The cost of most of these schools is exactly why my D didn’t audition at more places.
D just said she got the BSU redirect to BA in Theater Studies email. Keeping that in our back pocket. I agree @followurheart having that problem to solve would mean a lot!
@KPike320 college is definitely a huge expense, but it can sound worse than it ends up actually being. For my older (non MT) D, I did notice a few things that were helpful: The annual cost ends up reducing tremendously if/when they can move off campus. We wanted her to be in the dorm freshman year, but after that she was able to move into a house w/ shared bedroom, and buy groceries instead of a meal plan, and that helps substantially. So now it’s down from about $25k freshman year, to $15k/year for the rest. Not an option if school is in NYC or requires the kids to stay in dorms longer, but it can make a big difference. Then there are the subsidized student loans, which range from about $5-7k annually (the $ amount starts lower and increases a bit each year of school). So then it’s down to about $8-9k annually out of pocket. And, usually you have to pay for just one semester at a time, so that is $4K each spread out in August and January. And my older D has a job/income, so she pays her own rent, which is awesome. From our experience, the first year was roughest, but fortunately we had some (not all) saved up, and she took those loans for the first two years of her school. Even if your kids takes the loans all four years it adds up to $27K of debt at graduation, which is nothing to sneeze at, but not wholly unmanageable. This is just my story and everyone’s is different, but I hope that makes it a little less daunting!!
I’m worried about this too! I got an acceptamce from a school I know I would be happy at but I can’t even accept until I can see what they are offering for financial aid. It sucks!
@KPike320 My D is on waitlist for BW and Indiana but no “yes’s” yet
@CentralOHmomof4 even in New York City getting your own place makes a difference. My daughter was in the dorms at Pace for two years and then got an apartment with her same roommates she was in the dorm with. Dorm is around 16,000 per year but that’s only from September through May and none of January. Apartment is costing us $1100 a month which is less than the dorm but she gets it the entire year. Obviously not as big a savings as it would be in most other locations but still something.
Don’t forget about talent money either; many schools offer $$ when they offer the BFA acceptance. CMU, NYU, Northwestern usually do not but many private schools will offer some talent $$ to get you to commit.
My son who graduated in spring 2016 had some loans to pay. He was a transfer student from a junior college. So his loans were for the full first year of tuition at an in state school. He lived offsite and worked part time to pay rent, food and utilities. When he transferred I stopped claiming him as a dependent, since he was now paying his own way with very little help from us. Because of this, the last part of his second year he received a one semester grant, which covered all his tuition and books and even some food (nice!), and the third and final year he received grants to cover his final year of tuition and books and a bit of living expenses. So he left college with 16k debt. He has been paying large chucks off every month…it’s important to remind them, if they are single and working after college, they will never have as much money as they have right now, so pay the dept off as quickly as possible…they are still used to being students and living on less so now is the time. I remind him to think of it like a car payment. His payments are such that he will pay off that “car” in three years. This was our journey…maybe it will give others some ideas or options.
Speaking of money I just bought my D’s plane ticket to Minnesota…$425 plus $25 for insurance. Pretty steep considering she still may not get in. However, I figured if she sent a video in and was accepted she still would have to visit. We have never set foot in Minnesota so we have no idea what it’s like. At least she will see what a BFA program in a large university is like.
@CentralOHmomof4 that is FANTASTIC input!! Thank you for that!
@MTRaleighmom Thanks for the advice. BSU has given her a large monetary incentive (academic) so this is going to be difficult but I was reading around on their site and did see where they have some late fall auditions that my D could possibly audition again. I’m going to keep my eye on this opportunity while we see the outcome of the rest of the schools we haven’t heard from yet.
@CMB625 you hit the nail on the head, that is why we could not let my D audition at a lot of places because we knew even with some money from the school it would not be do-able $ wise. She was mad about that at first but has since understood better why we chose the schools we did. Still some of them even are looking like they would not be feasible without what I would call significant debt. Anyone who knows names on this forum knows I have been researching schools for over a year and I still wonder if we chose the right ones…and always will! Of course her first denial was from a reasonably priced school…
and yikes @marg928 on that plane ticket cost! I am fortunate in that we have been able to drive to all the auditions and none was more then 8 hrs. I mean we all know the hotel bills alone add up also…
I have really started to block it all out.
@Wickersham2365 Yes, this is a big blow for several reasons…1 - large academic scholarship 2 - She sang at our state Thespian Festival for a member of their theatre staff (didn’t know it at the time) got a superior rating who then gave her a card and told her to please audition for MT at Ball- I guess although not any guarantee - she was really feeling confident and this is a disappointment. But as I said in another post - they were running behind and her audition was cut short in NYC so really I think there are a lot of factors here. But as you said - I will also definitely designate this the “safety” at this point. And if there are no other “yes” she can go and audition again in the fall hopefully. I’m drained. Can’t wait till this is over
@theaterwork My husband and I have been joking about making monetary decisions based on hotel costs. I have a large company event that my company pays for my attendance. I’ve paid to bring my husband in the past and this year I’m going solo – the event ticket for him was a night in a hotel before an out of state audition. This is definitely the point where we are all going a bit bonkers.
@CMB625 I really can’t complain too much. She did 12 auditions in New York between Unifieds and the next two weekends. We only live an hour away from the city but I chose to stay over night during unified’s and one other night a different weekend. I just didn’t want the stress of driving back-and-forth especially with early-morning appointments. I got two nights in the hotel with my points anyway. Really the only on campus audition that we had to drive to was this past weekend in Washington DC. Now the really big expense will be over spring break because I think we will have to take a trip to California. We need to visit Loyola Marymount and hopefully somewhere else she will get in between now and then! And she’s traveling alone to Minnesota and they put the kids up in the dorms and give them transportation back-and-forth to the airport so at least I don’t have a hotel expense.
@marg928 , not sure if you meant to tag me in that post. I was talking about the cost of tuition in my earlier post, not the cost of auditioning
you’re right @CMB625 I should have tagged @theaterwork
I’m a little confused on how wait listing works. I understand that the school won’t know until May 1 how many students chose them. Therefore, they can’t give my D a yes or no until after that. What if that’s my D’s top pick… does she just risk not going anywhere since she would have to also tell any other schools yes or no by May 1?
I think most people commit to another school and either 1) know they will lose that deposit if they get off waitlist and accept the spot at top choice school, or 2) commit elsewhere and tell top choice they do not wish to remain on waitlist (just for peace of mind and to move on with plans at the other school).
Some kids came off waitlists at the very end of April last year and asked schools if they could have a couple extra days to decide (vs May 1). I think the schools understand that if they tell you April 30 you may need a day to rethink stuff.
Schools do start to see some movement as kids commit —so some programs are able to go to waitlist or an alternate list (Pace for example) earlier than May.
As soon as my daughter decided last year in late march or early April she notified all other programs she had been accepted to because she knew other kids were anxiously waiting to hear news.
My D got a MT acceptance from Rider University with a nice scholarship yesterday. This school was not on the list we walked in at unified in Chicago go figure. Its nice to get an acceptance during this stressful week. Fingers crossed for these kids! I am a stress case texting her all day to check the mail she on the other hand is calm as can be.