@hfstt201 I take it you are from a warm weather climate? Ha ha. We live in florida and DS is headed to Ohio along with several California kids and Texas kids. I am sure they will all figure out how to stay warm. Congrats!!
@hfstt201 I’ve already told you this, but I (selfishly) love a Viterbo ending! The program changed and grew (for the better) so much over my 4 years there, and I can’t wait to see how that upward trend continues with your D’s class.
Congratulations @hfstt201! Viterbo and La Crosse are both terrific!
@hfstt201 great story and such good advice about dance classes! We have the same issue that all the dance classes are during rehearsals - I am emailing our local dance studios now. Congratulations to your daughter!
@hfstt201 Congratulations on the decision and your D’s perseverance! My S loved his Viterbo walk-in audition at unifieds too. Such a pleasant man!
Congratulations @hfstt201 !
So excited to finally be doing this!!!
Programs Applied to: Rider, Montclair State, Point Park, Cornish, Roosevelt, Viterbo, Ohio Northern, Western Michigan, Millikin, TCU, Oklahoma City, BW, Kent State, Texas State, Elon, Penn State
Prescreens: passed TCU and Millikin; rejected from TXST, Penn State, and Elon
Academically accepted to: all that sent out decisions separately from artistic decisions. Didn’t apply for Cornish after audition - it was a walk-in.
Artistically accepted to: OKCU (redirect acting), Millikin (redirect acting), U of Northern Colorado (BA MT)
Rejected from: all others… that wasn’t fun
Wait-listed at: none
Coach: Not one specifically for college, but I have had a voice lesson coach since age 8 and added more classically based lessons this year through my school.
Summer Programs: Dallas Summer Musicals College Prep Workshop (highly recommend!! Mock auditioning constantly for all the schools that were there helped me learn to control the nerves)
Auditions: on campus - Kent State, BW, OKCU, TCU, and Roosevelt; all others were at Chicago Unifieds. I did the North Texas Drama Auditions and Thespian Convention auditions as well - the only acceptance that came from those that I ended up considering was UNCO. I would definitely suggest auditioning for your dream schools in the spring. OKCU was my second favorite school and my first audition, and I wasn’t used to the audition process yet, so that audition didn’t go as well as I’d hoped. I would also suggest doing as many walk-ins at Unifieds as possible, even if you’re not really interested in the school! I tried to do one at the beginning of every day, and it helped to calm nerves since I wasn’t stressed about an acceptance.
Background: I began doing musical theatre through a local program when I was 6, and it’s kind of just always been the idea that I would continue to do it, so I don’t know when I really decided I would pursue it. My school isn’t a PA school, but has a great theatre department and a great choir department. I’ve been super fortunate to land a lot of lead roles in the past few years, which admittedly made me expect to get more acceptances than I got. Acting is my strongest area, then singing with dancing at a close third. I’m definitely not a belter, which is frustrating sometimes because I feel like that’s all that colleges are looking for. Being the typical petite blonde soprano can be really frustrating!!
Making the decision: Although I got accepted into a couple great programs, I didn’t actually get accepted into any program I auditioned for which was HARD (Millikin and OKCU were redirects and UNCO was part of a mass audition). I ruled out OKCU because I knew that if I went into an acting program, I would still want to take dance classes and voice lessons, and their dance program is really great which makes it hard to take dance classes if it’s not within your major because spots fill up.
I visited UNCO and Millikin this past weekend and really loved both of them. UNCO is an MT program but Millikin is more rigorous. I made a pros and cons list for each school based on things that I was looking for in a program.
Final Decision: Millikin BFA Acting!!!
When I made my list, there were just so many more pros than cons, and for UNCO it was about even. I loved how many performance opportunities there were, the student-teacher relationships, and that the school is investing in a new School of Theatre and Dance building. Everyone there is so nice and the campus is beautiful!!! So so so excited to spend the next 4 years there!!!
Congrats @mtkid01 !!!
So nice to hear from the student!!
CONGRATULATIONS @mtkid01 ! Time to put auditions behind you (not easy) and focus on excelling at Millikin! I am sure you will and I am so happy you landed in a great program.
Congrats @mtkid01 !
Congrats @mtkid01! Millikin is a great school! Thanks for sharing your story!
@mtkid01 Congratulations on your decision! No doubt you will go far, as your perseverance is wonderful to see!!
It’s that time! After being here on CC for years to say that this is surreal is an understatement….
Background: D began dance classes as well as a local after-school theater program in kindergarten. She immediately took to the stage and continued to do tap, ballet and jazz along with local theater throughout elementary school.
In 8th grade, having gotten many lead roles under her belt, she wanted to take her dance training to the next level and we began the Children’s & Teen’s program at Broadway Dance Center in NYC. Her dedication to both her dance and theater endeavors brought the realization that this was what she was most passionate about and wanted to pursue professionally.
In 10th grade she transferred from our local high school to a Performing Arts school. Unfortunately that school was over 200 miles away so she boards there. Having her leave at the age of 14 was bittersweet. Seeing her immersed in her art was great, but we never expected that she would fly the coup that early.
We did some college tours over the summers of 10th and 11th grade. She also did the Pace summer scholars program in 10th grade and the Penn State MT intensive over the summer of 11th grade. These programs in addition to some tours that we managed to fit in when convenient enabled her to get an idea of what type of school setting she thought she preferred. We came to realize that she would likely thrive in a smaller setting (although didn’t rule out all the large schools….Penn State & Michigan were still on the table) and she also realized that she thought she preferred an actual college to a conservatory, yet still applied to a few conservatory programs b/c she just was not 100% sure.
