<p>I think that the complaint about the dance audition and the coach provided the opening for lots of venting about the perceived fairness of the process. I understand the frustrations. I know that our house has been full of tension over the last few weeks, heck the last few months. We have had great days and terrible ones. We had one great morning turn into a horrible afternoon. I really feel for these kids and salute their courage. I hope that the original poster quits worrying about the fairness of the system and concentrates on things that she can control. She needs her head to be right so that she can give it her best. If she gives it her all she will have done all that she could. I hope that things go well for her.</p>
<p>megpmom - your comment -“Make sure you have a real mix of schools (including nonaudition). And never let your child talk about a “dream” school.”</p>
<p>I agree that you need to have a realistic mix of schools but I also think it does no harm having a “dream” school-as long as you go in knowing that about it. You should always reach and maybe you just might happen to be someone they are looking for. </p>
<p>I know coach or not my D would never allow the coach or me in. She does not like to have added people in her auditions for anything. I do believe though it is either you let people in or you don’t not just certain people able to go in.</p>
<p>I would guess that if it did occur that a coach sat in on an audition, that it may not have been for a specific student - but perhaps for several students or for in general to observe and learn. In order for a coach - any coach, to sit in on an audition, there would have to be a very strong relationship (personal as well as professional) between the coach and the program head. So there could have been other reasons for that person being there other than for a particular student. Unfortunately, the perception it creates is in general not good. So I hope that if it did happen… that the school would be willing to stop the practice in the future - as their reputation may suffer and impact the type of applicants they get in the future!</p>
<p>Holy cow, whether it’s fair or unfair, we don’t even know if the incident was real or not. Note the OP has disappeared. And even if it DID happen, it was ONE incident at ONE school. We don’t know what the circumstances were or the thinking behind it. I’ve got to believe that after all these many years of running college auditions, the school(s) AND the coach(es) know what they’re doing and know how to go about getting what they want/need. Why are we trying to second guess these professionals? I think they deserve a little more credit than that. IMHO :)))…</p>
<p>I think that the OP ■■■■■■■ us…some vague accusations and an inflammatory thread title - then never returns while we battle it out among ourselves!! Some good reading, though - and taking my mind of the mail carrier who has suddenly stopped delivering ANY mail (I mean we used to get piles of crap - now hardly ANYTHING - including the all precious college answers) and she now comes at 4:30 rather than 10:00…</p>
<p>Hi I was at L.A.Unifieds with my D. I was checking out one of the walk in schools while she auditioned and I did see one of the very well known coaches at one of the schools ( with a up and coming program hint hint) with one of her students.I no she was in the room with the auditor but,do not no if she was in with her student during her audition.</p>
<p>I deff felt a connection between them,I also know a few kids who have been coached by her that have gotten into this school , and it kinda put me off to have my D even do a walk in when shall we say the deck might be stacked.</p>
<p>Okay, while were at it here, this is my other concern and it’s some of these “up and comers.” We did none of them. No interest. Big name school or bust. But may they be up and coming because of connections? Hold auditions and they will come?</p>
<p>No, they are up and coming because they have good training programs, are getting national recognition for being so, and are sending out successful alumni. Just because someone isn’t on Broadway doesn’t mean they aren’t successful in the theatre world and won’t be eventually. Up and coming programs spread by word of mouth and, now, the internet. Most programs do have one big alumni that draws but when the working world recognizes the talent from a school, word starts to spread that they should be looked out for. Also up and coming programs can be defined by who TEACHES there, not who sends their students they’ve coached to audition there. New department chairs with Broadway credits or professors with industry ties are what bring people to schools. But this is a whole other topic! :)</p>
<p>well…at least we all know where our kids get their “dramatic flair”!! :D</p>
<p>“I’m ready for my closeup, Mr. DeMille.” Haha ditto on that one nicksmtmom, I’m pressing the like button.</p>
<p>Uhm…kjgc…my mistaking the gender was actually a compliment because I consider the level at which you communicate to be so evolved that I sort of assumed - Not Male.</p>
<p><em>blush</em></p>
