How about using a match system?

College Majors Musical Theater Majors
1

<p>I suspect many people are now confirming choices, meaning that some on wait lists will now be faced with the difficult decision of making a choice on where they will spend their next 4 years in the space of just a few days. I know my D just got a call offering her a spot from a program where she was wait listed, and although she had already accepted elsewhere I can’t help but think this process doesn’t work well for either the student or the programs.</p>

<p>I would suggest that MT programs move towards a match system for placing students. We do this for our medical students applying for residencies. For MT, students would audition, and afterwards rank their schools in order of preference. Each program then comes up with a ranked list of the students who have applied/auditioned, and all data goes into a computer which complies a list of schools and what students are matched to that program. You then have what for med students we call Match Day, and all students are given an envelope stating what program they are matched to. If there is no match, then there are always programs that have another spot or two open (or in the case of MT programs, you could then contact schools to be enrolled in BA theater or the like). </p>

<p>This system would avoid this last minute wait list stuff, and students may more likely match to programs where their talent level fits a program suited for their future development.</p>

2

<p>I would love to see some sort of system for this, even if many will say - you can’t do this due to the variables. I know we are late in turning back offers. We had to see them all, had to weigh the money -and in the end, use the offers from other schools for wiggle room with our final choice. So, there might be kids who get that offer as a result of my D dropping out of the pool. ANd she may get the offer from her wait list as well. UGH. I like your idea jeffandann. But it still won’t address the kids who get an offer from 5 or 6 top choices, will it? I am not sure every kid could rank their choices that easily - and perhaps we are among them. Still, intriguing!</p>

3

<p>prntsome - It will address the kids that got an offer from 5 or 6 - because they wouldn’t anymore. They are matched with one school. So the ranking up front is critical. I have friends who have spent hours and hours and days agonizing over their rank order for their residency - because it really is so critical. You have to be OK with everyone you put on your list and where you put them.</p>

<p>jeffandann - The problem with a match system is that the financial side - COA, scholarships, grants, aid, etc - play such a big part in the final decision - so to have a match system - all aid packages would need to be out before the applicant could rank their choices and the matching is done. But then that would require schools to give the packages to pretty much everyone that applied that they were even remotely interested in. It sounds like a good idea - but I don’t think the logistics behind it would work.</p>

4

<p>I think you could work the financial side and have this work. I know my D had academic acceptances and financial offers long before now. And it would be something to factor into you rankings.</p>

5

<p>I’m confused. Who would do the matching? Are you saying people would not audition for 12 schools, anymore? Well, what if they don’t get into a top choice and end up with 3 mid-level acceptances that they would not consider a match but for the fact that’s all there is? And, yeah, the financial package is a big deal and really variable. I’m just confused. What problem would this solve? </p>

<p>Getting off a wait list late is not a horrible problem. You can go or not go. Still confused.</p>

6

<p>In the respect of having to weigh options and having to deal with deferrals, waitlists and the like, I don’t think the MT admissions process is all that different than regular undergraduate admissions. It is different than the regular process in other ways (ie., audition to get in, highly competitive, etc.), but having to wait and all this other stuff at this juncture is similar to those who have applied to selective BA schools for other majors too.</p>

7

<p>One thing that would not work is for students who have chosen to apply to both BFA and BA schools. I have had advisees in the past who were uncertain which degree they wanted and so applied to some of each and decided in the spring of senior year. I also have had some who applied to both VP and MT programs and decided later in the process which direction to go into. I have seen some kids not sure if they want Acting or MT too and decide later in senior year. In this regard, a senior in HS may need more time to figure out the kind of school or program to attend. For medical students, this “matching” system is for once they already have the medical degree and are merely being placed in their residencies (internships basically, not their schooling).</p>

8

<p>^^^All good points. Come to think of it, several of my D’s friends are AGONIZING over their choices and they are considering LA schools, not theatre/music majors that required the audition. I just wish there was a way to make this easier. Sigh.</p>

