by the faculty. As others have stated, some of their education is re-learning techniques that they may have picked up, but that might not align with a school’s philosophy or teaching practice. The last thing a school wants is a student who feels they’ve already learned something and are done for life. Performers study and practice all of their lives and never feel “done”. And that goes for basic techniques involving breathing, alignment, etc.</p>
<p>On a college audition, a student might enter into a song or dialogue and “nail” it. And the auditions might agree. But they may still ask them to change the way they perform it and will want to see how they react. A school might take someone with a willingness to learn and good talent over someone who has more experience, more proven talent, but who is difficult to direct.</p>
<p>If your D wants to stick with acting over her lifetime, she has to see that she is at the beginning of that journey. She needs to have a willingness to see what she can gain from every class she attends, not compare her skills to others.</p>
<p>Good luck!</p>
<p>I don’t know whether your daughter will require a considerable amount of financial aid. If it’s not a major concern, she should look at Sarah Lawrence College or Goucher. They both have strong performing arts departments, and she ought to get in with her statistics. Neither are very good about financial aid, though, and they are quite expensive. If she wants an urban environment, she should consider applying to the Honors College at Pace, along with auditioning for their B.F.A. They offer very generous financial aid, and her GPA and test scores would qualify.</p>
<p>I’m new to CC, with a D entering senior year of H.S. with a list of 16 colleges she’s interested in. HHS, my daughter’s experience with pre-college programs depended on the faculty, and her pre-college experience didn’t reflect on the way they run their college programs. Very different audiences and different expectations for preparation and training. I have a question for the group. D is interested in several acting BFA/BA programs. Reach schools like CMU, Juilliard, Northwestern, USC, Fit schools like De Paul, Emerson, Boston U, Syracuse, SUNY purchase, Rutgers, Minneapolis. We’re looking to reduce her list a bit. We’re from California, so her safety schools will be UC’s. We might eliminate Minneapolis/Guthrie program or Rutgers simply because we don’t know much about those programs and don’t know anyone who’s attended. Anyone know about the programs at Rutgers and Minneapolis? How about financial aid for out of state students? Really appreciate CC parents and students!</p>
<p>Heartsongmom - even if your daughter is prodigiously talented, it’s difficult to categorize B.F.A. programs like DePaul, Mason Gross (Rutgers), SUNY Purchase, or Guthrie/UMinn as anything other than reaches. Their acceptance rates put Harvard and Yale to shame, even if they are not as academically selective as some of the other schools. Mason Gross, for instance, auditions nearly 1000 students for a class of 16-18 (they call back 50-60, at most). Even the most talented kids cannot count on acceptance, and the competition is especially fierce for girls. I’d say whittle the list by determining what she’s looking for, and then find a balance, with a few non-audition BA programs included. If she is serious about an auditioned BFA program, then consider a few schools with slightly less daunting acceptance rates: Cornish, UArts, Savannah College of Art & Design (SCAD), and Marymount Manhattan come to mind immediately. If her academic qualifications are stronger, then I’d recommend adding a few more non-audition programs, and focus on some of the schools that consider transcripts and test scores along with auditions (e.g. Fordham-Lincoln Center, Emerson, NYU, et al).</p>
<p>Extreme reaches and UC’s is pretty common for California. UCSD, Irvine, and UCLA have awesome theater dept’s and good academic reputations. I would like to add more variety but when you consider cost and quality I’m not convinced the less selective programs make sense.</p>
<p>FWIW, my daughter got into Mason Gross but decided to go to Fordham, in part because she wanted a BA. You might also want to look into Bard along with Sarah Lawrence… and I think someone mentioned Vassar.</p>
<p>Just so that you are aware, UArts has about a 6% acceptance rate. It is often viewed as “less selective” because the academic threshold for admission is lower than at some schools but the audition is weighted more heavily than academics. (Academics do play a significant role, however, in scholarship offerings and the highest scholarship recipients are those who are not only very talented but who also have academic stats that would make them competitive at academically very selective schools.)</p>
<p>This is an interesting thread. My D thought she had a lot of training when she started at UCLA. She had been to an intensive program at an arts high school. She did summer programs at recognized theatres. But, now, entering her senior year at UCLA, she realizes how little she really knew when she got to college. Your daughter should not judge a program based on what is taught at a pre-college program. What you learn in a college acting program is far beyond anything you get in high school. My D is at UCLA with kids from all over the country, including the “Fame” high school in NY, Idylwylld (sp? sorry) and all sorts of performing arts high schools. When they all enter they think they know everything. UCLA (like most programs) systematically erases that notion from their students and recrafts their actors. Judge the program on what students who are in the program say, who went their (i.e. the quality of the mafia), and the faculty.</p>
<p>MichaelNKat - Does your 6% figure apply to all programs at UArts, and for both genders? If so, that goes beyond merely reinforcing my perception that the school has raised its profile extraordinarily within a few years. The profile on CC (which includes all departments) listed a two-thirds acceptance rate. I knew that the performing arts departments were more selective, but thought they were in the 20-25% range (probably higher for boys, but lower for girls, and lower in Musical Theater and Dance). Incidentally, my son had a deplorable GPA, but a decent “super-score” on his SATs (with one Critical Reading in high-700s), and he received a generous scholarship offer from UArts. If they only accepted 6% of those who auditioned last year, he should feel even happier about attending than he already does.</p>
<p>The CC profile is for the school across all majors and departments. Keep in mind that its programs cover a broad spectrum of Theatre, Film, Visual Arts, Dance, Design and Music disciplines, including both performance based and non-perfomance based majors. </p>
<p>I should have been a little more precise in my post and it was a bit skewed based on MT. During the time my daughter was there, from September 2007 - May 2011, the acceptance rate for MT was in the 6-8% range, with Acting being a bit higher in the 8-10% range and the numbers coming down over those years for both programs. The school appears to attempt to construct a freshman Acting and Mt class with an equal number of each gender but the gender distribution will vary from year to year based on the vagaries of the application/audition cycles and I suspect the following year’s acceptance distribution is somewhat influenced by the prior year’s yield to try to keep a gender balance in the program to the extent possible. I don’t know how the acceptance rate breaks out between genders for either major but overall, it is artistically a very competitive and selective school. For my daughter’s MT freshman class there were about 600 auditioners and about 45 (7.5%) were accepted to yield a class of 24. We know many talented students who were rejected by the Acting and MT programs even though they were accepted at other very well regarded schools. </p>
<p>Your son should feel very pleased with his acceptance. It’s not only an excellent school but Philly is a great college town and I just read an article that the student density in Philadelphia is now higher than Boston! My daughter still lives in center city Philadelphia and wouldn’t be happier or more contented living anywhere else at this stage of her life.</p>