<p>How would you factor in talent scholarships, which in our case were the difference in my D attending her program?</p>
<p>I agree this time of year is stressful and can allow for growth, but my main point is that it doesn’t have to be that stressful given there is a system that has been used with good success for more effective matching. Now, I don’t think you could do it for all majors (for example engineering would be difficult with thousands of potential students), but MT is of a size where is could be dealt with rather easily.</p>
<p>Match Day is always an interesting and fun day for med students. Most schools have parties, etc, and while it is sometimes disappointing if you don;t match to one of your top choices by and large it work pretty well for students and programs alike.</p>
<p>Takeitalin, talent scholarships would be tricky. I suppose I would research the available amounts for schools and ask about the average amount for students accepted into a program before I submitted my match list.</p>
<p>I do not understand who it is that would be doing the “matching”. Is there some uber-agency that handles all the rankings from the various schools and various applicants? I do not see that as a likely scenario - I will offer it as a topic for discussion at the next MTEA function I attend. I think the matching needs to happen on a more personal basis between the individual student and the programs he/she might be interested in attending. This is essentially what happens now. Is it the most efficient - probably not. On another aspect of this process - I am disappointed that many students do not make a campus visit until after they have been accepted. I have long been a fan of the on-campus audition. I have always held that the program is auditioning for the student as much as the student is auditioning for the program. I think campus visits are essential and should happen early in the process. This is why I favor on-campus auditions rather than mass unified processing.</p>
<p>But talent and type are a huge part of this process. They are the reason some students have 7 or eight acceptances to top programs. It’s not just filing slots with acceptably ranked bodies. Hmmmm.</p>
<p>I do like pre-screens, so you know are at least in the ballpark for acceptance. And auditioning for 15 schools sight unseen seems a little crazy. But I also don’t see waitlists as the worst part of all of this by a longshot.</p>
<p>Interesting point you made above about U of Michigan not even being on your list. We also removed some schools from D’s list due to knowing the likelihood of scholarships being minimal. However, she did apply to U of M, and we are also out of state, so even after the academic and artistic hurdles had been jumped, we had concerns as to the affordability. Turns out, when they give scholarships at U of M, they are “talent-based, need-informed”, and D ended up receiving a very generous offer that, combined with her other outside efforts/scholarships, brings this offer within our reach, which we never would have expected from what we have researched and have been told by others. There is no way to know up front how much those talent (merit) scholarships will be, as they vary from student to student at many schools, and often as the deadline approaches and there is a bidding war, the offered amount will continue to rise, if there is a particular student that a particular school really desires to have in their program! D’s struggle has been weighing out these changes and the end result was not at all what we may have anticipated if we had just called the schools to investigate their merit awards in advance. It seems that so much of this is unknown at that early point in the process, even by the schools. They may not know of all available funds early on, if they are dependent somewhat on last minute donor scholarships for their incoming students. Those things are often unpredictable. And it really IS such a personal decision - I can’t imagine D letting someone else “match” her to a school, when some of the decision is based on how well you click with the students and faculty in that program, how you feel about the campus experience, none of which a computer program could predict. It seems so impersonal to me, sorry!</p>
<p>mtdog: The way it works in residency programs is that each student applies to a given residency program. The residency programs review applications and then extend invitations for interviews (the pre-screens and general university requirements would be the equivalent here). After the interviews are completed then each program prepares a ranking list of applicants. Each applicant then after they interview prepares their rankings of the programs. All the lists are then entered into a computer data base, and the computer has an algorithm that goes down the lists and matches each student to a particular program. I’m not a computer geek, and I don’t understand the exact algorithm, but in general if a program ranks you high and you rank the program high then odds are that’s where you’ll match. And both programs and students may elect not to include a given student/program after the audition. So each side has the ability to make a match list of preferences, and thus the visit still is as important as it is now (I know my D would have changed her rankings a lot after her auditions).</p>
<p>Flossy: a match system like this does not eliminate talent and type, far from it. Each program takes that into account when preparing their list, just as it is now. All this does is simplify the process, in that you don’t have these wait lists, etc. And I will continue to disagree about the wait list being an issue; I suspect if I were on one right now waiting I’d see it as a big problem.</p>
<p>The other thing a match system would do is it would give programs an idea of how competitive you are in the field. If you are having to go down on your list to fill the class hen it shows you may have work to do to improve the perceived image of the quality of the program. And if you’re a student you really have to be willing to go to any place on your list.</p>
