Building a list of colleges for my son to research (rising sophomore - Theatre, History, Tap, Fencing)

College Search & Lists
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My daughter is a rising college sophomore and for her college search I built a large list of potential schools that had good programs in her areas of interest and we worked on narrowing that list down during her college search process. My son is now a rising high school sophomore and I want to do the same for him.

He is interested in majoring in Theatre (acting and/or Musical Theatre) but also wants a second major - possibly History or Economics, he’s not sure yet. He’s in Model UN right now and really enjoys History and Government.

He does not want a BFA program (because he wants to double major). So most of the big-name schools for Theatre are out, which is fine. He wants a solid program but it doesn’t have to be a big name program. I want to be sure to find a school for him that has a good Theatre program that isn’t likely to be downsized in the near future (a tough thing to find these days, unfortunately). Non-audition schools are OK. My daughter is at Muhlenberg and really enjoys their program. My son would enjoy something similar (and Muhlenberg is on his list too).

He currently participates in Fencing through our local YMCA and would like to continue in college. No schools near us have a Fencing program so I don’t think he’ll have the experience to be eligible for an NCAA program. Looking for some place that has good club-level Fencing.

He’s a dancer and will have 8-10 years of Ballet, Tap, Jazz, and Modern dance experience along with 4 years of Hip Hop. He doesn’t want to major in Dance but definitely wants to continue to dance in college. He’s looking for schools that have a robust Tap student group - we have a friend who is in Yale Taps and he’s looking for something like that. He might also want to continue with Ballet.

He plays Viola and would be interested in continuing to play in college, particularly if he can get talent grant money (my daughter has a $4K/year talent grant for French horn, just to play in their ensembles). He’s not going to be anyone’s star music student but he’s a decent ensemble player.

Right now he’s open to most regions of the country (we are in the Northeast).
He’s looking for a school that is between 1,500 and 25,000 students.

He only has one year of high school grades so far, but he’s likely to have stats that are similar to what my daughter had - 4.3 weighted GPA, National Merit Commended Scholar, likely a few AP classes, top 5%, etc…

Thanks for your suggestions!

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Cost constraints?

Weighted GPA has little meaning to those outside of your high school. What kind of unweighted GPA are you suggesting?

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St. Olaf is a CC hidden gem. It seems to have most of what your son is looking for and is most probably an academic match rather than reach.

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William and Mary might check a lot of the boxes. Excellent history program, opportunities for non majors in theatre, dance and music. They have club fencing, but I have no idea how good they are. I believe @lkbtnc has a student involved in the dance program and might be able to give you some insight there.

Given that your student has just finished 9th grade, it is way too soon to make any guesses about how competitive your child will be for any given school. Good for you for getting an early start on identifying colleges that may be of interest. I thought I was a planner, but you have me beat. :heart:

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To me it seems early to start making a college list.

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I’m not taking cost into consideration for the initial build of the list because it ends up being so variable based on our financial situation. I’ll do a full run through of the net price calculators once we’ve narrowed the list a bit based on other criteria.

For unweighted GPA, my son has a 4.128 from this year (our school gives A+ grades which are worth 4.33) I expect that will drop some over the next 3 years as he moves into more difficult classes, but will likely end up right around a 3.8-4.0 range.

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Perhaps. I think that depends on the student and family. My son asked me to start a list for him, so it seemed like the right time for us. He just went through the whole process with his sister so it might be on his mind more than it might be for other rising sophomores.

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You are right. And for this initial list I don’t filter based on how competitive the college is or is not. So really there isn’t any need to consider his academic standing - please give any suggestions that might fit his interests. We will filter the list later on based on his academic standing when we have info that is more relevant.

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I agree it’s too early - but you did ask.

Schools between 1,500 and 25,000 are sort of large range.

This is an old thread - but maybe you can look into some of these - would they fit? I don’t know the status of the non-audition today; etc. but just reading off this list so you have to research.

Alabama Birmingham (UAB) - also Alabama (but too big)
Bard
Connecticut
Depaul
Drew
Emerson
SUNY Fredonia
Hofstra
Muhlenberg
Northwestern
Pitt
Rhode Island
SUNY Purchase
Skidmore

Have fun.

Theater programs without auditions - College Majors / Theater/Drama Majors - College Confidential Forums

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Drew University in NJ could be a good fit – it has a well-regarded theater program, a UN Semester (where they send kids to intern at the United Nations) and a fencing team (I don’t know about tap).

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My son is the one at William and Mary. He is a high level tap dancer who is involved in the college’s dance company along with some student-led dance groups. Happy to answer any questions about WM if if becomes a school of interest. I’d also suggest Elon. It has a very competitive musical theater program and allows non majors to particpate in productions and classes. That was also high on my son’s list.

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I am an advanced tap dancer who danced in a pre-pro company. I was looking for a college with a tap company and considered St Olaf, Muhlenberg, Ithaca, Quinnipiac, & Western Washington. Ultimately I fell in love with Drew. While they don’t have a specific tap group yet, I hope to start one. I look forward to going into NYC to take class and I will continue to attend tap festivals when I am able to.