9

<p>I’ve had the same thought–there’s a lot about the “match” type process that’s appealing. On the other hand, the existing process, painful though it can be, can also really function as a rite of passage and a source of personal discovery and growth for the kid. They do need to learn to make tough choices. From a different viewpoint, I question whether it’d be possible for schools to figure in “type”–what if they don’t have any character actors or the oft-cited petite blonde soprano in the mix? And I would echo Soozie’s point that kids do grow and change in their senior year of high school and need to allow for that by giving themselves some different options. The financial issue is also important; there’s a big difference between “matching” for a program you’re PAYING for vs. a program that pays you (as a residency does). I definitely get what you’re going after, though–it’s interesting to think that there could be other ways to navigate this process!</p>

10

<p>I totally DO understand wanting the process to be less complicated, time consuming, tiring, etc… but a matching system is probably not the answer. I am pretty sure that schools would never go for it anyway. As others have said this is undergraduate college admissions, not graduate school, internships, nor professional sports. Most undergraduate programs are a part of a university that is admitting students to many different majors and programs. </p>

<p>I cannot speak for all, but from this program’s perspective things ARE interesting right now… we are a small program who accepts few to yield an incoming class of fewer. We have heard back from 2/3s, who are split evenly between yes and no, and are now waiting on the final 1/3… depending on how the next week goes we will decide whether or not we go to the waitlist or not… we would love to let those on the waitlist know as soon as possible (before May 1 if we can). So, at this point we are waiting on potential student decisions to know whether we will be slightly over target (like last year), slightly under target and going to the waitlist (like we did the year before), or right on target (like we were the four years before that). It is fair… we made the students wait first, and this is a major decision for them! ;)</p>

<p>A huge part of the audition process is for students to be able to get a sense of the programs, and for the programs to get a sense of the students. Students need the opportunity to weigh options, visit programs, see what program might best meet their educational goals. Schools look at each student as an individual in terms of how they may work and grow within the program. This is about so much more than simply “talent.” </p>

<p>Many students do not even visit their schools until after they are admitted. How could they rank the programs based on a 15-minute audition at a remote location? You may say “how do the schools rank students based upon a 15-minute audition?” But, it is different. We are choosing students who we think could grow in and add to a program (and their class), the student is choosing where they will spend the four years where they grown from an older child into a young adult. 20-years later most of my closest friends in the world are my friends from college. When I meet people who went to the college I went to, before or after me, I feel a small connection of shared experience with them. </p>

<p>I always agonized over decisions when I was younger… but, part of how I learned how to make decisions as an adult was the experience of going through the decision making process with adult guidance. Life is rarely black and white, is sometimes full of disappointments, and is often full of complicated choices. Students need to be afforded the opportunity to change their minds, think through the pros and cons of their options, and learn through the decision making process.</p>

11

<p>I would HATE this! I mean what if you have one bad audition day? Your chances will be ruined.</p>

12

<p>These are all great points. Although it doesn’t always feel like it, students are shopping for schools. Why shouldn’t someone have 6 acceptances and be able to make the choice in their own due time? Most of these places are not cheap. And they usually over-accept by half so that coming off a waitlist means a whole lot of people have to turn it down first. Sure, it happens. And great for you if you’re waiting and want to go. Otherwise, you feel a little better about not being rejected and move on.</p>

<p>And although people talk a lot about fit as though it’s some magical formula for who belongs where, there are more than enough plenty talented kids who would fit just fine into any number of schools but they only take a dozen and sometimes only one or two of a particular type. Kids ranking schools is likely to look like most other top ten lists, and some schools do ask students to rank them, which is pretty uncomfortable since you kinda know you’re supposed to say they are your first choice.</p>

<p>Another problem is the assumption that everyone will get in somewhere and it’ll all be fine. Many kids are not okay with BFA MT Somewhere and would do something else if given that option. I don’t know, I think Match Day could be a slaughter.</p>

13

<p>As nice as a match system seems…it could never work. My D’s list changed daily–sometimes even hourly. Also on subsequent visits she learned more about the schools and if this happened you would need to travel to all your schools and sit in on classes to help you decide. I don’t think the schools could accommodate all of that. I also have seen a growth in my daughter since this all started and what seemed important in a program evolved over time and as she visited and auditioned she became more aware of what she really wanted or needed in a program. Also where would that put the dream school? knowing its a million to one shot would you forget it so more realistic schools are higher on your list-but who knows maybe that dream school would see something they want. Even though we had a lot of our merit money ahead of time we didn’t have the fafsa money and grants or the extra theatre scholarships. Without knowing those we could not have made a decision.</p>

