Congrats @rampions for the final decision. So stresssful!
To respond to the above inquiry… One of the other male MT ‘declines’ for CMU decided to go to UNCSA. There were 2 or 3 considering both schools - I think one chose CMU and I know one chose UNCSA.
So throughout this process, I’ve kind of glossed over all the discussions of “what happens if you commit to one program, and then your kid comes off the waitlist of their dream program after May 1?”
Wellllll…we’ve had a little plot twist in our house, and after D chose UAB & paid her housing deposit & orientation enrollment fee…she got a little email from NYU informing her she had made it off the waitlist & had been admitted to Tisch. We spent a very long week talking to people, doing some research (and some math & looking at our budget), and decided in the end, she could not pass up the opportunity to go to her dream school. Soooo, looks like she’ll be headed to NYC instead of Birmingham next year (which is quite bittersweet - we feel like that program is a very special up & coming program, and Valerie Accetta was very gracious when D broke the news and told D she wanted to stay in touch even though she won’t be going to UAB after all. UAB is seriously a class act, y’all. Keep an eye on them.)
We won’t know what studio she’s assigned to until Friday, but she doesn’t care. Even if she’s not in NSB, she feels like she will be able to get what she needs to develop as an artist in any of the studios.
D is over the moon b/c NYU has been her dream school since she started this journey, but she’s got a healthy amount of trepidation as well! I’ve come to the conclusion (as many of you have as well) that the emotional roller coaster that began with this process is really never going to end as long as she is pursuing (or living) a career in the arts!
Catching up over a long weekend off CC! @Rampion loved reading your story! I am sending you an im now to chat. And @WTXMom congrats on NYU! I know several kids heading there this fall (not mine) so if you want connections i/m me.
Time to share some of our story and decision. I was a theatre major 35 years ago, with aspirations for Broadway. My path went a different direction. My D is my third child and I could see from the time she could talk that she was destined for the stage. She started ballet at 3 ½. She refused to go on in her first pre-school play (she was Mary in a Christmas play). She did perform at church and in elementary school, and she officially got bit by the theatre bug in middle school. She studied dance until sophomore year, studied voice and acting as much as was possible during HS (not anywhere near as much as what I read about here). She will be the only graduating senior in her class that has been in every show, choir concert, and drama club event her HS offered (Non-PA high school). Her stage presence is amazing.
So, she finally started the process of looking at and applying to colleges in October. What?! I discovered CC in January so until then I was operating under a 35-year old assumption about what it is like to go to college to be a theatre artist. Sigh.
My D has asked me not to share the twists and turns of our journey. But they echo many of the stories told here. Starting with a “reasonable” number of schools. Realizing that the list needs to be tweaked and added to. Unexpected results. Gratitude for the wisdom and support of the CC community.
I can share, with great joy, that my D will be pursuing a BA in Theatre/Acting at Rowan University! We were both very impressed with the creativity and variety of the faculty, the collaborative vibe, the size of the school, the friendliness of the students. The audition was a great combination of collaboration and support, the perfect environment for my D to share her gifts. She received both talent and merit scholarships. What fun it is now to turn our attention to preparing for the next chapter in her life!
(Because we have walked “together” through this process, I hope you don’t mind if I share a bit more of my own story. I am divorced from my D’s father since 2008. I have two older kids, but at the time of the divorce my D was the only one left at home. I needed to make sure that she felt supported and loved, so I worked really hard at making sure that I didn’t overwhelm our schedule with my own pursuits. Before I had kids I had worked professionally as an actress and after having kids I still kept my hand in, in community theatre and other local shows. But I put that all on hold while I focused on my D’s schedule and opportunities. Two years ago I met and married a wonderful man. He is a pastor and last summer was assigned to a church two hours from where I live. I needed to stay here so that my D could finish high school. My life is split in two, two towns, two sets of responsibilities. I move at the end of August, once I get my D happily settled at Rowan. I’m really looking forward to one town and one set of responsibilities.
