<p>Coach name: </p>
<p>School:</p>
<p>Teaching(voice,acting,dance etc): </p>
<p>Way to connect to coach (without actually writing email or phone number to keep privacy): </p>
<p>Getting professors as coaches must give your son or daughter an upper hand in a sense when it comes to knowing what that certain school is looking for. If your child has a coach like this, please explain a bit of your experience with coaches and how that reflected in their auditions. </p>
<p>I may not understand your question but I’ll answer without really answering.</p>
<p>Go to any school you might be interested in and look up the faculty for the subject you might want some coaching in. Then look to see if that faculty member has a personal website. Many do. If private coaching is mentioned on that website or even master classes and you have their contact info, you’ve found your in. </p>
<p>As far as giving an upper hand goes, don’t count on it. Might help, might not. It’s akin to people that attend summer programs at the school they want hoping to gain an admissions advantage. Sure, they get to know you that way but at the same time, SURE they get to know you that way as in… that’s not always a blessing. </p>
<p>I agree with halflokum 100%. It is a double edged sword. A coach gets to know the great things about your kid, but also their weaknesses. Getting a coach that is affiliated with a particular college program is not a way in. </p>
<p>I am all for summer programs for a variety of reasons (if you are fortunate enough to afford them). Unlike many others who say to spend $ with coaches rather than with summer programs, I would say it depends on the kid, the coach and the summer program. For my D, I believe the money was well spent at summer programs. (Though we used coaches as well). I agree with @halflocum in that faculty do get to know you at summer programs, which can only be a good thing imo.</p>
<p>If you are skilled and some of that skill might not be revealed in just 16 bars, one 60 second monologue, or a ballet dance call (where you might be an award-winning hiphop dancer) you do have an opportunity to show more depth at a summer program. And though a summer program is not a 3 or 4 week audition, one will leave making some sort of impression on the faculty. If they like you, then that’s a plus. If they don’t, I believe that is of equal benefit. (And of course, your kid may decide they don’t fit with the faculty/program.)</p>
<p>If faculty are not going to like you after a few weeks with you, better to know that after 3 weeks and 4K than 4 years and 200+K! No one wants to attend a school where one is not valued for who you are going in, so I don’t see a downside to a summer program. I wish my D could have attended more – unfortunately, so many overlap, and there are only so many summers one is eligible to attend.</p>
@tramsmom, the OP was not asking about summer programs, s/he was asking about coaches who are professors at audition college programs. Many colleges have summer programs for high school kids…but coaches are a different story completely.
Are there actually professors who are audition coaches and who then participate in the audition process?
I have to disagree with @monkey13 in saying that summer programs are a completely different story. In some programs kids have the opportunity to sign up (and pay) for extra lessons with faculty while attending the program. In many cases, these kids continue this relationship through lessons/coaching after the summer. In some cases the kids return to the school for the coaching, but some do it via Skype. So to answer part of OP’s original question, summer programs can be a way to make a connection with a faculty member.
@alwaysamom, yes there are. @Dusing2, if a child meets a professor at a summer program and then hires them for coaching, that is coaching, not a summer program. The reason I said they were a completely different story is b/c a summer program has dozens of kids. Your child is not the only one in that program. If a summer program at a college gave kids the upper hand of getting into that program, then the incoming classes would be full of kids who had attended the summer program. But that doesn’t happen. Some get in, and some don’t. And I would hazard a guess that the same kids who get in would have gotten in regardless of whether they attended that summer program or not. With coaching, it is a one on one situation. Maybe your kids are all perfect,. but I know mine (who is generally a wonderful young woman) had bad days (tears, anxiety, frustration) with all of her coaches when preparing for auditions. It is a stressful time. They were coaches, but they were also friends and confidants. They saw a side of her that most auditioners sitting behind that table are NOT going to see.
