@Notmath1 found this on the Marymount FAQ section
“Is there an additional cost associated with the Musical Theatre Program?
Yes. In order to deliver the Daily Dance classes and Private Voice, there is an additional fee of $1,607.00 per semester. This fee goes directly towards covering the costs of the labs. The breakdown comes to approximately $8.00 for each dance class and $60.00 per voice lesson!”
At my D’s college voice lessons are part of her MT curriculum. So no extra charge. But does have to pay piano accompanists sometimes. Depends on the MT assignment. Exact accompanist cost… I can’t recall. But that wasn’t a deal breaker. An expected cost. Pianist deserve money for their time. My point is don’t necessarily think all private MT schools will give dollars to be competitive on tuition. My D had amazing gpa & test scores. Got scholarships at all MT schools she applied too. But some schools just don’t have huge endowments. OCU’s tuition & even OU weren’t as competitive even with a generous scholarship. So apply to State School MT programs as well. Best advice. Many State School’s MT programs grant instate tuition if accepted into MT programs from out of state. Add on audition fees/ prescreen fees/ onsite audition costs then upon acceptance tuition/books/travel/living etc. bottom line is important to investigate when making your list. At least this year’s class has common prescreen application. That’s should be a small cost saver in expensive audition process.
Oh all schools varied on prescreen price. Fees at CMUs were really high vs a Montclair State. So it varied school to school our audition year. Maybe that new common prescreen application it leveled out the costs across all schools. But I’m not applying anymore so not inside the application. Break legs!
Many college programs have BFA add-on annual fees. It’s the same with Engineers - they add a premium to cover the facilities. Make sure you check the cost for the program to which your child is applying and not just the tuition for the college in general. Pace instituted a $2500 fee a semester for performing arts students, that’s the highest tuition “upcharge” I know of for that. I think you need to check the websites and also ask parents - I have heard that some programs sneak fees in rather than charge them up-front.
Other things to think about in figuring cost of college (not auditions):
Travel expenses - to and from school on breaks
Medical coverage - if your plan doesn’t cover your child at school the school may require you to buy local coverage which is several thousand.
Food - if the campus doesn’t specialize in healthy meals or if the dining plan is insufficient, the kids will go elsewhere to eat.
Housing over breaks - some campuses shut down more than others. Some students get “adopted” by local families but you can’t count on that.
Local transportation expenses - some programs (especially in NYC) have you go across town for some facilities or have dorms a subway stop away from the school.
Gym / dance / voice / music - if it’s not included as part of the curriculum, it will probably be extra.
Trips - some programs have amazing overseas opportunities …but they’re $$$
Summer programs - same as above. Several of the class of 2022 did Summer Stock this last summer which was great but it eats into the “expected earnings” column.
Most of the schools we found had hidden fees such as studio fees, accompanist fees, etc.but they were less than $1k per semester for the final acceptances we looked at. My daughter was accepted to OCU/Oklahoma City Univ and they were very generous with talent and merit scholarships bringing the total net cost per year (room, board, tuition, fees) to about $30k…of course, we would probably pay an additional $2k per year for travel; however, it was not close to $50k…my daughter had decent grades/scores but she was not eligible for the highest scholarships on their matrix.
Schools in the $70k range include NYU, BoCo and Pace.
@NYYFanNowMTdad most of the schools’ fees were pretty standard but I still had to info-dig for them. Almost all charge an accompanist fee in every voice lesson. Oklahoma City was an exception- they charge the student for nearly all their time in The Bass School. It was exorbitant. Maybe they waive it in some students- all I know is that on paper they looked affordable and when we saw the final numbers we were gobsmacked. I believe schools like Texas State and MSU are going to come into higher demand in the future. It is almost laughable to compare the costs, and unlike my law student, these kids aren’t going to come out with a 6 figure income. I am in no way bashing the quality of the high dollar schools. For example, Illinois Wesleyan has unbelievably small class sizes and magnificent facilities, so it’s apples and oranges. But we couldn’t rationalize paying for the apples ?. My advice is to really dig deep into costs and ask questions. Also I still have all my figures so you can email me!
At NYU there aren’t accompanist fees - or really any fees other than that paid with tuition (which is Plenty!) - I am pretty sure NYU isn’t the only school that is “extra charge”-free, I would generally assume that higher base tuition may also mean less nickel and diming on extras but that’s just a hunch.
I remember loving the BW for so many reasons, but one of them was the fact that they give you one number - period. It includes everything from tuition to laundry machine use. (And it was one of the most affordable schools we looked at.)
Our experience with OCU was quite different from @4Angels. We found OCU to be quite competitive as we were able to stack scholarships. So we were able to combine academic, talent and leadership scholarships to make it one of D’s most affordable options. And we did not find additional fees to be excessive.
Some other schools we looked at did not allow scholarships to be stacked (you could either take the academic $ or the talent $ but not both).
Definitely check with the financial aid offices to see if there are other funds with monies still available for which you may qualify. Every school has some funds designated to go to students with unique requirements (ethnicity, religion, community service, etc…). You just may qualify for something you aren’t even aware of. It never hurts to ask!
CMU does not charge any add-on fees (lessons, accompanist, etc) related to the drama majors.
^^^ Nor does Texas State. I honestly didn’t know this was a thing. What are you paying the tuition dollars for then?
