@marg928 I agree I don’t think it’s 3000. My daughter auditioned on campus last year and I would say there were no more than 100.
@aquarose26 BW is Baldwin Wallace. CMU is Carnegie Mellon University.
For most programs what happens in the audition room is more Important than the resume.
And your daughter will hear from each individual school she auditioned for at unifieds. Timing of notifications depend on the school.
Hope that helps.
CMU is Carnegie Mellon University; Baldwin Wallace is BW. CMU does not have a prescreen – they see anyone who wants to be seen. In the past i have heard numbers of around 1500 - 1800. Last year they were in Chicago 4 days, and LA 3 days (an extra for both). They don’t do walkins and it is hard to get a spot after Dec/Jan. Results will start trickling in now but March is when most pour in. As for your resume question @aquarose26 in my opinion while it can be a conversation starter in the room, and it certainly can help with preparedness/experience/confidence, resume is one of the least important factors in an audition. They want to know how you look, sing, act, dance (in no order)-- that in my opinion is their focus. Good luck!~
@marg928 and @Ducky312 - I’ve thinking about the number of auditions that colleges say they do and how that works out in number kids seen on any given audition day, too. For our part, we’ve seen at most 40 kids auditioning for MT at a single audition day, many were less than that. So I just don’t understand how there can be 700 to 1100 kids being seen by one college over the course of 6 to 12 audition days.
It doesn’t really matter to me how many kids they audition. I just looked at the math the other day and have been wondering how it all pans out.
When my daughter auditioned for CMU, she had a pm slot, there were 50 kids… they also had an am slot, they actually may have had 3 slots a day but I am assuming just 2: so you figure 100 a day Over 4 days, just in Chicago alone that would be 400; plus LA (3 days, 300) that would be 700, NYC 9000-1000 plus all the on campus audition dates.
Wright State has an optional prescreen. I know it was utilized last year - not sure about this year. My D is a senior (still not used to saying that!), so I may not be up to date. She worked most auditions, but the students don’t get any “inside information” so she doesn’t know if people sent prescreens this year or not. It’s listed on their website on the Auditions information page. Personally I think that’s a great option - some people love video, others don’t. And while I was looking, saw this: “The BFA Musical Theatre Program accepts approximately 3% of those who audition.”
We were at Wright State last Saturday with 110 auditioners!
@Ducky312 we were on campus at CMU. The students running audition room said 2,800 this year. Then the professor came in and said 3,000. So whether he had updated numbers or was rounding up, it’s still a lot.
You’re right, I miss-typed. I meant it was less than 1 percent.
CMU said they don’t prescreen, because someone has to watch all of them. And if all you had to do was send a video, everybody would do it and they’d have to watch 5,000. Makes sense to me. If you’re willing to go to the expense of an on-site audition, they’ll see you. And since they get their pick of the crop, I’d say it works just fine for them. We bought our CMU lottery card, and it was a positive experience. We prescreened at Michigan, still traveled for a callback, and realistically are still in a lottery situation there. So It really makes no difference.
Don’t want to “rain on” anyone’s “Parade” but “3000 auditionees” - and their parents - sounds like a pretty nice cash cow for the hotels and restaurants of Shadyside, PA and its environs (along with the unifieds locations). Just sayin’.
I do applaud CMU - and others - for giving EVERYone a chance. My S was one of those who reached for that particular brass ring three years ago. No regrets.
realistically Michigan is indeed having to view a lot of videos but that’s just done onsite and they don’t have to allocate all the time and expense of having to see as many people physically . It seems more efficient to eliminate those they deem not up to snuff so to speak and then yes, invite those that pass to audition in person.
I just think for efficiency and respecting time and expense of auditioning students it would be better.
But yes , if seeing 3000 people in person works for them then so be it. I would imagine that many auditions would make one burnt out after awhile. Especially toward the end of the season.
We took advantage of the optional pre-screen with Wright State this year. I didn’t want to travel there if they weren’t interested in my D. She passed so she was part of the master class/audition last weekend.
All those auditioners paying audition fees to CMU, for example, is such an easy form of income for them…but I for one do wish they would switch to pre-screens.
I don’t think it’s necessarily the BFA kids where CMU is making big $$ on applications - there are WAY more computer science kids who pay their application fee and don’t get accepted. And I bet the university devotes WAY more man hours to reviewing those applications than it does to watching the auditions. I agree that it is kind of a pain for us b/c we had to travel rather than just submit - but that’s the nature of the beast. Frankly, it was WAY more hassle/stressful to film my D’s prescreen than it was to go to ANY of her auditions. (to be fair- she only had 1 prescreen school, so it wasn’t like she was killing a bunch of birds with one stone)
Schools can do what they want- and obviously CMUs system seems to work out fine (if we take the end result as the ultimate test) What intrigues me is that in 2014 they said they were auditioning 2000 people. If they are seeing 1000 more only 3 years later that is fascinating to me. Makes me wonder about numbers at other schools. They just seem to keep going up.
Just did a little looking on CMU’s website http://admission.enrollment.cmu.edu/pages/undergraduate-admission-statistics - they got 6900 applications in computer sciences (with a 6% admit rate) and 9800 in engineering (13% accept rate) Heck - I want the $$ from Harvard and/or Stanford’s application fees, THAT’s where the big bucks are!!
Also - I would like to apologize for my overuse of WAY in the last post (which can no longer be edited) - caffeine is kicking in…
I made the executive decision to use Miami’s optional prescreen and ended up regretting it. She didn’t pass…and I believe that she would have had a shot auditioning in person. She has something that really comes across well in person which can’t be felt on a video. Dumb choice on my part…
Three years ago CMU had an $85 audition fee separate from the application fee so still an easy form of income.
The point that these programs are not huge money makers for schools is valid, though. Unlike football teams, they don’t sell thousands of tickets, there’s a lot of expensive one-on-one instruction, the facilities cost money, etc…
@GSOMTMom - I remember an audition fee at CMU 3 years ago - but I don’t remember $85. I do remember that one of the surprises of the whole college process was how much we spent on application and audition fees. (and we only did 12 schools and 7 auditions - I can easily imagine it is much worse for the people who are doing 20+) But that $$ is a teeny tiny drop in the bucket compared to the college costs as a whole - so the sting faded for me long ago.
Again- if we are faulting schools for charging money on the application process, the whole college system is to blame. I remember being offended that for my D’s only prescreen school we had to pay the normal application fee not even knowing if she would be allowed TO audition (which I think is common at many prescreen schools, Otterbein being a notable exception) - but that is splitting hairs.
My advice to anyone who thinks an individual college charges too much for application/audition relative to chance of acceptance… don’t demonize them… cross that college off your list.