Do I Need to Add More Safeties?

CanadianMTgirl
Wed, 06 Sep 2023 18:07:34 +0000

I really agree with what @MYOS1634 is saying here. What do you want out of your college education, beyond being a musical theatre major? I think that’s a really important thing for future MT majors to consider when building their list.

I have my BFA in MT and I think having a safety school that you would LOVE to attend no matter your degree is absolutely paramount. I know from experience - I applied to BFA programs twice, once in 2013 (the only school I was admitted to was Ohio Northern) and once with a substantially different list in 2014 (the only school I was admitted to was Viterbo, which is where I eventually attended). Every year there are so many talented kids who are shut out of these audition-based programs.

I think there’s a trend among would-be BFA MT students to cast a really wide net in order to avoid getting shut out, and that means applying to many schools that “no one has ever heard of,” because of course many WONDERFUL BFA programs are housed in some pretty unexpected colleges! But I think that there’s also an attitude among would-be BFA MT students that ‘I can be happy anywhere, as long as it’s at a school that has a strong BFA program,’ and I think it’s important to challenge that.

Like I said, I went to Viterbo University because I was a Canadian student looking for a MT degree program at a time when MT degree programs did not exist in Canada, and I was also looking for a program that would allow me to double major or minor in arts administration (I ended up with a double major). I thought as long as I had that, I would be satisfied with my education. But I would really caution a student against attending a university solely on the strength of their MT program. You have to like the school enough to want to be there for 4 years, no matter what happens. The reality is that there is often more attrition within BFA MT programs than it looks like from the outside. I was class of 2018 BFA MT at Viterbo University - we entered with 8 BFA MT majors, and 4 of us graduated. The rest of our class decided that pursuing MT professionally was no longer something they wanted to do - and unfortunately for most of those people, when they made that decision, Viterbo no longer had enough to offer them outside of the MT major to make them want to stay at the school.

Like I said, personally, I thought if I had a robust MT program and good arts administration opportunities, I could make any school work. But over the course of my time at Viterbo, I did feel regret that I did not attend a school that was more academically rigorous outside of the MT department, that I did not attend a school with a bigger queer population (I was one of two out lesbians for much of my time at Viterbo, 2014-2018), etc. I got through my college experience, but I definitely could have been happier. You should pick a school that’s going to make you happy even if your relationship to MT changes!

So what is important to you OUTSIDE of MT? I’m seeing a lot of mid-sized and large schools in urban or urban-adjacent areas on your list. Is being in an urban environment important to you? Is Greek life or college sports a priority for you? Is academic rigor a priority for you? Would you be happy to attend any of the colleges on your current list as a BA Theatre major?