How did you make your list of schools?

I don’t have a lot to add here - we did much of the same type of exploration. Geographic range, ability to double major, ability to study abroad, and ability to try out for musicals/straight plays regardless of program all mattered to my S. As we continued honing the list, other things became apparent:

  1. We wanted a “balanced” list - schools that were super “reachy” felt like throwing spaghetti against a wall but were worth applying to if they fit the criteria (and he probably applied to too many of those, in retrospect).

  2. S defined himself as “actor first, singer second, dancer distant third” and with that in mind we looked for programs that were going to give him solid MT training but really gave him a good grounding in acting all semesters (and with 20/20 hindsight would have adjusted our list slightly according to that criterion).

So those are my two additions - make sure you have a nice spread of schools including some non-audition schools with good theatre programs, and try to evaluate what kind of program she’d be happiest in.

Oh one more thing - someone on another forum suggested printing a bunch of curricula from different schools and having your child look at them blindly --i.e, you block off the names of the schools to avoid bias. That way they can get an idea of the type of school they want from that and develop a list from there.

Best of luck to you!