How many programs should you audition for? A "Freakonomics" approach

EmsDad · November 16, 2011, 3:34pm

Let’s apply a sort of “Freakonomics” approach to getting into an audition-based BFA program. How many programs should you audition for?

We will start by assuming entry into an audition-based program is a probabilistic process that can be represented as a series of independent events. In simple terms, this means that there is always a possibility that you will be admitted to a given program and a possibility that you won’t be admitted and that no audition has any bearing on the outcome of any other auditions. This assumes that you do not audition for a program for which there is NO possibility that you will be admitted (although it turns out that doesn’t really matter for this exercise) and that there is ALWAYS a probability that you won’t be admitted, no matter how good you are.

Is this realistic? Well, it seems to be based on the anecdotal evidence at hand buried in various CC threads. Very few, if any, students seem to be accepted to EVERY program for which they audition. Meanwhile, some students are accepted to ZERO programs, and this also fits the assumption, i.e., there is no such thing as a 100 percent probability of acceptance for any given audition. I have seen examples of students who were accepted into many “top” programs but were rejected from programs with far less notoriety. Some people may get in EVERYWHERE, but it seems to be highly unlikely and has not been reported often in CC threads.

Let’s also assume that most people audition for more than one program, and while the probability that you will be admitted to any given program may vary, there is an equivalent average probability of acceptance for each audition that can be used to realistically represent your odds of overall success. Here, “success” is defined as GETTING INTO AT LEAST ONE PROGRAM.

Use the assumptions stated, we can use some simple probability calculations to determine the “Point of Diminishing Return” and the “80/90/95 percent probability of acceptance points.” I am going to define the Point of Diminishing Return as the point where the slope of the tangent line (the first derivative) begins to decrease, i.e., the point at which each audition adds a rapidly diminishing possibility of at least one acceptance (this turns out to be always be around a probability of success of 62-65 percent).

Using the formula P(Success) = (1-(1-P)^n) where P is the probability of success at any given audition and n is the number of auditions attempted:

P=35% PDR=3 auditions P(80%)=4 auditions P(90%)=6 auditions P(95%)=7 auditions

[Translation: if your chance of acceptance at any given audition is 35 percent, then the point of diminishing returns starts after 3 auditions, doing 4 auditions gives you an 80 percent probability of achieving at least one acceptance, doing 6 auditions increases your odds to 90 percent, and doing 7 auditions increases your odds to 95 percent]

Doing a few more cases:

P=25% PDR=4 auditions P(80%)=6 auditions P(90%)=8 auditions P(95%)=11 auditions

P=15% PDR=6 auditions P(80%)=10 auditions P(90%)=14 auditions P(95%)=18 auditions

P=10% PDR=10 auditions P(80%)=16 auditions P(90/95%)= more than 25 auditions

P=5% PDR=20 auditions P(80/90/95%)= more than 25 auditions

I used these relatively low probabilities of success (35% and less) based on looking through past CC acceptance threads, few students seemed to exceed a 35% audition acceptance rate and many were less. Of course, your mileage may vary.

The results seem to corroborate with much of the “Generally Accepted CC Wisdom” which is something like:

<ol>
<li>Don’t load up your list with “lottery programs” (extremely competitive programs) because the odds are against you - look at the 5% and 10% lines. You would have to audition at 10-20 programs to reach the point of diminishing returns and more than 25 to reach a high degree of probability of success. Even for students who may feel that they are in the top tier in the country, it seems the odds of acceptance at the top programs may still be relatively low - there may 20 short, blond-haired girls who can all sing like Kristin Chenoweth and are all trying to get into CCM where there is only one slot of that type available …</li>
<li>Spending time to determine where you would have a higher probability of acceptance (a “good fit”) is well worth it - if you can get your odds up to 25% then you only need 6 auditions to achieve a probability of success of 80 percent. If you can increase your odds to 35 percent, then you only need 6-7 auditions to reach a 95 percent probability of success. Another way to state this to follow common “CC wisdom” is that: “doing more than 6-7 auditions won’t dramatically increase your chances of success if you pick your schools wisely.” Another corollary would be, “if you don’t choose wisely and only do 6-7 auditions, then the chances that you may not get a single acceptance may be higher than you would prefer (or possibly anticipate - see the sad notes in the “Rejections” thread).”</li>
<li>Doing less than 6 auditions does not seem like a good idea unless you are really confident of your chances of success.</li>
<li>If you can’t get a good feel for your fit in the process and you really, really want to get into an audition-based program, then you should consider doing 10-12 auditions across a broad-enough spectrum of programs in order to get your odds up (for example, 11 auditions are required to achieve a 95 percent chance of acceptance if your probability of success is 25%). Attending Unifieds would seem to be a logical path to follow in this case where you can get some additional auditions in that you might not be able accomplish through campus visits. Generalizing this idea, another corollary would be that “a student who is not able or capable of doing extensive analysis to figure out where they would fit (and therefore get their odds up) is best served probabilistically by doing basically as many auditions as possible” (sad but true if this analysis is correct).</li>
</ol>