14

<p>It sounds good in theory, but I can’t see how it would work. We did not visit schools until after my D was admitted, as we were too limited by cost. Also, my D would never have even listed the school she is attending due to cost- everything we had read said they offered little financial incentive, and we could not have afforded the program without it. We were very surprised by their very generous offer, and it ended up being the deciding factor between her final choice and her 2nd choice. They also upped their offer when she told them she was trying to decide between the two, and would never have done so if she had been placed in their program as the result of a matching system, and had not had that 2nd school as “leverage” (although we definitely were not using that 2nd choice as leverage at the time- she was truly torn between the two, and only mentioned that when her 1st choice asked what they could do to sway her).</p>

15

<p>I love this! My husband is the director of a residency so I am very familiar with the “match” process. I think it would make a lot of sense for programs like this to implement.</p>

16

<p>So jeffandan, correct me if I’m wrong, but you’re saying that you could design a computer program which would determine, based on a 10 - 15 minute process which would include student and profs choices, which one MT program at one college would be the best for both the student and college? Really? Would this program include financial requirements? Parent choice versus student choice? Academic ability for those programs where that is necessary?</p>

<p>You believe it would be in everyone’s best interest to have to decide pretty blindly and quickly without knowing whether they’ve been accepted or not? Without having students visit the colleges and meet other students and get a feel for the school? Or would you propose students visit all their possible choices in advance of auditioning? All this to expedite a process that, in reality, is a blip of time in their lives? You’re talking at most maybe eight months. (Worst case scenario, should they audition early in the fall for ED or EA and then be deferred and then waitlisted and finally admitted in late summer.)</p>

<p>This would have been a disaster for my daughter and others who made totally different decisions from their original ones come April 30. All this because why? It’s too stressful for a kid to have to change their mind when coming off a waitlist? Then reject all waitlists and go with where you’ve been admitted. Life is full of stressful decisions, and this field in particular is very stressful. It’s a growing process and you’ll find this to just be the start of a long list of stressful situations.</p>

<p>Give it a year or two and you’ll hardly remember this brief period of time.</p>

17

<p>AMTC, I certainly am not stressing out over this as my D was fortunate enough to be accepted to one of the schools of her choice. But just this week she was offered a spot off the wait list for another program, and it struck me that somewhere out there there is another girl that may not have been accepted that is still hoping for that spot who is anxiously awaiting these decisions. And it just seemed to me there may be a better way. This has generated a lot of comments, and I can see how it would be more difficult in the MT world to do this. But let me address some of the issues that have been brought up.</p>

<p>As to whether a computer program could be used to generate a matched list of students and programs, the answer is yes. Because that is currently done for residency programs across the country right now, and I believe could be easily adapted to the MT world. The program would not have included within it financials, etc; that is something parents and students need to consider when putting their list together (see below). All the program does is to take each student’s ranked list of schools and match them against corresponding lists from the schools. So if a school has a child ranked #1 and the child ranks that school #1 on his or her list, that’s a match. Believe me, they’ve done this for residency programs for years and it works like a charm.</p>

<p>As for the financial part of things, visits, etc, what a match program would involve is groundwork on the part of prospective students as to what programs might be a good match for them. Students and their parents would have to make a realistic assessment of their academics relative to a school’s general admission policies, they would have to research merit based scholarship opportunities and see how much they could realistically get in aid, and whether that would knock some schools off their list (for example, we didn’t even consider U Michigan because of the lack of out of state scholarships). It seems pointless to me to send out vast arrays of applications to programs where you know you will not be able to meet their academic standards, or where the parents know they will not be able to afford to send a child. I know we received a lot of financial information and merit scholarship offers in advance of many of her auditions. So the financial aspects of such a match seem relatively easy to deal with. </p>