<p>Seriously. My apologies though for making that assumption and for giving the men short shrift! Living with Mr. Snap<em>oh no do we have to have DIALOG</em>dragonfly has made me cynical. haha.</p>
<p>Psst…also…I cleared out some room in my PM box…sorry, ya’ll…</p>
<p>jcarney- I’m curious about which programs you would term “up and coming” vs. “big name”. There are many “lesser known” schools out there which offer amazing Mt programs, many of which are comparable to what is offered at the “big name” schools. With the competitive nature of this major, I can’t imagine limiting applications to only the big name programs. I notice in an earlier post that you mentioned your D had not had great luck with her applications, and I’m wondering if it could be because of limiting applications to the big schools. Hopefully that is not the case and she did include applications to a wide variety of programs! In the meantime, I am rooting for her to gain an acceptance to a program that interests her-best wishes!</p>
<p>snapdragonfly, I took it as a compliment. No worries. </p>
<p>I have read some very disquieting things on this thread. I have had coaches walk students into our audition room in Chicago. Since I have a friendly relationship with several of the coaches, I saw no issues with this. In the same way I have no problems calling a chair of another program and say “we saw a student today who really seemed like she was right for you. I sent her to audition at college x.” Nor do I have issues with the parents talking with me at the auditions. I always thought of it as just being friendly not breaking any docorum, ethics or rules.</p>
<p>(Yes, we do sometimes suggest other schools that we respect and would be a better fit. It doesn’t happen often, but it does happen. As does checking up on a student who turned us down and went to a different program. “How is Jane Smith doing?” And we really hope the answer is “wonderful.”) </p>
<p>Tiny business. Very tiny. Having a friend introduce me to a student - does that help the student? I don’t know one of these coaches that doesn’t understand that being friendly won’t hurt, but it also isn’t likely to really help. The coaches seem like really nice people who are really helping some students with preparing for the auditions.</p>
<p>We will continue to see students who are with coaches. We will likely continue to cast their students and we will (like every program) also take students who are simply raw talent. We aren’t unique in that matter. This isn’t the SAT’s. No right answers. </p>
<p>And money… oh lord. Theatre is one of the most expensive academic programs a university can have. Music, Theatre and any field science are the most expensive programs per full time equivalency. BFA programs are particularly expensive because we govern the size of the incoming class. Likely no more than 12 or so students per class in MUSTH. No amount of auditions can make up the cost of doing a 45 person musical with a full orchestra. :)</p>
<p>dino2016,
I think your criticism or anger may be missplaced. You have a very big year ahead of you and I realize your frustration, but to accuse someone of being unethical or unfair through hearsay does you or your parents no good. I went through this process with my D this year and she worked with an audition coach for several months. You can say that my D is lucky, good for her, but no matter how good or bad her coach is, no matter how good or bad the school she goes to and no matter how talented she thinks she is, at the end of the day…life is unfair and nothing but nothing will guarantee my D that she will make a living in this business. Now, as a junior it seems to me that you are thinking about the process early and that’s good. If your parents can afford it, I would absolutely hire the best audition coach money can buy because let’s face it, life is unfair and if you can get a leg up, work it! You said: </p>
<p>According to one of my friends at her MT audition for one of the top MT programs a popular audition coach was able to sit in and watch the entire dance audition. Of course, my friend’s high school teacher was not allowed to view the audition. She told me that this audition coach was was very friendly with the auditors from this school and many other schools seemed to know her well. I understand she has a high rate of acceptances -more power to her - but how come she gets this advantage, say.over another college audition coach, High School Drama Teacher or parent? </p>
<p>Frankly, why would you hire a coach who did not have great relationships with the top schools if that’s what you are going for? Heck, if I thought my D’s coach did not spend her time and effort to cultivate relationships with these people, why would I pay this person? I could do it myself. You want a coach to not only have these relationships but also you want them to understand the process and care about your child. My D’s coach had all of those qualities and had she not, I would not have hired her. </p>
<p>You also said: I don’t want to be involved with unfair practices.</p>