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Thanks. I realize our process is different from how many choose to approach the college search process, but it worked well for my daughter and my son has asked me to do the same for him. His criteria is very broad now - the point of making this list is so that he can begin to explore some of these options and work to refine his criteria over time.

I appreciate the list of potential non-audition Theatre programs. He’s not opposed to auditioning (my daughter was, and pretty much only looked at non-audition programs) but I think any Theatre student should have a good list of non-audition programs on their college list because it can be a very competitive process.

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Thank you. It is difficult to find a list of schools that have significant opportunities for performance in tap. We’ve also found it challenging to know how much performing a student group will do. My daughter is at Muhlenberg and while they do have a student tap group, they don’t seem to do the type of performing that my son would want to do (although there are other opportunities there for tap performances as well). The student group seems to do routines at campus events, etc… and he’s looking for a group that would do a full performance a few times a year. We’ve been to see our friend perform with Yale Taps and they do that type of big performance a few times a year that he’s looking for.

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Thank you! I’ve added all of these schools to his list.

Can you tell me more about your son’s experience with the college dance company and student groups at William and Mary? How often is he able to perform each year? Are there productions that are just focused on tap, or are they productions that showcase a number of dance styles, including tap?

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The dance company is a modern company. My son was a competitive dancer and is trained in many genres, so auditioning for the company wasn’t too hard. There is a tap only student run group, but he’s not involved with that one. He’s also in a student run hip hop group, Syndicate, and Pointe Blank dance which is a student run group for all genres. Each group has a fall and a spring performance. The company is a scheduled class for credit. The student run groups set their own practice schedules based on how many dances your student decides to participate in. He has done choreography for hip hop and tap in his groups, and he has also performed in contemporary and jazz choreographed by others. Sinfonicron, a theater group, also does a musical in the second semester which has dance opportunities.

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WM has a brand new arts complex that opened last fall. Beautiful MainStage and dance facilities. And a separate music building, also new.

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Bennington might be a good fit for someone with so many interests and talents- had modern dance and a theater program reputed to be one of the best. Skidmore?

I think it is too early because he is involved in so many directions and things can change. One of mine switched focus to music from theater as a junior and is still doing it 15 years later.

Depending on what he does in the next few years, he could apply to Ivies and “little Ivies” (you can google this list). I also like the website “Colleges that Change Lives.”

He can do an arts supplement with recording/video, resume and letters of recommendation related to the art, for non-audition programs, but right now it is unclear which type of “art” he would do that for.

If he does fencing in a quality program or in the summer that is also a plus for Ivies I believe.

It sounds like he is an active almost sophomore with plenty of time to develop on all fronts and clarify what he wants.

ps Dance Magazine has an excellent college guide edition

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It’s a reach for anyone, but Columbia has both excellent tap and fencing. Dormeshia Is amazing, and her students advance quickly. Note that dance is at Barnard, but all majors are open to all Columbia students.

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Thanks! Skidmore and Columbia are on the list. I looked at Bennington but their low endowment makes me concerned. Arts and Humanities programs tend to be the first cuts made by schools that are struggling financially and so I’m trying to avoid schools that I think might end up in that situation. I see that Bennington’s current campaign goal is to get their endowment up to $100 million - if they make that goal I’ll add them to the list.

I actually found this process really helpful with my daughter (and she started earlier). It allowed her to really begin to think about what her college experience would look like in a way that she couldn’t envision before we started. She did make some changes along the way - she initially did not think she would continue with dance and then decided that she wanted to - and it was easy for us to adjust her list to accommodate that. Again, I’m just trying to build a very broad list with some notes about programs that might be of interest. This isn’t a final application list by any means and I’m sure we’ll make many changes along the way. What’s most important to me is that he wants to do this now. So we’re doing it.

My daughter did several arts supplements and to be honest I don’t think they helped her applications. Both of my kids dance at more of a pre-pro studio - they don’t do competition dance. So neither of them really have solo experience in dance. We can’t afford to hire someone to choreography a solo and so my daughter tried to develop her own for these supplements and I’m not sure it really ended up showing her dance skills to the best of her abilities.

Her theatre supplements might have been a bit better at showing her skills, but again we can’t afford to hire anyone to coach my son with these and I felt like schools were expecting a more polished product than my daughter was able to do on her own.

Also, submitting arts supplements cost money at many schools. So I’m not sure I’ll go that route again.Over all we spent a lot of time (and a chunk of money) developing and submitting my daughter’s arts supplements in dance, music, and theatre and I don’t really feel that they helped her applications that much, if at all. On the other hand, she did end up doing some in-person dance and theatre auditions for talent grant money, and developing the arts supplements helped prepared her for these, so there was some value there. We’ll see.

For fencing - I would love for him to have access to a higher level program but there aren’t any around us. We only have the YMCA program, which is enough for him right now to know that he enjoys doing it. We could maybe look at a summer program, but right now he does theatre camp all summer (4 weeks as a counselor and 4 weeks as a camper) plus a week of Boy Scout camp if he can fit it in, and I’m not sure he would want to give any of that up.

I do appreciate the suggestions though!