Class of 2019 (the journey begins) - Sharing,Venting, Etc

College Majors Musical Theater Majors
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<p>I’d not be so quick to rule out the importance of the library. It’s often where students need to go to print anything. Or it’s the only place open late if you get briefly exiled from your room when your roommate is “entertaining.” Or, the library has cool sleeping pods like at CMU. Or, you actually have research papers to write and like it or not, you need to go and actually check out some books. </p>

<p>The tours often feel a bit vanilla and truth be told, you can love or hate a school based on the skill of the tour guide you end up being randomly assigned to. It is an imperfect system but it is time honored one. The same though applies to meeting a theatre kid at a school when you visit. Could be one you really connect with and can relate to. Or you get one that reminds of you of your worst nightmare in any theatre experience you have ever had. Likely you can find both extremes in any one of these theatre programs no matter what the size. In either case, your opinion of the school is heavily influenced by the experience. I wonder if these student ambassadors have the slightest idea of the power they wield</p>

1542

<p>I’m a proponent of campus visits either for the audition day itself or at some point in junior year or fall of senior year, prior to knowing admissions’ outcomes. If done in junior year or early fall of senior year, it can help with the selection of schools and one’s selection criteria. If that is not possible, then the audition day is another opportunity to visit campus and meet people and so on. If you wait until all results are in after April 1 of senior year, there is very little time to do these visits in order to made an informed decision as to where to enroll. </p>

<p>An effective college visit will include many elements, if possible. A tour of the university itself is a starting point, as is an information session. While selecting a theater program is important, the college itself still plays a part in one’s experience. If there is an information session for the theater program, attend that as well. Before a visit, line up any class observations you can, if allowed. See if you can meet with any professors. Ask if any current students would be willing to meet with you (by calling the department) and in some cases you may know current students or friends of friends…use these contacts while on campus. If your student can do an overnight on campus, that can be helpful. See a show, if possible. And so on.</p>

<p>With my first daughter, who was not a theater applicant, we visited all of her colleges (plus at least one she did not end up applying to) during her junior year of high school. We revisited two favorites again in fall of senior year. Once all acceptances were in hand, she narrowed these down (and had seen ALL of them already at least once), we revisited three she was considering and attended their accepted student event days. When my D made her decision, it was very well informed and with at least two visits to the school. </p>

<p>With my second daughter, the BFA in MT applicant, I had planned on doing the same thing. My kids are two years apart. Lo and behold, halfway into D2’s sophomore year, she begged us to let her graduate high school a year early (after junior year) and this was not in our plan and so my plan to visit colleges with her in 11th grade was now going to be her application year unexpectedly. So, I wanted to see if we could do the visits in 10th grade but that April school vacation, she was going on a school trip to Italy and Greece and I was still helping D1 finalize her college process with revisits to her favorite acceptances. So, for D2, we only got to visit one school in spring of 10th grade, which happened to be the school she had wanted to attend since she was 12 years old (by I digress!): NYU/Tisch. In fall of 11th grade, which was her college application year, we visited 3 more for a total of 4 campus visits before auditions ever commenced. I didn’t want her to do ED because I didn’t feel as if we had visited enough schools yet. She applied to 8 schools in total, four of which we saw prior to auditions. Then, we did all 8 auditions on campus, which meant revisits to 4 schools and brand new visits to 4 schools. We were able to travel to 5 out of 8 schools by car and 3 by plane. I realize this is harder for MT applicants on the West Coast. But I thought it was important. This way she had all options fully explored before having to make any decisions and not when she’d have a small window of time in April of the admissions year. It turned out that this D got into her first choice (Tisch) and knew she wanted to attend and we went to the admitted student events at NYU/Tisch that April (which was her 3rd official visit to NYU). Actually, I almost forgot…good thing we did not wait to visit schools in spring of the admissions year because immediately following the final audition, my D was severely injured in a car accident and confined to a hospital bed for a few weeks and a long recovery and so she even attended the Tisch accepted students event in a wheelchair, her first day permitted out of a hospital bed. </p>