<p>Do you know what is really unfair? What I think is unfair is that throughout this whole audition process these schoold know that 80% - 99% of the kids that apply to audition are not even close to what they are looking for. But yet, they take our money, we travel with our kids all over the country and give them more money and stay in hotels, travel expenses, yada yada, my D auditions and you know what? My kid never even had a chance. Do I think it’s unfair? Yes. Do I think it’s unethical? No. I think it’s business. I think it’s supply and demand. I think that it’s no coincidence that this major or close to it sees on average of 20% increase in applicants to the top schools every year, but they still accept the same 10 kids into the program. I think this person in question has spent alot of her time getting to know these schools and what they are looking for. I think she works these relationships to bring added value to her clients and if the schools really like the people she sends to their school’s audition it’s great for those students. Although my D did get to work with an amazing coach, she did not get into her top 3 schools, cried for a day after each rejection but a week later got accepted to an amazing school. If you think these heads of departments do not accept who they themselves really want, you are mistaken. You end up at the school you are meant to be!!</p>
<p>If you or your parents cannot afford a good coach, then get yourself to a dance class or singing coach or spend your time looking for great material!! The time and energy you will waste being critical of people you don’t know will take time away from the very thing you supposedly love to do. My D’s coach coaches several kids a year if they are talented and if they show financial need for little or no money. Most good coaches will do this. That’s how you know they have character. Finally, I wish you the best. I’m sorry the negative parts of the process is getting you down, but as I told my D, everything she has learned through this whole several months is real life…the good, the bad and the ugly. Good Luck!!</p>
<p>Actually I kind of didn’t word myself clearly, talking about the money. None of the programs we personally applied to actually charged us any application fees for the program itself, so I wasn’t pointing fingers at the program themselves. It was the actual universities, not the programs, benefiting, from the application fees, that I was referring to: we applied to, what, something like 15 schools, which is about 12 more than most of my D’s non theater friends applied to. It’s not a HUGE source of income but I’ve noticed that while institutions don’t necessarily invent situations on account of them bringing in a fairly small amount of money, they don’t have much of an incentive to get rid of something that generates income either, especially not as tight as things are today and especially education. This is not limited to theater, either, as I’m sure anyone with a kid wanting an Ivy or sports or something else hard to get into, can testify.</p>
<p>n fact the notion isn’t mine originally: I forget now where I ran across it, probably in one of the “how to get into the BEST SCHOOL EVAR” type books, but it was mentioned in reference to the Ivy League situation, actually. Kids now apply to so many more schools than they used to. If they qualify for vouchers (we didn’t) and if the family has enough money not to miss it (we did miss that money but it took away from wants, not needs, so we are luckier than many) then great, but this new paradigm is really hard on middle income families. But I do not blame theater programs for this per se. I was just saying, there’s not especially any big incentive for the institutions to figure out a way to end this thing. And I don’t know how they could anyway. (though I think three of the schools we applied to actually waived the fee if you applied on line. One of these has given us the most generous aid package so far, too…they must be managing to hold their own with their endowments so far.)</p>
<p>I do realize all too well how budgets usually are for the arts in elementary and secondary school education, having been a fine arts specialist in the public school system, so though I don’t have experience with it at the collegiate level, I’m sure it doesn’t change much.</p>
<p>Kudos SatisfiedDad! I couldn’t have said it any better!</p>
<p>“I have had coaches walk students into our audition room in Chicago. Since I have a friendly relationship with several of the coaches, I saw no issues with this. In the same way I have no problems calling a chair of another program and say “we saw a student today who really seemed like she was right for you. I sent her to audition at college x.” Nor do I have issues with the parents talking with me at the auditions. I always thought of it as just being friendly not breaking any docorum, ethics or rules.”</p>
<p>I don’t think I would have thought anything of that if I’d seen it so while your taking these things under serious consideration shows how sensitive you are to the concerns of parents and students, I seriously doubt that you have ever intentionally OR unintentionally crossed a line, in large part because you do show such concern about it. And your examples show that clearly you are extending the same courtesies to pretty much everyone. Not the same appearance as the OP, in my opinion.</p>
