<p>He’s made his decision. </p>
<p>[After</a> ‘Much Shouting, Apologizing for the Shouting, Then Shouting Again,’ a Decision - NYTimes.com](<a href=“http://thechoice.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/04/02/cherry-creek-avery-diubaldo-4/]After”>After 'Much Shouting, Apologizing for the Shouting, Then Shouting Again,' a Decision - The New York Times)</p>
<p>Note to self: have D start a blog in the Times next year. </p>
<p>He seems like a wonderful young man, but acceptance into 7 of 9 auditioned programs is something pretty amazing!</p>
<p>Actually he was only accepted into 6 - Syracuse only accepted him if he majors in something else, and USC suggested the BA rather than the BFA (which is a great option, but he seemed to think it was a put-down).</p>
<p>I thought this was all very fun, but actually this last installment confused me. When he described why he decided against schools, his reasons suggested that he shouldn’t have applied in the first place, as if he had never actually researched the schools. And I was curious at his comment that he didn’t want to go to Miami because he didn’t want to spend “three quarters” of his time doing theatre. Um, that’s what BFAs are, in fact, that’s what makes my D’s BFA options “better,” in her opinion. I know that some kids want more liberal arts sometimes, but the way he tells the story of his decision, I almost wonder why he had so many BFAs on his list.</p>
<p>I have a bit of a problem with people who say they’re deciding against schools because there’s something empirically wrong with the school, not just that it isn’t right for them personally.</p>
<p>But, it’s his life, and he seems to be able to get what he wants in the end.</p>
<p>Emmy, I had the same reaction as you did. Many of his comments would lead one to believe that he hadn’t done as much research as should have in developing his list of schools. </p>
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<p>Me, too. I think it’s great when kids are excited about their school but it’s annoying, and a mistake, in my opinion, to denigrate aspects of other programs, especially in such a public way, while celebrating your decision.</p>
<p>Never heard of the little creep until this thread. The writing on his blog looks too polished for a hs senior’s, IMHO. </p>
<p>And I count five BFA acceptances, if you can even believe him. Which I don’t.</p>
<p>He makes my skin crawl…</p>
<p>My grandmother, the queen of the malaprop, would say “He makes my teeth crawl…”</p>
<p>Apparently it was common among educated women around the turn of the 20th Century to use mistaken expressions like this to “hide” their intelligence.</p>
<p>She also said, “Dead as a doorknob,” and “Your room is so messy, it looks like a volcano struck it.”</p>
<p>His glib dismissal of those schools seems peculiar, but the tone may be an artifact of his having to squeeze a lot of information into a small column. Also, the column is surely edited by the Times editor. I understand why nalajen finds his writing perhaps suspiciously polished, but I teach creative writing seminars, fiction and cnf to college kids not much older than him at a college in the ballpark of the schools he’s aimed for, and I have a number of very articulate students who can write with similar style and polish. </p>
<p>Last year while standing in line for the obligatory camp nurse check-in at Stagedoor I got into a conversation with a woman who was there with her (turned out to be, from my own daughter’s description later, extravagantly talented 9 year old daughter.) The mom told me they were from the Cherry Creek area in Denver, which pricked my interest because we lived in that area of Denver for a year while my husband did a fellowship and I have always wondered what our kids’ lives would be like if we had stayed. The mom told me that there is an excellent drama culture there and that one of the recent seniors (class of '10) had been accepted to Juilliard for drama. I just mention this in passing because it sounds as if Avery may have come from an excellent high school background.</p>
<p>…and I feel kind of guilty for being snarky…no doubt just the anxiety of one whose kid is about to go through the wringer. It was very hard to tell much about him from the blog, and heaven knows some great candidates do get into most of the programs they apply to. So maybe he comes from a great background and was a great candidate.</p>
<p>I LOVE “He makes my teeth crawl”</p>
<p>I loved this guy until this last post. I did not like how snarky he was about the schools he didn’t choose. He was pretty lucky, though, because he didn’t have a non-auditioned safety, so I guess it wasn’t a good example for people to emulate! </p>
<p>I would imagine that this writing was his own (and would hope it was!), but it does make you wonder about this whole college admissions process if someone that articulate gets rejected. What a rat race it has become!</p>