<p>I don’t really agree with the notion that visits prior to acceptances is a negative option due to fear of falling in love with a school. It is important to like all the schools on one’s list, enough to be willing to attend. Yes, it is natural to have some favorites. One should not enter this process with a dream school in mind because it is a good set up for disappointment. I think the positives of campus visits that allow one to fully explore specifics of each program and college and meet faculty and students outweighs that they might fall in love. Nothing wrong with falling in love as long as one realizes that they need many loves and to keep an open mind throughout the process due to the odds. And frankly, some students fall in love with a school even without a campus visit and so you can’t totally avoid that. Hey, my kid walked by NYU at age 12 and pointed to the school and said, “someday, I am going to go here,” and in the end, she did, but if she hadn’t, she’d have been happy some place else, I’m sure.</p>

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<p>@pghmusician‌ - I am sure you can arrange to meet a theatre kid or two. There is a facebook group your kid can join, there is a list of student contacts per school. Its called The Ensemble. They are always offering to meet etc. I’m not sure if you are referring to before/after or on audition day but at every on campus audition we did last year we had more than a few theatre students to talk to and/or tour with. My S just “worked” the dance call at Otterbein’s fist audition day, he loved doing it and talking to the families. </p>

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<p>At Ithaca, Syracuse, CMU, CCM, BW, Boston, muhlenberg and Emerson we were able to set up tours of the theater dept, meet with theater admissions etc rather than the “traditional” tour (though we did that at a number of schools as well- as halflokum points out - the college will a part of a kid’s experience as well.</p>

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<p>If budget is tight (and ours is), I have been advised that nowadays it is best to wait and save travel and school visits for the schools to which we have received acceptances. Hopefully that’s 2-4 schools! and tha’st about all our family budget can afford. Traveling is difficult, expensive and stressful these days, but I wouldn’t dream of attending a school we had not visited (although I hear that happens)
So we are saving up for those visits. And plan to see a show, eat in the commissary, see/stay in a dorm, sit in on classes, hang out with students and meet with the financial aid office. We look forward to a lengthy and thorough visit, but I nly at schools who have made us an offer. That makes the most sense for our family.</p>

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<p>I can totally appreciate that cost is a factor! Surely it is for many, many people, myself included (my kids got need based aid at their schools). And where one lives in relation to which part of the country the schools are located also plays a part (as I wrote, we were able to drive to 5 of my D’s 8 schools, though these involved overnights). In terms of cost, one way to view it is that the cost of a campus visit is a very small percentage of the cost of four years of college. </p>

<p>As I wrote, one of the many issues with waiting until acceptances are in hand to visit, is that there is a very short period of time to schedule these trips in April. And what if you are fortunate to have more than 2 to 4 acceptances? My D applied to 8 schools and got into the BFA at 5 and a Priority Waitlist at one (not counting academic acceptances). The way the Priority Waitlist works at CMU is that if you get off that wait list, you have 48 hours to commit to enroll. So, if we had not seen any of D’s schools, that would have left 6 schools to visit in April, which would have been very difficult (we lived in rural Vermont). It would have been even more complicated for us as my D was laid up the first part of April that year. </p>

<p>I respect that there are many ways to go about all this and am just contributing to the pros and cons of various options.</p>

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<p>I think the campus visit is critical. My D was on the fence about a school and visited only to make her mentor who was an alumni happy. We all fell in love with it and it became her number 1. Similarly she visited schools in California and realized she didn’t want to be in California even though the schools looked great on paper. Since everyone on this thread has already applied I think waiting to see where you are accepted makes sense and for those of us who can’t drive everywhere is likely a necessity. We have been able to meet with the theater department at every school. All you have to do is set it up in advance. The regular tour is also important as the school is more than just the theater department.</p>

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<p>This is another measure of how times have changed. Neither my spouse nor I had seen the colleges we attended before freshman orientation, lo those many years ago… There was no internet so school catalogs were all we had to rely on. The number of schools kids generally apply to these days exceeds the number we did back then by a factor of four or five so visiting all can be very costly in terms of time as well as money.</p>

<p>To strike a midpoint between applying fully informed and buying what my mother always called “a pig in a poke”, we tried to hit general categories and regions. A Boston trip investigated smaller schools in an urban setting. A midwest trip scoped out a tiny rural school, a slightly bigger and slightly less rural school, and two giant universities with embedded conservatories. A weekend below the Mason Dixon line checked off the southern box. Drivable schools were a good way to fill out the big/small, rural/urban, BA/BFA, picture. </p>