<p>I bet the school in question had no intention of causing the umbrage it apparently did - assuming anyone other than the OP <em>looks under bridge…hellooo there…</em> noticed and was upset by it. Reflecting upon this further, I am not sure if I would have been upset to notice this or not. I might have been: I might not have been: it probably would have depending a lot upon context and other factors. If there was a definite and palpably cliquey and exclusive air going on I would probably have picked up on it and at the least, felt that maybe we weren’t as welcome to audition as some. If the entire audition was handled in such a way that I felt that whatever need my daughter and I had, as well as everyone else there too, would be addressed as graciously as anyone else including people they have prior relationships with, I probably wouldn’t have even noticed much. In fact that is exactly the feeling my daughter got at all her auditions, she felt she was treated very well, so I was really surprised by the OP because I just didn’t expect a school to do that and I still don’t, actually, and possibly, the school in the OP didn’t actually do it either.</p>
<p>Like that one very prestigious program where my daughter auditioned and didn’t get in. But he spent SO much time with her and gave her fully one hundred percent of his energy in the time he was with her - and his student assist had told us before the audition even happened, that was how he worked and was why she chose the program even though she could have gone to some really good programs in her home state which was a long way off. He didn’t offer my daughter a spot but I am absolutely convinced it was for no other reason than that she didn’t fit into their needs. Which is probably why I was so initially shocked at the OP because all of our auditions really felt like that is what they would be basing their decisions on, and the inherently unfair part of that, while it can smart, I don’t have indignation for.</p>
<p>You know what it is - there’s two kinds of unfairness (and that one exists does not excuse the other - this will make sense in a minute). It’s like a rabbi my mom was quoting to me (forget the name - sorry) who talks about two kinds of evil - necessary evil and unnecessary evil. When a tornado flattens a town or hundreds are killed in earthquakes or a kind decent person dies of cancer, that’s an evil, but it’s unavoidable - the earth was just designed to do that kind of stuff and creatures living on it will be killed when there are floods, droughts, other natural disasters. And we all have to die of SOMETHING. These things are necessary. What is unnecessary evil is when there is enough for all but children starve to death anyway, or when someone commits murder or robbery or rape or some other horrible action. Those things are unnecessary because theoretically, anyway, we could stop those things, unlike earthquakes, which we can’t. </p>
<p>The way I see it, is there are two kinds of unfairness. Someone is born with so much talent they could be DEAD and be better than someone else after years of effort. Someone is exactly the right height and hair color for a role and someone else isn’t. Someone has a parent who cares enough to make the sacrifices and support this process and some other kid, for whatever reason, does not have a parent who can or will do it. That’s just inherent in the design, there’s no way to change any of that any more than we can change the fact that nothing lasts forever in this physical world.</p>
<p>Those things a school cannot control and those things are unfair. But I do respectfully disagree - and I will not concede I am wrong on this because it is part of my personal ethic - with the notion that the existence of necessary evil or unfairness in the world, excuses any of us from doing all we can to avoid and prevent the unnecessary evil. To excuse blatant grievances with a shrug and “oh well whatcha gonna do” is turning a blind eye to injustice and my personal ethics tell me that is wrong. (and history proves out that refusing to do so has indeed changed things for the better. Talking about much bigger stuff than an audition, here, obviously, but it’s the principle.)</p>
<p>Please note I am speaking in very broad generalities here and not this specific incident, so please don’t misunderstand me to be likening someone not being upset about this situation to turning a blind eye to, say, shoveling entire races of people into furnaces, because obviously, that would be ridiculous because this is so incredibly minor of a thing and now it is seeming as if it was in no way intentional. It just LOOKED bad. Also I acknowledge that you do have to pick your battles.</p>
<p>I just kind of wanted to make that point about the two kinds of unfair because it was either do that or go do the dishes. So clearly, blathering on about my personal philosophies on a message board won out. ~what??? = D</p>
<p>You should not drink so much coffee at night.</p>
<p><em>twitches</em></p>
<p>Laugh out Loud</p>