<p>Hmm. Sounds like he had very good HS GPA/stats, has academically prestige-aware peers in his suburban HS, and chose… the school that has the most academic cachet. Not resoundingly well-thought decision, imho. The tip-off for me was the way he dissed Miami (a very fine school, although ranked around 50 on USN&WR) while eyes lit up over U Mich (also fine school–but public, huge, and–oh yes–ranked 20 or so spots higher). I mean–really? For a kid who loves theatre, he ultimately turned his nose up to many of the wonderful audition programs that accepted him. And I agree with EmmyBet (as usual), that if he objected to spending 3/4 of class time in theatre classes–why all the BFA auditions?</p>
<p>I think teens really have every right to make whatever college decision they wish–for no other reason than it feels right to them. But I have a little feeling that this is the least wonderful reason (perceived academic prestige). Sigh.</p>
<p>I thought U Mich is a BFA.</p>
<p>You can’t tell from the article - he implies that he got into the BFA, but then you wonder if maybe he’s doing the BA in Theatre and Drama, or the Bachelor of Theatre Arts from the way he’s talking.</p>
<p>I also suspect that what he wanted was the most prestigious school, period. And his comments about financial aid and tightening their belts sound coy and offensive to kids who really can’t afford schools.</p>
<p>This makes the whole series fall flat to me. That’s too bad.</p>
<p>I still think the whole thing is a ■■■■■, sorry.</p>
<p>Glassharmonica, my D went to Stagedoor Manor (last 2 sessions) in 2008; French Woods in 2007 and 2008. Any chance our kids overlapped?</p>
<p>My daughter was at Stagedoor in 2009 and 2010, first session only-- it is almost a small world!</p>
<p>I’ve enjoyed reading his posts and the fact that this series put the spotlight on the audition process our kids have been going through which is different from the regular college process.</p>
<p>I do think he is legit. I am assuming the NYT vetted him and has access to the acceptances for him and the others in this series. You can see all his posts here: [Avery</a> DiUbaldo - The Choice Blog - NYTimes.com](<a href=“http://thechoice.blogs.nytimes.com/author/avery-diubaldo/]Avery”>Avery DiUbaldo - The Choice Blog - The New York Times) </p>
<p>And I think the writing is his own; there’s a consistent personality. I also think its not at all unusual that a high stats male would have this level of success. We know another kid getting similar acceptances. I am curious as to whether his participation in this blog affected his outcomes.</p>
<p>I think it can be hard for kids to explain the weird array of acceptances and rejections they get. I know even I have trouble explaining it in a way that doesn’t sound artificial or like I am making excuses or justifications. I am guessing this is a kid who has pretty high expectations for himself and comes from a community that shares those expectations. And he had write within the constraints of a blog post for publication. So he has constructed this shorthand storyline for the outcome. I guess I feel more tolerant of him than others. </p>
<p>I think a lot of kids probably have somewhat shallow or odd sounding reasons for their decisions. I liked having a peek into another kids thought process. It probably wasn’t wise for him to diss other schools but its nothing that rattles my cage.</p>
<p>And as a mother of a kid who went into this desiring a BFA but when faced with the realities of her options will probably choose a BA, I can sympathize with him. She’s also a kid who wants strong liberal arts so I can relate to him.</p>
<p>In a way, he suffered disappointment just as many of our kids have. My guess is that he figured landing a blog at the NYT would make him really attractive to Yale or Northwestern, which were probably his top choices given that he doesn’t really seem to keen on restrictive BFA program. Didn’t he apply to Yale EA? He probably was disappointed by those rejections as anyone who applied would be.</p>
<p>Interesting that in the end, he chose Michigan because it allow him to get a dual degree while studying acting and had a long discussion with his parents about whether he should turn down the offer of money from Miami for the more expensive school. But Michigan’s web site itself says most kids take five years to double major (yes, it is possible with the BFA in performance) but it makes it a year more expensive than Miami. I wonder if he raised that subject during the discussion or whether, as one poster said, the financial discussion was just thrown in to placate some of his readers. </p>
