@MTDadandProud - We have a similar policy and my D has reached her limit for “excused” absences without a specific Dr. note. Her teachers have been terrific and she has always made up all her work, but if she has any more they are considered “unexcused” even with parent approval, and she will potentially lose credit for the classes. We have only one audition left that is semi-local and won’t require a missed day of school, thank goodness, but it seems like the schools are not really aware of what goes into this kind of application process and their policies don’t really account for what is needed. Just another thing to stress out over!
Since this is a venting site, might I add that sports kids miss TONS of school to travel to games and nobody bats an eye! But God forbid theatre kids need to miss a few days…
As long as you are representing your school, they don’t care how many days you miss regardless of whether it is a sport, academic, choir, theatre, etc… Once it becomes “extra-curricular”, or rather, “not-school-sponsored” they count them against you.
@patrice13 - the CMU debacle was on national news. The acceptances were for the university, not for the MT program. But there were lots of disappointed kids when they were told their acceptances were a mistake. I can’t even imagine! CMU MT and Acting will call those they accept.
If this makes you feel slightly better, my daughter went to a performing arts high school and she still had issues with the absences. It was the school system’s rule not the school’s. I contacted the principal directly who understood and excused her.
At our school all you have to do is write a “please excuse my S/D’s absence” note and tell them it’s for a “higher education meeting”. So many kids have interviews, etc.
At our school you have to write a “please excuse my S/D’s absence” note and tell them it’s for a “higher education meeting”
All great points. I like the sick on Fridays deal. But I just want to be honest with them. Good grief, my S has very good grades. Not like he is on the verge of failing. Its a struggle to make up all his back work but he is doing it. Three more missed days, two this week and one next week, and then its to the liquor cabinet for all the waiting!
We’ve had issues as well. Though our school’s seniors are technically allowed an unlimited amount of college visit days.
The attendance office needs proof that the student was at the school. I had one heck of a time explaining to the ex-football player twenty-something attendance officer that D was admitted to the university but had to audition for the program. We went round and round on that one. I would email him email confirmations or screenshots of audition times/dates from D’s portal on school websites - he would say ‘well, that proves you had an appointment - not that she actually went.’
Really dude? REALLY? Ugh.
Our PA school has a form titled “College Visits and Auditions”. You are supposed to get it signed by the school and kid brings it in. I got emails from a couple of schools and forwarded them to the attendance office. Kid never turned anything in. What the heck kind of scam does your school think you are trying to pull? If they were reeeeaaallllly going to refuse to give course credit, I’d go to the principal and if that didn’t work, then the District. It’s a waste of their time and yours and sounds like a completely empty threat. They don’t want your senior not to graduate! They just don’t want them smoking pot at the beach all semester. Somebody’s lost focus.
The best was my d’s teacher carping to her about how many days she was missing, and then telling her to “enjoy your time off in Chicago!” UGH.
I think I’d like to smoke pot at the beach all semester after all of these auditions!
I will meet you there! Just lemme grab my frisbee and a towel. We can sing songs that don’t fulfill any of the requirements and monologue about what our concerns were at 17.
Very stressful on top of all the usual stressors…
My happiness lies in the fact that these next two (and final!) audition weekends are in Florida 
LOL - Last year, D’s Psych teacher wanted to know why Unifieds wasn’t scheduled over the school district’s planned winter break. I guess because the colleges don’t consult individual district schedules when planning the audition schedule? We had great support from the school and all her teachers EXCEPT that Psych teacher - and it affected her grade! (Just dropped a half grade - but still!) We had a similar process as others have described - file a form signed by the teachers ahead of the absence, and then bring in signed proof that the visit occurred. We crossed all those t’s and dotted all those i’s and had no trouble getting all her absences classified as college visit days… and she missed the entire week of Chicago Unifieds - because we were able to schedule auditions on Thursday and Friday of that week in addition to the standard Unifieds dates.
Isn’t the whole point of the senior year of high school (actually, high school in general) to get them ready to move to the next level of education? It seems they are missing the forest for the trees by not facilitating kids efforts to get into a great college.
You have to remember how different the BFA process is from a “regular” college visit/application process. Despite the fact that it seems like there are endless kids “in the hunt” - they really represent a small % of the kids applying. I have taught HS (most years with a class of seniors) for 15 years- and I can only think of a couple of kids who needed to do anything like what D needed to do last year. They were both instrumental majors (one ended up at CCM, one at Eastman- so they were playing in the big leagues too). Ordinary schools are not thinking of- or frequently involved with- this sort of process, they don’t get it. How many of you had a counselor tell your kid they were applying to WAY too many schools? The HS is not trying to cause problems - and they ARE trying to prepare kids for college- which (from their perspective) is hard to do when kids aren’t at school.
My D’s school counselor won the jackpot by having the only 2 kids in the school going through this process! Poor thing!
Just got the threatening letter today! They threatened to report my son to TRUANCY COURT! Really??? smh
@mtraleighmom … I’ve got you beat! My D is the only one out of her class of 500+. The last couple of kids that went on to MT degrees were 3-5 years ago - and only auditioned for ONE school. (There are 4 kids that went on to pursue MT degrees in the last 5 years from D’s high school … they each auditioned for ONE school each. All were accepted. How’s that for rolling the dice? FYI - 2 were Millikin, 1 was IU and 1 was Syracuse.)