<p>Though the kid is in the mix for many schools he hasn’t seen, in nearly every case he’s seen something very similar. When all the admissions outcomes are known, I doubt he’d choose a place he’d never seen but I also think he’ll have a general enough sense of the options that re-visits can be limited within time and budget.</p>

<p>All that said, the internet changes everything and virtual tours, Facebook groups, YouTube videos, Skype sessions, and tumblrs can all combine to give a pretty clear picture of most schools. I could see him choosing a school that he hadn’t visited and still having a pretty good sense of what he was picking. </p>

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<p>The Facebook group thing didn’t exist when my kids applied. Facebook got going when they were in college. That is a good way to connect with current students!</p>

<p>One neat thing on a college visit is spending an overnight in the dorms and in the case of a theater applicant, hanging out with the theater students on such an overnight visit. My kid was able to do that at several schools. </p>

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<p>Schools that have accepted you are also more willing to let you sit in on classes, see one of their shows, etc. We did one more driving trip in April after acceptances and visited three campuses and it did a lot to make me more comfortable with my S’s choice (and him more sure about it). We also visited two campuses beforehand that didn’t accept him, so that was kind of a waste of money. </p>

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<p>I’d be surprised if there was any school where the theatre dept. itself did not offer a tour/visit/info-sharing. This should always be arranged ahead of time. I also think it’s important to become familiar with the school itself because theatre kids are not isolated to the extent that they do not experience the rest of their school. And I agree about becoming familiar with the library!</p>

<p>Visiting only after acceptance may present a problem with timing as Soozie mentioned. If you think there may be 3 or 4 acceptances that would then require visits, why not take the time to visit 3 or 4 on your list prior to that? If you can’t afford to visit all on your list, or if you didn’t start early enough to do so, making visits to even a few would be better than visiting none. And I can’t imagine attending a school that you’ve never visited. Other than your home, a college education is likely the second biggest investment you’ll make and a visit should be an important part of your research, in my opinion.</p>

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<p>We don’t anticipate that scheduling will be that difficult because many schools on our list are are rolling admissions and we will know before Spring from about 1/2 of the schools. Quite a few have already sent acceptances this week and last week and more are rolling in as we speak. Others will make offers ongoing until March. If we are lucky enough to get any more in March or April, we will still have time to make travel arrangements. Good problems to have!</p>

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<p>One nice thing about campus auditions is that you can kill two birds with one stone…the auditions and the campus visit. We didn’t live near any of the Unified sites anyway and I wanted to make sure my D was able to visit all her schools since we had only seen half of them prior to auditions commencing, due to the unexpected turn of events to apply to college in her junior year ahead of what I had thought we’d be doing. </p>

<p>By the way, even if you visit a school you are not admitted to, it is still useful because these visits help a student figure out what they really do want in a school and vice versa.</p>

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<p>For my S, no campus visit solidified a school as as a dream school but he did drop a number of schools from his list after campus visits. In one situation, he had already applied but could not see himself attending. </p>

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<p>^^^We had something similar happen but it was after we had already hauled ourselves to the on campus audition at a school that was very hard for us to get to. Wish we had known in advance but you can’t see them all. (At least not easily from where we live.)</p>

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<p>As with every other part of this process, there is no one “right” way (otherwise we would all do it and save ourselves a mountain of stress!) And as someone wisely said above- for those of you in the hunt this year, the ship has pretty much sailed; most have probably applied and scheduled already. But, If you are the parent of a junior (or younger, and snaps to those researching already) it may be something to think about</p>

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<p>My daughter fell in love with the schools that fell in love with her…we visited after acceptances (not that many to have to schedule) LOL</p>

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<p>One thing to think about is your child’s energy level. Our D found going to classes, touring campuses and auditioning all on the same day was distracting and draining. She much preferred the schools where she could do classes, tours and shows one day and focus solely on her audition on audition day . Sometimes we did the tours the day before her audition if we were traveling far from home - so it was all done in one trip. Others we toured at a totally separate time. But the point is - really think about how your child will respond to that kind of schedule. Auditioning and touring on the same day was not ideal for us, but others may thrive on it. Pick what works best for your family.</p>

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<p>Passed Michigan pre-screen! Email came at 4:57p on a Sunday night… someone is working overtime! Yay! </p>

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<p>Yay! @MTmom2015, Still haven’t heard. Anxiously awaiting now…! </p>