A lot of programs have either additional fees or a “studio cost” that is an up-charge because there is added cost to support all the classes/learning needed for students in these BFA programs. I see that in the number of classes my kid attends vs. the number that show up on his transcript. He has 4-6 studio classes (dance, vocal tech, acting studios, etc.) each semester that are hidden under a single “Studio” course heading on his transcript with another 4-5 classes that encompass the academic side of his studies. Clearly his degree has more teachers, accompanists, etc. (cost) involved than the average business student’s does. (I was a business student, and I remember having 4-5 classes per semester rather than the 10-12 he’s carrying.)
Although BW has a single number for their tuition, they have two single numbers - one for conservatory students and one for non-conservatory students. The conservatory student tuition is higher. Molloy/CAP21 charges a studio fee that covers everything associated with the studio side of the student’s learning. Another school recently added that - perhaps Pace - I can’t remember which for sure. Still others charge fees by the hour rather than an overall studio fee. Personally, I like the single fee rather than a bunch of separate items. It makes it easier to understand your overall cost model.
S is now about two weeks in with classes at Coastal Carolina U, and is LOVING his experience there so far! (although we may see him sooner than planned if they get evacuated). On the hidden fee charges, we have seen none, and, non MT related, no additional costs to do laundry!
While CCU doesn’t stack certain scholarships, I believe it is one of the schools that offers instate tuition to MTs (and some other majors), if there’s no school in your state that offers the MT degree.
Good points mentioned above. Also, some schools charge per unit v. Some schools charge one price for 12-18 units and then a premium over 18. My son was a science major and we often had lab science fees as additional fees on our tuition bill. A couple of times he had 3 labs per semester. They were about $125 per lab…not a lot in comparison to overall cost, but this type of thing is not exclusive to theatre/dance/music majors.
@NYYFanNowMTdad
I remember seeing somewhere that Montclair charged for Private Voice Lessons (and Private Piano Lessons)… $1500 each (can’t remember if it was semester or year). I have paid tuition and so far haven’t seen any fees related to those things. Of course, the semester doesn’t start until next week so…
surprised to hear about IWU not offering great scholarships! I was accepted to the BFA program for c/o 2022 and got only a slightly worse financial deal than I received at the school I ended up attending (where I was given full tuition) - and that was based purely on merit (they did also offer me a need based loan) so this shocks me!
@mtmaybe she got a very generous scholarship, but our goal was to keep total costs under $30k
They are an amazing school, but very expensive.
Hi All,
Now that the students have started their programs, just wondering how it’s all going. Is the school and program what they thought it would be? Are they still happy with their choice? Any surprises?
Also, perhaps to help the 2024 class, is there any one of two things you (or your student) would change or do differently?
My S is at Coastal, and so far is thoroughly enjoying himself. His classes are what he hoped for, and he’s even enjoying his Gen Eds, more than he anticipated. The campus is still as lovely as when we visited previously, and he’s quite happy there. The downside is that he didn’t expect that he would miss home quite so much, and being 12 hours away, it’s not a quick/easy weekend visit.
As for any changes…I’m not sure I really have any, other than I wish I hadn’t stressed as much as I did. Mostly because I’m a believer of everything happens for a reason.
Great idea!
My son is a freshman BFA MT at Temple University and very happy so far!
He’s my third theatre kid and we had decided early on that we didn’t need to visit a lot of schools before applying because it’s really hard to fall in love with a school and then not get in, and the admissions stats for this major are sometimes brutal. We visited a few to get the feel for urban vs. rural, large vs. small, etc. After the admission offers were in, we contacted the departments to ask if there were opportunities to visit/shadow. Some of the schools energetically responded and some weren’t as accommodating, or after an initial conversation, let our request fall through the cracks.
Temple found a student for my son to shadow, not only to dance and acting classes, but to a GenEd as well. The student spent time talking to me too. And we spent time with three of the professors who couldn’t have been more welcoming. Before we stopped at the first rest stop on the ride home, my son had posted his decision on social media!
So the first thing is that your student should feel wanted by the department and a visit after admission is a great way to find that out. And honestly, I was surprised by the schools that weren’t as welcoming. Honestly, after all the hard work our kids do proving themselves though the audition process, the schools should be selling their programs to the kids after decisions go out.
Over the summer, the kids all found each other on social media and developed nice relationships before meeting in person. The first night of welcome week, my son sent us a pic of him with a group of the freshman MTs and they already looked like good friends. Most older kids at Temple live off campus and the first weekend, two different upperclass students invited the freshmen to their apartments to hang out and meet some of the returning students. I’m on the FB page for Temple parents (the general page, not an MT page) and my heart breaks for so many parents who post about how their freshmen aren’t making any friends and just stay in their dorms. And it’s so good to see that the MT kids jumped right in and are enjoying the college experience.
The most important thing I did twice and highly recommend—first to whittle down the unruly list of schools he could apply to, and then again after admissions decisions to narrow down the choices he might attend—was to print the curricula for each school but don’t include the name of the school, and then my son sorted and ranked the schools by what they offered, rather than just being swayed by the name and reputation (positive or negative) of each school.
I can’t wait for him to show us around his new second home on parents weekend!
@lovetoact YES! to the blind curriculum! I did that multiple times for my S, changing up the look/feel so he wouldn’t know which was which.