Caveats:

a. I did the math in a hurry over lunch and I may have goofed something up (its been a long time since I took Probability). Please let me know if I made a mistake.

b. This is entirely based on anecdotal evidence. Caveat Emptor.

c. No particular path is recommended, this was just an exercise in looking at things from the “cold equations.”

d. As with any application of probability, the BFA auditions process may not, in fact, entirely fit this model (or fit it at all).

e. I am not an expert in sociology, economics, or mathematics but this was fun to think about.

Gwen_Fairfax · November 16, 2011, 4:08pm

Well, D is doing 12 auditions, so she seems to have come to the same conclusion. But my eyes crossed reading this! Is there a Math Major forum? I wonder what they would say!

EmsDad · November 16, 2011, 4:16pm

I guess I could have started with:

“Given the increasing competition in MT BFA program auditions, the numbers show 6-7 auditions is pretty much the absolute minimum, and 10-12 is a better idea unless you are really confident of your chances at most or all of the schools.”

Of course pre-screening is a wonderful mechanism that would make this analysis much, much easier for people.

EmsDad · November 16, 2011, 4:47pm

Looking at the “Acceptances Thread” from last year there were approximately 52 reports with only 18 that reported more than 2 acceptances to BFA MT audition programs (weeding out the non-audition and BFA-acting reports). Of the 18 that got into more than 2 programs, 14 got into 4 or more.

Assuming an average number of auditions to be 7 or 8, the average acceptance rate was 31-36%. If the average number of auditions was higher, the rate would go down (and this may be the case).

The Median acceptance rate, which I believe is a better indicator of what to expect, was 25-28%.

This data is from people who all got at least one acceptance. It would be logical to assume that these statistics are biased high, since, in general, those that did not receive a single acceptance did not report on the list. Hence, a realistic Median acceptance rate is probably less than 25% (and may be less than 20%).

Using the numbers in the OP, to achieve a 90-95 percent confidence for the Median of the population for acceptance into an audition-based MT BFA program, you may want to consider doing 10-12 auditions. If you can choose wisely, this number would, of course, decrease.

Of course, this is sparse data and is clearly biased in being soley from CC people who post.

santafedad · November 16, 2011, 6:30pm

A sobering post. Too bad you can’t run these calculations by applicant gender.

OneMTDad · November 16, 2011, 6:42pm

“Median acceptance rate is probably less than 25% (and may be less than 20%).”

I believe the numbers you used are from both males and females so acceptance rate for females would be definitely be lower still.

EmsDad · November 16, 2011, 6:54pm

It turns out that people tend indicate “S” or “D” in their acceptance names so a simple Excel trick can separate the data by gender (although this does not work in all cases). 30 of the 52 respondents from last year’s acceptance thread can be readily identified as girls. The 8 unknowns turn out to be evenly distributed so I assumed 1/2 of them are girls. The resulting numbers aren’t as bad as I would have thought:

28-31% acceptance rate (assuming 7-8 auditions)
25-29% median acceptance rate

Of course, the actual rate is probably lower due to the factors notes in my previous post (and posts on CC seem to indicate that more girls audition than boys for apparently fewer slots, although I have not data to back up this supposition).

Once again, I filtered out to get ONLY the audtion-based MT acceptances (no acting, no non-auditions).

Lulu63 · November 16, 2011, 7:00pm

Well my D auditioned for 9 programs if you include Muhlenberg and was accepted to 5 (which includes M-berg). One of them was for an acting studio and not for MT. I was extremely nervous throughout the entire process and she didn’t know til May 2nd where she was really going to attend. I think if you can aud for about 10-11 programs is probably best. We did not do Chicago Unifieds so she could have fit a few more in without stressing out! Don’t freak about the numbers. All you need is one acceptance.

halflokum · November 16, 2011, 7:54pm

Oh my. I can’t believe I actually read all of this nor that I’m responding. Sucked into the vortex… It’s quite entertaining well done.