BUT an unexpected opportunity has come my way! A local community theatre just held auditions for “The Music Man” and the performances fall neatly between graduation and the moves we are preparing for. So, 12 years after the last show I was in, I auditioned. I created a headshot by cropping a mostly decent picture of me. I was miraculously able to find an old resume that I could update. I found the sheet music and an app to download the song on my phone. I borrowed my daughter’s portable speaker. I packed my audition bag from this winter with my own dance clothes, book, etc. Weird. My nerves were kept at bay because of my husband’s support and encouragement. The audition was so much fun! Theatre people are really my people. I sang, I danced (and impressed the production team with what a 56 year old can do), I read, I got called back! Whew, what a relief to know that I can still perform. And… I GOT CAST as Eulalie Mackecknie Shinn, the mayor’s wife! I’m in shock. 39 years ago, in my first community theatre production I played Zaneeta Shinn, the mayor’s daughter, and her catch phrase is perfect for how I feel now “Ye gods!” So, this summer includes preparing my D for college, preparing my house to move, AND being in a show! Yay!)
Congrat @emdpraze! To your daughter and to YOU!
Wonderful @emdpraze! For both YOU and your D! “Ye gods!” indeed. 
Love reading your story @emdpraze! Thanks for sharing, and big congratulations to you both!!!
That is sooooo cool! Congratulations! My D’s two best friends are headed to Rowan as well and I had no idea they even had a theater program there! I will look into it and good luck to your daughter!
Thanks @mom4bwayboy, @Reckless, and @marg928!
Congratulatoins @emdpraze and break a leg in your show this summer!
Great story, @emdpraze and congratulations to you and your daughter!
I have a question for those of you who used MTCA. I am finding them very unresponsive to emails. When I first inquired about coaching they took many days to get back to me. One the other hand the coach from Dallas got back to me right away. We finally had the consultation on Friday (May 6) with the owner Ellen and she said we would be getting an email on Monday letting us know who her coach would be. Monday came and went and on Tuesday I emailed them to see what was going on and still here it is Thursday and I’ve gotten no response at all. I don’t do well with this! I’m a very impatient New Yorker! What have your experiences been?
I can’t comment on MTCA, as we used My College Audition with Chelsea Diehl, based in Boston. Always found her very responsive, usually replied the same day, sometimes within an hour or two. One advantage if you’re in the northeast is that you can go in person to the Masterclass weekends she hosts in Boston.
@marg928 - We did not use MTCA. We used Mary Anna Dennard in Dallas. Sounds like you’ve already talked to her. I cannot say enough good things about her. Interestingly, although we worked with her directly on most things (usually via Skype as we live nowhere near Texas), she did have us work with a song coach to pick out songs. And he was based in NYC. If you have any questions about working with her, feel free to PM me.
OMG they literally just emailed me! Hmm…maybe they’re stalking this page LOL
We used MTCA – they are fantastic – I will admit that in the beginning I found them a bit unresponsive. Once you have your intake and are assigned your personal coaches – trust me it is very personal, very responsive, and absolutely invaluable.
We also used MTCA and had a similar experience with slow communication at the very beginning. However, once my daughter was assigned her coaches, the communication was responsive and her needs were met. Ellen and Leo do the initial assessments and assign the coaches based on their meetings with you and your student. We asked for supportive, nurturing coaches vs. direct and task oriented coaches based on my D’s preferences.She developed very good relationships with both her voice and monologue coaches and will likely stay in touch with them in the future. They really helped her find pieces that reflected her talent and personality. Audition season is long and your S or D needs to be comfortable with the songs and monologues. All the coaching was over Skype except for one voice session at Chicago Unifieds. I feel it was a very worthwhile investment.
As many have said on CC about choosing a school, follow your instincts/heart. It is the same with coaching services. There is a right decision for each person. I suggest researching and/or talking with the different companies and choosing what feels right for your situation.
Finally time to share our rollercoaster story!