<p>ATLAST: the talent scholarships would be a main sticking point if done the way they are now. But I don’t think this is impersonal. My students haven’t see it as impersonal, in that they were able to visit each program, interview, get a feel for strengths and weaknesses, and then make their list accordingly. And for the vast majority they’re happy, and some aren’t (primarily because they over-reach on programs they’re not competitive for, which is the same situation I suspect for MT applicants). In your D’s case she would rank the schools she felt best about the highest, and given the number of acceptances she had I suspect she would have been very happy with the match.</p>
<p>Right! The student is the buyer in this process and the top programs cost alot. If the only problem you are trying to solve is waitlists this is not different from all college admissions. We are not supposed to be waiting around hoping to get off waitlists. If that happens with a preferred school, you reevaluate but for most people that’s not the case, anyway.</p>
<p>My D is on the waitlist for one program but has accepted at a program she loves. We have discussed with her whether if accepted at the waitlist school, what is the likelihood that she will accept them. In other words, she has thought through already what her choice will be if she hears from them. It won’t be a decision made in a mad rush, she pretty much knows what she will do.</p>
<p>How do you handle this situation when the top school(s) for auditionees appears on 16,000 applicants? (an exaggeration, of course, but don’t you think that a very large number of applicants have the same top 6-7) Take CMU for an example how does this help CMU or an applicant choose? In our case, I don’t think my S could rank his schools prior to his audition and acceptance experience. Although, happy to go to any school he applied to, there were schools that rose to the top through his interaction during auditions or when the offers came in. And as painful as it is, I would not necessarily want this decision to be easy. This is a tough career field, with a huge hit to the pocket book with great odds of little financial return (unlike med schools who graduate doctors). So why not take the time and painful steps along the way and to ensure this is IT.</p>
<p>I just can’t liken this to medical residencies. Residencies are not school. The applicant is not paying for the residency. The applicant is also much older. </p>
<p>I don’t think wait lists are as big of a deal as being made out to be here either. Wait lists exist in ALL college admissions, not just for MT! Further, most wait lists notify those on them during the month of May (only one month after the majority have sent out admissions notifications. A student who is on a wait list should never count on a wait list to come through and should weigh their acceptances and pick a school to enroll at. If a wait list school comes through a month or so later, they can deal with it then (and should consider in advance what they may do in that case) but forget about all wait list schools in the meantime and embrace the schools that have already accepted them. </p>
<p>On a personal note, my MT kid was Priority Wait listed at CMU but totally forgot about it when she sent in her intent to enroll at NYU/Tisch and considered that a done deal as she would not ever count on a wait list (not sure she would have even gone to CMU if it came through anyway). My non-MT kid had a wait list from Princeton and enrolled at Brown and never ever thought about the wait list again. </p>
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<p>I do not think one can predict the scholarship offers in advance. Need based aid…yes, somewhat. For example, my D was offered $20,000/year at NYU/Tisch and if I had used your method, I would have assumed her receiving far less. It turned out to be her highest scholarship offer. Further, U Michigan does give some out of state scholarships, such as my D’s friend got one and he was from Florida and ATLAST’s D got one too an she is from Alaska.</p>
<p>Many are making good points but are also not understanding what has been proposed. Ada, with my system you are not ranking schools prior to auditions, you are ranking them AFTER the audition process. You say there were schools that rose to the top; those would be the ones he’d rank highest. Pretty straightforward. And I would ask or suggest perhaps that those who are indicating wait lists are not a big deal may not have had the experience of kids sitting on pins and needles because they have not gotten an acceptance yet. </p>
<p>From my year or two on the board it seems like many do not like the current system. My intent was only to offer a potential alternative, which would likely need some tweaking. But the principle is the same whether it’s for a school match vs residency, whether you’re paying or getting paid: you want to match as many qualified people as possible to programs where they would feel they’d get the training required, and where the program would see them as an asset.</p>
<p>After reading all the replies I still do not see how this could work. Financially even after all our research we got a lot more from 4 schools and a lot less from a couple others. Being from Mi -I am surprised your research says UofM doesn’t give much oos scholarships because that is the exact opposite of what many of us in state people have found to be true. I don’t think there is a way to know how much you will actually get. Plus one of my D’s schools gave us more when I told them what the 4 other better scholarship offers were. If needs and merit based funds lined up with you efc then the financial could be rectified.</p>