How about the fact that some kids are actually accepted immediately after they audition but they just don’t know it yet? Yet they continue to audition at other programs which to help their odds but they don’t need to. They are already done they just don’t know it. What does that do to your calculations?

EmsDad · November 16, 2011, 8:32pm

@halfokum - the fundamental assumption is that each audition is an independent event (and I think that is a pretty safe assumption unless schools practice collusion in selecting applicants, and I would have to assume that they do not). Therefore, an audtion is an audition and an acceptance is an acceptance, so the scenerio that you describe has no impact at all on the estimate of how many auditions that you should attempt to gain one acceptance.

A direct implication of the computations in the OP is that if you have a high probability of acceptance (on average for the auditions that you attempt) then you will increase your odds of gaining MORE THAN ONE ACCEPTANCE by increasing the number of auditions that you do, with an associated “Point of Diminishing Return” etc.

You can, in fact, compute how many auditions that you should attempt to gain any specific minimum number of acceptances with a high degree of confidence, but that would only plunge us deeper into the vortex (smile).

soozievt · November 16, 2011, 11:19pm

EmsDad,
I am impressed with all your figuring and analysis, etc. and I think there is a lot of helpful and interesting information in this thread.

I do have some reservations, however, in getting caught up too much in the number of audition-based programs on a college list somewhat out of context for the following reasons…

~First, I just don’t think the number of schools on the list is applicable to every applicant in terms of how many schools does it take to gain at least one BFA acceptance. This might be a useful exercise if all things being somewhat equal between candidates. If you have two HIGHLY competitive candidates, the analysis on number of schools might be similar for both candidates. But in reality, there are a number of applicants to BFA in MT programs who are not competitive and may have a very very low chance of getting into any BFA program, though they apply anyway (and may not realize they are not competitive artistically). Then, there are candidates who have some chance but are not that competitive artistically speaking but may get into a BFA depending on which ones they apply to. But in any case, the odds DIFFER greatly from candidate to candidate based on their artistic talent, qualifications, academics, etc. etc. In other words, there may be a candidate who applies to 15 BFAs and gets into NONE because he/she wasn’t really competitive for a BFA in MT in the first place. And there could be a top talented MT candidate who could apply to just five schools and get into four of them because he/she truly has what it takes to be considered by the very selective programs.

~Secondly, let’s say all candidates ARE equal in terms of talent (which of course is not true but just making a point), the analysis of how many schools he/she would have to apply to is dependent on WHICH schools are on the list and how the list is balanced in terms of odds both artistically and academically in relation to the candidate. (You did make some mention of this but it is an important point)…In other words, putting MT aside (as I don’t want to name MT schools and open it up to debate on which are the most selective, etc.)…but let’s say you have a top academic student (not a BFA applicant) and he/she applies to 8 schools and the schools are Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Columbia, Brown, Stanford, MIT, Penn and another tippy top student applies to 8 schools and their list is Harvard, Yale, Brown, MIT, Boston College, Brandeis, Boston University, University of Vermont. The odds of the number of acceptances are going to be different for both equally qualified kids as one kid’s list has schools that all have extremely low acceptance rates and one has a more balanced list of “odds” schools.

~Thirdly, I am not sure how accurate it is using the “acceptance” thread on CC, though it does reveal some interesting data. But not only don’t most MT applicants participate here or choose to post their results, it is even less likely someone who did not fare well might post their results. And regardless, we don’t know how many schools each student applied to or how balanced their list was, or their own level of artistic and academic qualifications (not to mention the intangible factors).