<p>It does sound like he applied for schools in a rather haphazard manner. He gets into Emerson and then decides its too artsy? Thinks NYU is an actor mill? Where was some counseling when he was making his prospective college list? I feel like my son gets some odd looks because he didn’t audition for those programs, but he didn’t precisely because he knew, by visiting a few colleges that wanted a school with a real college feel – the football games, quads, the a capella groups, etc. – in addition to a quality acting program. Seems to me avery could have saved his parents some money beforehand by not auditioning for programs that really didn’t appeal to him. </p>
<p>I think it helps to remember that he’s young and kids change their minds minute-by-minute. He had a lot of options and chose a school that offers him a broad range of choices.</p>
<p>I know it’s hard to read about a kid who doesn’t seem to appreciate that he was accepted at five BFA programs. Thankfully, there are many successful actors who never earned BFAs. There are so many paths for our kids to succeed in this business!</p>
<p>I seriously doubt that Avery “doesn’t appreciate” his incredible luck in being accepted to five different programs. In such a short post, I can imagine that it would be difficult to explain the in-depth reasons behind every college choice. Would he really have applied to NYU, or to Emerson, or to Ithaca, if he truly wouldn’t have been happy attending? I doubt it. However, fortune granted him the opportunity to choose between five wonderful schools, and he narrowed them down as well as he could. His dismissals of some of these colleges may seem flippant or uncaring, but that tone, as mentioned earlier, may very well be the result of having to boil down hours of careful deliberating into a single 700 word blog entry. He was allowed, more or less, his top pick of schools, so he chose the school that seemed best for him. He doesn’t seem to be saying that Emerson is a bad school for everyone, or that Ithaca isn’t worth attending–after auditioning and doing some more research, they just don’t seem as appealing to him as UMich. He seems fully aware of the financial burden he’s placing on his family, although it certainly seems that they’ll be able to afford it. </p>
<p>Accusations of the kid “being a creep,” or falsifying his success, or even recruiting someone else to write his posts for him, are absolutely ridiculous, as are claims that he somehow sought out his position in the NYTimes as a means of getting into Yale and Northwestern. If you were to read his earlier posts, you’d see that his applications to these schools were already in the mail long before he began writing for the Times. </p>
<p>It’s frankly a bit saddening to see others try to tear down some seventeen year old kid because they found his “tone” (an amorphous and subjective thing) to be mildly offensive, or (gasp!) “ungrateful,” whatever that means. Frankly, I’d expect a bit more from a group of people who have been through (or are about to go through) the same rigorous and stressful application process as he did.</p>
<p>Thomasfields: I have been feeling the same way as I have read this thread this morning and have been contemplating writing a response. I could not have said it as well as you just expressed, so thank you for posting this response! My thoughts exactly!!</p>
<p>I agree… (and I’m sort of afraid I started it too!) All theater kids apply to a wide range of schools–why?–because they’re all too likely to only get into one place, at which point the fear of “actor mills” etc., dissolves. And anyone deciding between colleges is going to find things to dislike about the ones they decide against! If rank is part of his decision-- well, he’s joining the majority of kids who will go to college in any year. </p>
<p>I do wonder if his great results don’t have something to do with the programs’ interest in self-promotion… but since the NYT never mentioned any of his theater background or audition, I have no way to guess. But the point of a blog is to give honest commentary and that’s exactly what he did. More power to him.</p>
<p>I didn’t intend to criticize (he’s a kid who put himself out there, so good for him!) so i hope my post didn’t read that way. Just pointing out that he’s had his share of disappointments and has made the same mistakes along the way (and changed his mind as well) just like most of our kids. And he’s had to weigh the same decisions, which, of course, is the point of the blog, right?</p>
<p>Michigan is a great choice for someone seeking both a broad education and an excellent theater program. Oddly, in our journey this year, I’ve done a fair share of defending Michigan to people who can’t quite fathom how a school of its size with roughly a 50 percent admission rate (not the theater program, of course) can be so highly ranked.</p>
<p>The whole ranking thing is rankling. :)</p>