In hindsight it would have been smart to really hone in on the type of school that she wanted before applying to 24 of them and being so scattered about it. Honestly we were motivated out of the fear that she would get shut out and face a gap year so we decided to cast a very wide net.
We decided to audition at both NY and Chicago Unifieds…. with some on-campus auditions thrown in. Again, in retrospect I would not have agreed to ANY on-campus auditions that did not need to happen. Elon & NYU of course we needed to do on-campus but there was literally no reason whatsoever to trek to PSU or UMich. I think my daughter felt it would give her some kind of advantage to spend the day there, do the big formal school spiel, etc. – but it turns out she did much better with the Unified Audition format – where she was just banging them out one after the other and running on pure adrenaline. The downside is that not all programs even had their directors at Unifieds and she felt that ultimately it was best to audition for the program heads. However many of them were at Unifieds, so that was good.
Headshots were done and Pre-screens were filmed over the summer, and on August 1st she was working on the apps. Everything was submitted by the end of September which was impressive considering the sheer number of essays and the fact that she was well into production for her school’s fall musical.
Schools applied to:
Coastal Carolina, Elon, Hartt School, Ithaca, Montclair, NYU Tisch, Pace, Penn State, Point Park, Rider, Roosevelt, Shenandoah, SUNY Fredonia, Temple, University of Michican, CCM, UArts, Western CT, Wright State.
Non-audition safeties: Columbia College of Chicago & Muhlenberg
Prescreens passed: Coastal Carolina, Ithaca, Pace, Rider, Shenandoah, Temple, Montclair, Point Park, Elon, Penn State, University of Michigan (all but one).
Prescreen not passed: Emerson (gotta say I was kinda scratching my head over this one considering she passed eleven others)
Walk-ins at Unifieds, followed by applications afterwards at suggestion of auditors: UMiami, Viterbo and University of Utah
Withdrew applications and did not audition at Wright State nor Fredonia after some early acceptances.
Admitted academically to all that offered separate admission, with a very attractive scholarship to Muhlenberg that I must admit made me ask “are you sure you need that BFA?”
I really wish all schools would just combine the artistic and academic admit so that we would not be relentlessly marketed to long after a decline of offer to the BFA program. So irritating to have schools harassing you to “put down your deposit today!” when you weren’t even accepted to your intended major!
Accepted artistically (BFA MT) at: Viterbo, UArts, Hartt, Rider, Western CT and U of Utah: no redirects thank goodness.
Waitlisted at: NYU Tisch & Coastal Carolina
Visited all accepted schools except Viterbo (determined the remote location was a dealbreaker) and Columbia Chicago (had BFA acceptances already and that was one of her safeties).
Released UArts fairly early… she adored Katie Donovan in the audition room but ultimately realized she wanted a true campus experience rather than an urban conservatory and figured she will have the rest of her life to live in a city.
Visit to Western CT brought many tears b/c she adored the faculty, MT kids and facilities (and Mama adored the full scholarship) but she ultimately did not feel that the program was challenging enough (dance is not even leveled there which was pretty much a dealbreaker). She had a lot of trouble turning this program down though b/c her shadow day was lovely in many ways and the kids made her feel so welcome.
Visit to Hartt and Rider both went really well – she felt she could be challenged at both schools and that she would fit in well at either. She preferred the Rider campus and appreciates that the arts facilities are integrated into the main campus and not on a satellite campus or in an off-campus performing arts center (as they are at both Hartt and Western CT). Rider had given us better scholarship money as well, bringing the net cost down to a significantly lower amount than Hartt’s. D felt that she vibed really well with Robin Lewis and she wanted to work with him, and Rider had actually accepted her in the room at Chicago Unifieds. It’s nice to feel wanted!
However the visit to Rider was the first of her BFA visits, and it’s not like she had the “A-HA!” revelation that she belonged there the moment she stepped foot on campus. It was more like a “I can totally see myself happy here and I would LOVE to work with Robin Lewis for four years”. As she toured the other schools she was certainly comparing them all to Rider though, and while there were pros and cons to all of the programs the only one she ultimately felt would meet her needs was Rider. She is excited to be relatively close to home, in a school that really values dance and has a strong dance component to the program, on a smaller campus with the arts facilities integrated into the main campus and close enough to NYC that they will enjoy fabulous networking opportunities via Monday night masterclasses, faculty-facilitated summer stock auditions and a senior showcase. So the only thing left to say is GO BRONCS!!!
Thank you to everyone for your support and for the friendships we’ve forged I will be forever thankful. I really have appreciated having my CC network over the last few years!!
Congrats @El-Cee- Rider is a wonderful school! Question about West Conn: was it a theatre scholarship or academic scholarship? We are looking at the finances for that school. I bet you are glad it’s over!!!
@MTdreamin. It was a full academic scholarship. She had a 1440 SAT and 3.7 unweighted GPA if that helps. I’m not sure what their benchmarks are but the room and board is so cheap that she could have gone to West CT for a fraction of the other schools. It was a disappointment to turn down especially b/c the kids were all fantastic and the faculty is illustrious. But she did not want to be on a satellite campus and was concerned that she would not be challenged enough there, both artistically and academically.
Thanks @El-Cee! That helps a lot. I’m so glad your D found her place! My D is still in the midst of the decision process. We have plenty of time, right? May 1st is still 7 days away-LOL!!
Congrats to you and your D @El-Cee . Glad she found her fit in Rider and that she will be nearby.
Way2Go @mtkid01 on your decision as well. Best of luck at Milliken. My D loved the DSM Audition workshop as well, but I have heard they aren’t doing it this year.
@El-Cee congrats! So happy she found the best fit for her.
@El-Cee Wahooo!!! Pop the cork and celebrate! Congratulations! So glad she found her fit.
Congratulations @mtkid01!