I think the issue of “how many to apply to” is a very individualized issue because of one’s qualifications, the appropriateness of the schools on the list in terms of fitting those qualifications (not everyone’s MT college list should be the same because their qualifications are not the same), the balance of “odds” of the schools on the list (a range of selectivity), whether they only want a BFA or are interested in both BFAs and BAs, need financial aid, and so on. That said, I can’t think that anyone (except some justified exceptions) who needs more than 12 BFAs on a list or more than 14 schools total, and that is a maximum (and I think most could have no more than 12 schools total…and if going for a BFA, that may mean 10 BFAs and 2 non-audition BA sure bet schools). But one thing I have observed on CC on the MT Forum over the years is some people asking “what MT programs are good?,” or “where should I apply?,” or “which schools offer MT?” as if that was all there was to selecting a college list. There are some applicants that do not match their list to their own qualifications, nor balance their list in terms of odds. I’ve seen people post “how does my list look?” without any information as to their qualifications (and even then that would not be enough without seeing their artistic skill set). I don’t even understand how they would expect others to comment on the college list without knowing lots about the student. There is more to selecting a college list than merely, “these schools offer MT and I’m going to apply to 12 of these schools.” I cannot emphasize enough the importance of the RIGHT list for each student in terms of qualifications, interests, fit, balance, etc. (I know you would not disagree with me here but just pointing this out to OTHERS who are reading the thread and not to you personally at all!).

Lastly, relating my own kid’s MT college process, which doesn’t really tell anything much as I don’t think it applies to every candidate. In her case, she applied to 8 schools for MT, all BFA programs. She only wanted a BFA (someone who is equally interested in both BFAs and BAs would have a longer list). I will admit that I ALWAYS recommend having two non-audition BA safety schools on a list for someone primarily seeking a BFA in MT and will say that I don’t recommend what my kid did in the sense that she had NO non-audition schools on her list. That said, while I was nervous about it, I did feel she was competitive to get into a BFA in MT program, but could not know which would take her, but felt she would get into at least one. Still, I don’t recommend not having a non-audition back up safety school! But am admitting my own kid didn’t have one. She applied to 8 BFAs in MT and was accepted to 5 BFAs in MT, priority waitlisted for a BFA in Acting (CMU where you are considered for both MT and Acting), accepted academically but deferred than rejected for the BFA to one, and rejected at one BFA. I just don’t think you can draw conclusions from this as every student is different.

If you are a true contender for a BFA in MT, I don’t think you need more than 8 BFAs on the list (then the two non-audition safeties), but certainly not more than 10. I don’t feel that by adding more and more after 10-12, that it means the odds are improved. Either you are a contender for a BFA or not. Yes, very qualified kids get rejections in this process! But if you apply to 15 BFAs and don’t get into any, you likely were not competitive for a BFA or your list is not well balanced in terms of academic and artistic odds or in keeping with your qualifications. So, the right list per candidate is what matters and the number of schools on the list is truly dependent on many factors and so I don’t feel there is some “magic” number one needs to apply to in order to have a successful admissions outcome. For some kids, a well crafted college list appropriate to their qualifications that is well balanced, 8 schools will be enough and for some other kids, 12 schools will be enough. Very few kids need more than 12, and the reason for more than 12 is not so much to increase the odds but there are other factors that may call for it such as undecided between a BFA and a BA and so need about 6 of each. Or maybe there are financial reasons in chasing aid that may call for it. But I see NO reason for ANYONE to go over 14 and many have NO reason to go as high as 14. If you get into NO schools and have applied to 10-14 colleges, then the list was not the right list for you and the odds would not have improved by adding MORE schools but rather the RIGHT schools for you.

I’m just adding to the discussion which is an interesting one and my thoughts are not directed at EmsDad whatsoever.

EmsDad · November 17, 2011, 12:41am

@soozievt - I don’t want to seem like I am arguing, but I want to emphasize that the math in the OP works no matter what the qualifications of the applicant. Your overall odds of success in securing at least one admission from a list of schools that you audition for can be summarized as a combination of your qualifications, the degree of difficulty of the schools on your list and the number of schools on your list. It is all apples to apples, the fundamental question is “for each audition, what are my realistic odds of success?” I believe that these are all fundamentally independent, probabilistic events.

If these are independent events with an associated probability, then adding one additional school DOES increase your odds of success, but it may not be “worth it” if you are already at a 90-95 percent confidence level with one less school (and of course it would depend on whether your odds at the school you are considering adding to your list are at, above or below the odds of the other schools on your list). But the odds increase with each attempt, no matter who you are and how long the odds are at the additional audition (unless the odds are ZERO - which is possible and so you are well served to ensure that you actually have some sort of chance).

