How common for MT majors to go with a school that's academically less challenging?

[arwarw]

@igitur - One of the first common pieces of advice that D threw out the window when creating her school list was “first decide if you want a Conservatory, BFA or a BA”. She considered that advice, but quickly realized that following it made zero sense for her as the schools of interest to her spanned all categories, and the two most similar programs (even according to both department chairs) were Northwestern and UMich, a BA and a BFA.

Unfortunately, it was an issue of practicality for us. UMich MT has like 700 plus applicants for a mere 22 spots. I didn’t think it was practical for her/us to prep, travel, audition, etc… for just one or two MFA programs that she would very likely not have gotten in to. Had she committed to the full audition season - then yes, it would have worked for us to spread the expenses and odds across 10 or 12 schools including possibly a few uber-competitive programs like UMich, CMU and Juilliard. However, had she done that, I really think her BA search, list, selection and applications would have been compromised at least a little bit. There are only so many hours in a day.