And the bottom line is that with coaching and summer programs, going to a college’s program and working with the professors is always a double edged sword. These are teenagers. They have bad days. There is drama. If your kid goes into a room for a 3 minute audition (and yes, some of the auditions are, indeed, only 3 minutes), your kid may nail it and do everything perfectly. If your kid is working with professors an hour a week for 4 months in a coaching situation, or every day for 3 weeks in a summer program, there is more of a chance for those professors to see weaknesses, to see moods, to see how your child may not get along with another child…all sorts of things can happen. In past years, people have dissected this…kids who go to a summer program do not appear to have a better chance of getting into that school. I don’t know that anyone has done the same analysis with coaches, but I imagine a similar situation exists.
alwaysamom asked:
I am curious as well. I’m not talking about summer programs, but rather the mention on this thread of ongoing one-to-one audition coaching by a faculty member of a MT/Acting program.
The only awareness I have of such is a faculty member at Shenandoah who posts on this forum and is also an audition coach. And I think someone at Pace does this too. I’m also aware that an acting coach not affiliated with any college directly, offers workshops with various faculty members from several BFA programs.
Is there someone who might enlighten those of us who are not aware of faculty who serve as audition coaches? Such as from which schools? Thanks.
@monkey13, I was merely making it clear for the OP that in discussing summer programs, Tramsmom actually did answer the OP’s original question which was how to connect with college professors for coaching. I never commented on whether or not it gives an upper hand.
I agree with this.
I admit that I’m surprised that there are profs who are coaching applicants and are then a part of the admissions/audition process. I really don’t think that’s appropriate and I hope that it doesn’t happen at too many schools.
I have seen kids take lessons from faculty on audition day.
Depending on the type of program, summer programs do often provide some form of audition practice or preparation, that is faculty guided, as do the many, many Masterclasses offered by virtually every major department head of the MT schools. These are not private coachings, but small group classes. They instruct kids on audition tactics, etc. With little difference between a small group, or one on one. I see nothing wrong or unethical about faculty teaching students how to be successful. I am sure they have seen many talented kids who chose the wrong material or what have you, and look to summer programs, master classes, coachings, as a way to remedy this and to help them succeed. They should be commended for taking the time to provide the opportunity.
@alwaysamom there is no way of quantifying the Better Chance/Equal Chance Summer Program MT Admittance theory. Many summer programs take in 40 - 60 (even more) kids in some cases. Their programs only admit 8-25ish, so there are going to be a lot of kids who are not admitted. The question is whether there is a greater percentage admitted. But then the variables – students attending a summer program are likely to be more interested in the school than a general auditioner… etc. etc.and thus, prevent the true answer from being knowable. Too many eggs to unscramble.
My point about summer programs was actually in reply to @halflocum --that both sides get to know one another better, and I think that can only be a good thing. Even if there is drama, etc. and they see a side of the Student they would not see at an audition. Won’t this side at some point present itself within the first year of school? Would a student want to attend a school where faculty discover a student is not such a good fit after admittance? Might make for a long 4 years for all. I think taking a test drive can only be a good thing. Just my opinion. Others will differ I am sure.
Through further research, I see that there are a number of MT faculty or department heads that offer coaching/feedback online via Stagelighter. And as mentioned already, some give audition workshops independently or via private acting coaches.
Is anyone willing to name specific programs (don’t have to mention faculty names) who have faculty who offer one to one (not workshops) audition prep coaching? I already mentioned an example with Shenandoah.
It’s all very interesting! In any case, just to put it in perspective, when my kid auditioned for BFA in MT programs 10 years ago, I guess she got in the “old fashioned way” (kidding…sorta!!) as she never attended any pre-college programs or had coaching from college faculty, nor knew any of the faculty at any of her colleges before stepping into the audition room. She did all right! 
I think that audition workshops for kids who are at a summer program, or a master class at such a program, is a very different situation than one on one coaching where a professor is coaching an applicant who will then be appearing before that professor in the audition room. I don’t think that professors who do this should be commended. The optics are all wrong, in my opinion. Although some schools are notoriously friendly with particular coaches, which in and of itself, has been questionable through the years, I think that the situation of a prof/auditor having coached some applicants on a one on one basis is even more questionable.
p.s. Soozie, those were the good old days.