<p>The big differences between a residency match, and trying it for MT, would be that there are subjective criteria for MT (auditions) that are not as prevalent in residency matches, and the Unified auditions. Here’s what I would suggest for each of these issues. I think for the benefit of students and schools alike it would be very helpful to have all school use pre-screen videos. By using pre-screens it would narrow down the overall applicant pool and the specific applicant pool for a given institution. So let’s say a student sends pre-screens to ten schools and is not then offered an on site audition/interview. While that would be sad, it would allow that student to pursue other options such as a BA Theater track. I would suggest a pre-screen cutoff in November so that decisions on who would be a potential match for a given institution could be made. By doing this it would make a more manageable list of schools for prospective students, and allow students to more easily visit schools for auditions, as opposed to the current status where I’ve seen some folks audition at Unifieds for 15-20 schools. No one unless you’re independently wealthy and have a lot of time on your hands can visit that many schools. I am not proposing that such a system eliminate visiting campuses to get a feel for the program, etc. Quite the opposite. My idea is targeted at making that easier to do, because you would know what programs have an interest up front.</p>

<p>Now as to whether making a match based on a 10-15 minute audition would be appropriate, I would submit that it would be no different than what is being done right now. That is how decisions are made in the current environment. And from the school’s perspective, they are making a priority list anyway; in my system they’d put that on the computer and it would be matched against student’s lists. </p>

<p>So if you do pre-screens by November, you’d have data on what programs want to audition you by the first of the year. Then you could do auditions, meet with faculty, visit schools if you like (and again, if this works the way I think then the total list would be more manageable), and have students and program directors submit their rank list by end of March. Two weeks later you could have your match day, and that gives two weeks for acceptances, or if programs aren’t filled for some reason (seems highly doubtful given the number of applicants vs. programs), then programs could contact students that just missed placement (the current wait list) to try and fill spots. So all would be done by the May 1 cutoff.</p>

<p>I know there would have to be tweaks to such a system, but it would eliminate the wait list stuff going on where some kids don’t know where they may be going till after May 1 and may have to make a very rapid decision. It would give both student and school more time for careful consideration (although I saw one MT program director on here with arguments against this which I appreciate and understand) and if done correctly would I think give each program and student the best possible choices. Would it completely eliminate the stresses of this process? No, not when you’re having to travel and do auditions, etc, etc. But if done correctly I think it could offer advantages over the current system. Maybe when my D becomes a professor!</p>

18

<p>Maybe I’m missing something but wait lists seem like the least of the problems with this process. I was wait-listed at one school and turned it down immediately but if it had been my top choice I still don’t get why that would be a big problem.</p>

<p>And how could a computer possibly make decisions based on auditions? Auditors don’t even agree. Also, BA’s are not just a fallback for people who don’t get in to BFA’s. I prefer several BA’s to dozens of BFA’s. USC. UCI. UCLA. Northwestern, And many more beat scores of BFA’s for lots of student actors. The current system stinks but this idea is worse IMHO.</p>

19

<p>Obviously this is a stressful time for all high school seniors (probably more so for the parents!). We know quite a few kids in somewhat similar situations. They are on several wait lists for highly selective academic schools, Ivy League, WashU, Vanderbilt, Duke, Chicago, Northwestern, ect…and a few kids that have acceptances to several of these selective schools, but have yet to decide. So it happens with other students as well. They too are faced with putting down a deposit at perhaps their second choice school and waiting to see if they are accepted off of the wait list from their “dream” school. I agree, a lot of personal growth happens over this time, many kids really discover themselves and thrive when faced with this challenge.</p>

20

<p>Actor, the computer is not making the decision based on auditions. The programs do the auditions as they do them now, rank students as they rank them now, and that is put into a computer to match with student’s rankings. </p>

<p>As for BA vs BFA, that would be something for students and their parents to research before entering into the entire process to begin with. My system would require more research up front by families, but that is or should be part of the general idea of applying to colleges for any major, not just MT.</p>

<p>As for wait lists, it would potentially get rid of that entirely. Again, my thought is that sitting right now on wait lists, hoping you still get a spot, may keep you from accepting an offer from another college for, say the type of BA program you have described. With my system you’re pretty much either in or out. You don’t see wait lists as a big deal. From what I’ve read here many would strongly disagree.</p>