<p>Also I do not think all the auditors from the same school would necessarily agree on their own ranking. I am guessing a couple would for their very top pick but I am guessing that when they are discussing their class each person would have them ranked in different orders-especially since this field is so subjective. That is how they get a good mix it is just not one person picking. To get all of them to agree on a class is probably hard enough otherwise they would have their decisions earlier.</p>
<p>Having observed the residency match program up close, it’s pretty nerve-wracking as well–but once it’s done, it’s done. You know where you’re going. But I think the reason it can work is that the positions are mostly fungible–there isn’t the difference in finances, for example, which I think is the biggest problem in trying to do it for an educational program.</p>
<p>But the residency match system is pretty elegant–it matches students with the programs they want most and that want them most.</p>
<p>broadway: My D was offered a pretty good scholarship from Western Michigan but not from U Mich, where the out of state tuition and fees are around 50k. And I talked with a chairman I know at U Mich and he agreed that’s the way they do it. So it would have been cost prohibitive. As I indicated above the talent based scholarships would be a sticky point in this model. As for programs having different people with different scores, I am as sure as I can be that it happens right now, and what departments do ultimately is arrive at a list of people they offer spots to after sitting down and making a list. As such, it would be the same for what I’m proposing.</p>
<p>I understand the match system for medical school works well, but I can’t see how it would work for MT. As I said before, we did not visit schools until after acceptances were in hand, as it would have been cost prohibitive. If we had limited applications based on typical talent awards, my D would not have applied to the school where she is currently enrolled. Once my D had most of her acceptances, she was able to narrow down her choices to 2 schools, but was still waiting to hear from UCLA, our local public program. One of her top choices included a generous talent award, which made it very attractive. While my D was waiting to hear from UCLA, this other school called to see what they could do to sway her to attend. She explained that she was very interested, but wanted to have all of her options before she decided. At that point, they upped their award offer and offered her a paid visit- she absolutely loved the program after the visit and was really waivering. In follow-up to the visit, she told them she was still waiting to hear, at which point they again upped their offer to a point that it was hard to refuse. She ended up accepting and has never regretted it as she absolutely loves it there. </p>
<p>My point is that if she had been using a match system, she would probably never have applied to this school due to cost, and would also have had no basis to negotiate (that was not our intent at the time, but that is basically what happened) her award. I guess in the end, I didn’t see the whole MT process as that difficult (easy to say now!). Our D came up with a well-rounded list, she applied, she did all her auditions at Unifieds (except for UCLA which is local) and waited for the results. OUr son just finished the whole process for a non-MT major, but with the added restriction of college soccer being a must, and I have to say that was way more stressful. Our oldest (twins) also applied for non-MT majors, but each had their own set of musts, and that was stressful too. Looking back, nothing was all that bad in retrospect, even though it may have seemed stressful at the time. I think that when you look back on all this in a few years, you may decide that the system works pretty well the way it is.</p>
<p>Again, I was looking at it from two perspectives. One from the standpoint of a person on the waiting lists. Two, from reading comments for the last year or so from people thinking the system can be improved. I am not saying I personally found it horrifically stressful, and my D was stressed but not overly so. But she also was judicious in her choice of schools and was fortunate to be accepted at several. Contrast that with folks who applied and auditioned at 15-20 programs and to those still on waiting lists, and there seems room to streamline the process.</p>
<p>I am sorry, but to streamline this process sounds much better to me, in theory that in reality. Has it been tough? Yup. Emotional? You bet. But this is the path of this profession. Uncertainty, rejection, acceptance…all part of the theatre world. The wait list is hardly even close to the worst part of the process.</p>
<p>I know it is hard to not know for sure, and I have heard stories of kids getting phone calls into August…but that is just part of this crazy world they love and have a deep passion of which to be a part.</p>
<p>Residency is so different and it would just not be realistic to think that you can computerize the audition process.</p>
<p>Just my opinion!!!</p>
<p>It’s a personal process. Anyone can streamline it for themselves by eliminating artistic and financial reaches. Heck, it sounds as though you did that successfully. Not everyone wants to, however. And it’s pretty difficult to determine reach, match, and safety artistically. </p>
<p>Interestingly, I think the tippy-top kid would suffer the most from this kind of system because words like typical and average don’t apply. </p>
<p>People who do 15 to 20 schools sight unseen are probably doing most of that at Unifieds, also a version of streamlining the process.</p>
<p>And if someone is really hoping to get off a waitlist wouldn’t that last minute scramble be a positive development?</p>
<p>Oh, and if the odds of success are going to be a huge factor in the decision to audition there would be no-one at open calls. I think they’re packed.</p>