Yes, it’s a very personal choice. D wanted strong academics as much as she wanted a good MT program. Actually, academics were probably even more important since in the end, her top two choices were NYU and Barnard. Her belief was that she was only going to be an undergraduate once and she wanted that experience to be top-notch academically. She believed that if she was in NYC at Barnard that she could cobble together excellent training by studying voice and dance privately and studying Engish and theatre at Barnard.
In the end, she decided on NYU and graduated as a VP major with minors in entertainment business and English. She is now 4 years out of school and is involved in entertainment and marketing rather than full time acting. She is going to apply to MBA programs this fall. Having an NYU degree definitely helps make her competitive for top programs.
Without really knowing what path her career would take, I am happy she graduated from a school that was a match for both her academics and talent. Other accepted schools were GW, American, Brandeis and Muhlenberg.
She also considered Skidmore, Tufts, Wesleyan, Vassar, Northwestern and University of Michigan.