My D. attends a private PA HS. She has been dancing at a non-competition studio since 3yo - ballet, tap, jazz, even five years of Irish dancing. She is en pointe in ballet, passed Royal Academy of Dance certifications up to grade 6, and was a member of a youth tap company for several years. When she was 9 she attended a weekend audition workshop because she thought theater might interest her too. The fellow who ran the workshop came out to meet us afterward and raved about her singing - believe me, we had no idea she could sing. He apparently meant it because they called a few weeks later basically begging us to put her in voice lessons. When we said that wasn’t in the cards because dance was already so expensive, they offered her lessons on scholarship because they wanted to work with her. She’s kept up with dance, though eventually dropping from 20+ hour/week to 10 or so because of theater, and has been involved in community theater, student training productions, and local professional theater basically non-stop since middle school. She’s taken private voice lessons since 9, and worked with two different teachers each week for the past two years after her original teacher thought she should be working harder to develop her upper register. Summer programs included Performing Arts Project and CCM Immersion summer MT program, as well as audition-based training programs at Theatre Lab, Signature Theatre, Adventure Theatre and Arena Stage in the D.C. area. There was never a question that MT would be her thing in college.
Her list consisted of 16 schools: WVU, Catholic, Baldwin Wallace, Point Park, Wright State, BoCo, Pace, Montclair, Hartt, Otterbein, Syracuse, CCM, Michigan, JMU, Shenandoah, Elon.
Six pre-screens sent in: Pace, Shenandoah, Otterbein, Michigan, Syracuse, Wright State. Passed all six.
No dedicated college audition coach, but much support from her regular voice coaches and a beloved dance teacher.
Really good grades and test scores, so academic acceptances and scholarship offers from every place that issues a separate decision, with the one exception of Elon, which I understand generally waitlists kids who have already been rejected from BFA programs.
Some high and lowlights of our audition experiences:
Started in October with West Virginia University. This is a brand new BFA MT program. My D. has a good friend who’s a VP major there, so we signed up for an audition to see what they had to say. They seem like good folks, but we ruled it out immediately because all freshman MTs take MT Jazz 1 - no opportunity to test up or take additional classes. This would work for some kids, not for my kiddo who has danced non-stop since age 3. She got her acceptance from them fairly quickly.
Next up was Catholic, kind of a hometown safety because my D. has trained with both their dance and MT director in our local area. The day of the audition they spent a lot of time trying to convince her why their program matches up favorably with some of the other bigger name schools on her list. Sure enough, she got her acceptance letter that week.
Baldwin Wallace and Point Park in December. We liked both these places and were impressed with their programs. D. felt great about her Point Park audition, the dance call was really positive and they asked her for another song in her individual audition. She felt only fair about her Baldwin Wallace audition though, just not in great voice that day. And so our waiting for results began.
January ended up being a horrible month for us. My kiddo was in a show with a local fine arts school that meant we were driving to rehearsals an hour away six days a week. She was dance captain of the production and ended up with terrible shin splints for the first time in her life and spent all of her time not in rehearsal icing and limping. I totaled our car on the way to rehearsal one night in bad weather (no one hurt, thankfully!). And in the end, the D.C. blizzard postponed the show - right to when we were leaving for Chicago Unifieds and they had to re-cast her part!
February brought one long audition road trip, starting with Wright State. Great experience taking a day of master classes on Friday then auditioning on Saturday. My D. had met Joe Deer the previous summer when he taught at the CCM Summer Immersion, and she liked him so much she immediately put Wright State on her list. She felt good about her audition, but also realized from the master classes that there was a LOT of amazing competition.
Con’t …
Part 2 …
Straight to Chicago Unifieds from Dayton. My D. had an interesting experience the first day there. She started developing a migraine right before it was time to go sign in for her BoCo audition - worst possible timing! Sitting there waiting for her turn she was getting sicker before the meds could kick in. Finally a few minutes before her scheduled time she knew she could never fight though this and I went and talked to the lady who was signing people in. She couldn’t have been nicer or more helpful!! She offered D a granola bar out of her own purse thinking something in her stomach might help and asked the panel inside the room if there was anything they could do. They offered to let her come back with the last group of the day, which ended up working out fine once the drugs had a chance to work and she took a short nap. My poor kid was sick enough in that moment that if they hadn’t been flexible, she would have just had to give up auditioning for BoCo, but they were completely gracious and understanding. And treated her very well when she went back, even mentioning they were glad she was feeling better and could audition for them. Then they asked questions about her resume, workshopped one of her songs and asked for another monologue too. And of course the dance call is really legit for BoCo, so that was also a strong positive for her.