The question you should ask is, “what is the effort to do one more audition vs. the probable increase in my overall chance of success?” If you can easily add a walk-in audition at Unifieds to a school that you are interested in and for which you are realistically well-qualified, it is likely to be worth your while (and as long as it doesn’t stress you out and hurt your chances at other schools on your list). If you have to travel 1,000 miles to add one more audition to an already well-balanced list (with enough schools to make your degree of confidence acceptably high) at a school for which your odds are long, then it is definitely not “worth it.”

It seems counter-intuitive but the math shows that if you are not able to choose wisely, but still have some possibility to be accepted, then you should audition for as many schools as possible since you are probably operating with a low overall chance of success. This is not an EFFICIENT or an ADVISABLE approach, but it is a probabilistically VALID approach nonetheless. This approach does assume that you have SOME chance of acceptance at each audition (which, as noted above, may NOT be true for all applicants).

It would not be a valid approach in any form to audition for schools for which an applicant has ZERO chance of admission. This is probably hard for people to swallow but it is a very important consideration to a well-thought-out approach to this complex process.

I agree that drawing definite conclusions around acceptance rates based on data in CC threads is not recommended, but I believe that the data is at least potentially indicative. I looked up the 2009 data and the numbers were almost identical to the 2011 numbers (29-33% average acceptance rate for the assumption that the average no. of auditions is 7-8), so there is at least some consistency.

I think that “thinking hard” about this process however you approach it is a good idea.

halflokum · November 17, 2011, 1:11am

Gah… fighting the vortex… must not reply… inner geek is winning… :-)

I’m sure I’m missing something obvious here, but if you are looking at CC data where people post the schools they applied to and were accepted at and thus drawing conclusions about acceptance rate, why doesn’t the order of these acceptances and the timing matter as I was suggesting earlier?

If you audition at a school say EA and get in before any future auditions, you could choose to stop. Which would give you one result to the “how many schools”. Or let’s say you get into the same school EA but there are two other schools up next that you’d still like to try your odds at before deciding so you do those as well. But because of that EA acceptance, you then drop 8 other schools you would have applied to entirely off your list. In the end you only apply to 3 schools and you get into a minimum of 1 out of 3.

But if you have no early indication of acceptance (say you’re deferred) from any of these schools, you might have auditioned at all 11 because you’re living with uncertainty of acceptance at any. But you could end up getting into the original EA and one or two that you tried your luck with in the earlier example (and none of the other 8) whether you auditioned at 3 schools or 11. The differences is you could stop sooner and thus look like you had a higher acceptance rate. But really you didn’t. You just hit the schools that took you first.

halflokum · November 17, 2011, 1:38am

also @emsdad. I agree qualitatively with everything that Soozievt says and my suspicion is so do you. I’m just trying to poke at the math. I’m pretty sure there is no real math for this endeavor but it is a fun exercise to try to make one.

soozievt · November 17, 2011, 2:51am

Halflokum, I have had students get into a BFA in Early Decision and thus canceled all their other auditions. I have had some students get into a favored school in the fall and cancel SOME of their auditions after that. That wasn’t the case with my own kid but you are right, that happens. Also, I’m unclear if someone is using the Acceptance threads, how they can tell how many schools those on the list applied to as the posters just add their acceptances to the list.

Anyway, it is an interesting discussion. I just don’t think it is so much a black and white numbers game as it involves a myriad of factors and the odds are not just based on how many schools you apply to (in my opinion, based on my observations).

Emsdad, it surely isn’t an argument, no worries, as it is just sharing various perspectives and considerations in an interesting manner.

jbehlend · November 17, 2011, 8:03am

EmsDad, I appreciate the heuristic that you’ve described!

My view, however, is that one cannot assume that auditions are always independent events. I concede that there is not collusion going on between schools regarding applicants. However, consider auditionees as storage capacitors; they discharge energy at an audition, then need time to recharge to capacity before getting “pulsed” again. My observations at college auditions are that auditionees need time to recover and regroup between their auditions in order to be at peak performance.

If, for example, a student expends energy at the first audition of the day at Unifieds, and the second audition (or third or fourth, etc) is a short time (hours? minutes?) later. Is there enough time for the auditionee to mentally recover and give his/her best at the next audition? This will likely vary from student to student. I don’t know of any auditionee who can be as effective at the end of a long day of auditions as they were at the start of the day. In any event, I contend that the time between any two auditions does have an effect on the later audition. The shorter the time between auditions, the greater the impact is on the outcome of the second (and subsequent) auditions.