My daughter’s private voice teacher was a faculty member at BW for a number of years. She left to take a position at another conservatory before D’s audition year, but I know that she was there and on the audition panel for some of her older students. However, it is my understanding that the program head (Vicky Bussert) has the final say. The voice teacher might be able to “go to bat” for a student, and when D was auditioning there she helped with song selection- D sang something specific for that audition b/c voice teacher knew it was one of Vicky’s favorite songs. But she wouldn’t have really been the deciding factor.
@tramsmom, I wasn’t thinking in the extreme where there would be something about you that would make you a poor fit for a program. I’d agree with you that if something gets revealed during a summer program or in private coaching that indicates a poor fit for a particular program, that would be a good thing to know.
I was thinking more along the lines of getting lucky in the few moments of an audition at a school you’d love to attend. I think that happens. I’ve known kids whose work I have seen many times and whom I would consider to be marginal talents at best that somehow manage to get into really top programs. Maybe they got lucky in the audition room? I cannot explain it otherwise. If those same students had attended a summer program, their weaknesses would have been obvious to the faculty they were working with and the admission outcome may have been different. That was my point.
Now those same kids I’m sure are benefiting from the training that they are getting at these top programs and have not been tossed out. For all I know they are really happy at their schools and learning a lot. I have seen one of them on stage again after a couple of years of college training under the belt. Not magically transformed and still a question mark.
The flip side of this is you do attend a summer program, do excellent work including demonstrating superior capabilities that would not be easy to tease out in an audition. But at the actual admission audition, the best version of yourself does not show up. Or, you do a decent job, but what really makes you exceptional, you can’t show in a couple of minutes the way you could over 6 weeks. Nice in that situation to be a known entity.
What to people mean when they use the term “coach?” There are plenty of adjunct faculty that do monologue coaching, audition coaching or song performance coaching. I assume they help you find material too but I’m not sure. I am not aware of any faculty that help you pick the schools to apply to etc. which I guess??? is something that quote college audition coaches do?
While most Masterclasses don’t give you specific song suggestions (I say most, because on occaision I have heard of song suggestions for kids), they do often comment on your proposed audtition material. The masterclasses are specific to the individual in that they usually critique individuals in front of a small group. These comments, to me at least, are not significantly different from “coaching”: " You should be singing a high soprano song, such as X". Or that song is difficult to do in an audition setting because of “Y”. Or "if you choose that song, beware because its going to require that you can do “Z”, and you’re doing “x”.
Bear in mind, you might not get the same advice from different faculty. So knowing what a particular faculty member thinks of your potential audition material could be helpful. It does not mean however, that had you sung “the wrong material” at your audition, you would have been rejected. Your talent might be such that it really didnt matter what you sang. It just means that the faculty does not think the choice shows you in the light he/she would like to see at an audition. They may not admit you even if you sang what they deemed to be the perfect song for you. Or perhaps no song would have been sufficient because they have too many of your type, etc. etc…
The variables in this process cannot be quantified. The selection process and the product is Art, not science. So to say that getting coaching or material from a faculty member or coach, taking a summer program, getting audition feedback etc. etc. “caused” one to be accepted, or to be rejected can only be speculation.
I did a little research and In answer to @alwaysamom, and @soozievt, Stagelighter advertises individualized coaching from auditors/faculty at the following colleges: CAP21, Point Park, CCM, The New School, Boston Conservatory, Baldwin-Wallace, Juilliard, Marymount Manhattan Shenandoah, Roosevelt, Northwestern, Texas State, Carnegie Mellon, U of Texas, Emerson, Penn State, U of Michigan, Florida state, NYU/Tisch, Elon, San Diego State, Florida State, Pace, Indiana U, DePaul.
Some colleges, like NYU/Tisch, have several faculty auditors available for private coaching. Looks to be pretty commonplace. Is there another company who offers these same or additional faculty for coaching? The prices seems quite reasonable.
Again, I think there is a difference between faculty members and decision makers son to speak. I don’t think Barbara Mackenzie Woods, Kaitlin Hopkins, Brent Wagner or Kenneth Mitchell are going to offer coaching sessions …