College Audition Costs/Auditioning On A Budget

SpchTchr57
Mon, 01 Aug 2016 04:46:50 +0000

@MThopeful99 Lots of great advice! I think honing in on your list of schools is most important, and there is no substitute for carefully looking at their catalogue offerings, reading CC and other sources, and calling the school directly for followup on remaining questions …including, for example, whether the school is going to Unifieds (and which one(s)). Three of the schools my D applied to substantially changed their audition procedures from the previous year.

In retrospect, I most wish D had found her “safety” (the affordable nonaudition program she would have been happy to attend) earlier in the process …which would have meant probably dropping about 4 of the audition programs from her list and saving those fees and energy in the process.

D also saved some cash by diligently studying for the ACT on her own (no course fees, just the workbook) and she sent scores early, which resulted in offers of waived or reduced application fees from about 1/3 of the schools.

A few hours of monologue coaching are a good investment. You could see if any of your local theatre companies can recommend someone or work with one of the national companies. Length of monologue presentations (eg. 45 second version for one program, 90 section version for another) can be critical and a coach can help make these edits for timing. And of course, for any services you use, it’s wise to ask for a direct reference.