Meh responses in the room from Montclair and CCM (which was disappointing since D. had gone to their summer program). Otterbein was a disaster, kiddo started singing the 32 bar cut instead of the 16 bar cut and they weren’t interested in letting her start over. But then they asked her for another monologue and asked if she’d consider acting instead. When she said no thank you they didn’t even have her dance. She felt like Syracuse and Pace went really well, with specific positive feedback from the auditioners.
Her Hartt audition was also in Chicago. That ended up being the high point of the whole audition marathon. She felt like they tested all her strongest skills in the dance call and complimented her a lot throughout (and out in the hall after the dance call), we appreciated everything they said in the info session - including that Hartt values strong academics, and they reacted very positively to her audition, asking a lot of questions about her training, resume, etc., and then asking her GPA and test scores and complimenting her on those.
We went to Michigan for an on campus audition right after we left Chicago. That went well too, with the current students running the dance call seeking D. out afterward to tell her she was great, and the audition panel there also workshopped one of her songs and asked for an additional monologue.
Finally, similarly positive experiences on campus at JMU, Shenandoah and Elon over the next two weeks - then the waiting started in earnest, but at that point we felt like there would be some good choices based on how many of the auditions went.
Then the bad news started pouring in. Due to simple bad luck in the order of notifications, my D. got EIGHT rejections in a row. Talk about a low period. I’ve mentioned this part here before - we knew competition is fierce, we knew type has a lot do with it, we never expected she’d get into every school or even a majority of them, that’s why there were 16 on her list. But given her years of success in the MT world on many different levels, including regional professional theater, nothing could have prepared us for eight rejections in a row, especially from schools she knew reacted very favorably to her in the auditions. She assumed she was seeing the writing on the wall and cried and cried and wondered if she was doing the right thing. I was nearly obsessed with checking the portals of the schools still out. Then she kind of picked herself up and looked at the options on the table. She wasn’t at all interested in WVU because of the level of dance, but Catholic is a strong program with a lot of positives. She set up a visit day when her school was on spring break and asked a lot of questions of people she knows in the program currently.
When she finally got a waitlist notice from Shenandoah we all cheered! At least it wasn’t another no, and that seemed like a win in context!
The first day of spring break came. She spent a good day at Catholic and was on the phone telling me all the positives about the program when she checked the mail and found her YES FROM HARTT, and even with a scholarship offer! Hallelujah! And this one felt especially good since it was her most positive audition experience. We called right away and set up a visit for the next week, which ended up being a super experience.
In short order she also got waitlist notices from JMU and BoCo, even despite her missing her initial audition there with a migraine. The last one we hadn’t heard from was Montclair, and we waited until April 1 to ask them, then they told us via email she wasn’t accepted.
We did a serious pro and con comparison between Hartt and Catholic. She felt like Hartt was the one for a lot of different reasons and we paid the deposit there, but we waited a few more weeks to see if she’d get an offer from BoCo. Today they contacted her and told her they might not have a final decision for a few more weeks, and she said no thank you!
In the end she had artistic acceptances from WVU, Catholic and Hartt, and waitlist notices from Shenandoah, JMU and BoCo.
Final choice: the one she felt best about all along, HARTT!
What did we learn? No one, regardless of their training, experience or skill, is guaranteed a spot in ANY of these programs. The competition is absurd, even once you’re outside the “top tier.”
“Type” can matter! Reality means some kids are facing more competition. My D. is a 5’2" blond soprano. Even being one of the strongest girls who auditions for a program out of hundreds might sound cool, but means nothing if the girls who are better than you are a similar type or have similar strengths or they’re only looking for four and ranked you fifth.
But in the end, it only takes one yes! At the start of this, we never could have imagined our kiddo belonged in Connecticut. Hartt was a program we knew nothing about. D. picked up a pamphlet at a performing arts college fair a few years back, and we added it to the list at the very end when we wanted to make sure we cast a wide enough net. But now we and she are positive it’s the right place for her.
Finally, I can’t express enough how much I’ve learned from this forum and enjoyed your stories of lessons, struggles and successes! You all provided a serious sanity check at several points along the way!! My sincere best wishes for all your families!!