When DS did his auditions - albeit for acting, not MT - he spaced his auditions out over several weeks, rather than compressing them into a Unified Weekend. He did this because he knew he need that recovery time. This approach certainly has disadvantages to it (cost, amount of time away from home, etc), but it gave him the best chance to perform at his best at each audition - to make them truly independent events. YMMV.

bazaarshopper · November 17, 2011, 9:01am

As an engineer, I love the scientific approach. I applaud the effort. But since the subjects are people, there’s just too much unpredictability involved. Halflokum and Soozie both hit on the situation that my son had - once he was accepted to his #1 school, which was his 4th audition, all subsequent scheduled auditions were cancelled. For his data to fit the model, he would have needed to play out the string and finish the auditions.

EmsDad · November 17, 2011, 9:18am

What fun! I especially like the examples noted by jbehlend and bazaarshopper. These are all interesting points to ponder. If adding an audition would tire you out, then it would be a bad plan and would result in the odds of acceptance lowering for subsequent auditions until you “recharged,” so, clearly, this should be taken into account in your game plan. However, readng some posts, some auditions only take 4-5 minutes - for example, a recent post on Nothern Colorado describes a very short on campus audition. I doubt seriously a passionate MT kid with chops is going to be bogged down by this type of audition at the end of the day at Unifieds. For any audition, as I have said, you should weigh your chances of success and our overall objectives and level of confidence desired in the outcome.

By and large, I actually believe the math in the OP holds and this is, within the frame of reference posited in the OP, a numbers game. How you choose to play it is the interesting “Freakonomics” question. I would never have guessed that crime went down because of Roe vs. Wade, either.

Regarding acceptance rates, the acceptance rate conjectures that I have drawn from CC data, as I have said, are far less conclusive, but I think are indicative. Halflokum is correct that some respondents may have stopped early due to an acceptance that they craved and this would bias the acceptance rate data downward (and bazaarshopper and soozievt have cited anecdotes that corroborate that this does happen). However, I think that there is as much or more likelihood that my estimates of acceptance rate data based on the CC threads are actually more likely to be biased UPWARD rather than downward for the reasons I noted in my previous posts.

Soozievt is right that you can only develop an acceptance rate ESTIMATE by guessing how many auditions people attended and I have stated this. However, I used the commonly recommended numbers of 7 and 8 for a guess as to how many auditions were done, on average, by a group of CC respondents to an “acceptance thread.” Do you believe the numbers are less than 7 or 8 on average? Remember, the respondents are all CC people who have read the recommendations on how many auditions to attend! I would doubt that, on average, the CC respondents have done FEWER auditions than the “common wisdom” in CC. Also remember, it is likely some or many of the respondents have done MORE than 7 or 8. And while some people may have stopped after a key acceptance, the data doesn’t include any of the people who got zero acceptances and did not respond at all. I believe that the weight of non-respondent, zero acceptances is likely far greater than the respondents who stopped after one audition. But I will model this and get back to you.

EmsDad · November 17, 2011, 9:44am

Also, let me reiterate that the OP shows why the generally accepted CC wisdom of 6-8 auditions seems to make sense: if you choose your list such that your overall odds of acceptance are good (around 25-35%), then your probability of at least one acceptance will be 90-95%. But if you pack your list with lots of “reaches” and you really, really want to enter an audition-based program, then you should add more auditions, especially those at which your odds of success are good.

I really enjoy this discussion and I think that EVERYONE’S feedback is very good!

soozievt · November 17, 2011, 10:04am

It is indeed an interesting discussion.

I still don’t think one can tell how many schools a student applied to based on the acceptance thread. Yes, you can analyze it by estimating how many you think each kid applied to but that is not the same as data whereby each applicant says, “I applied to X number of BFA programs and got into Y number.” (not to mention all the other factors I brought up in an earlier post that make even that data not all that significant)

Yes, some students apply to very few BFAs. For example, I know of some highly talented MT and Acting students who are also very strong academic students who wanted a college strong in academics (and very selective academically speaking). Many of the BFA in MT programs are located within universities that are not very selective academically. Some of these students had NO interest in applying to such colleges. Therefore, their college lists had just a few BFAs on it such as NYU and UMich and then had schools like Yale, Northwestern, Brown, etc. on their list. I know of several such students and some landed at NYU or UMich (one of my former advisees is at Tisch and turned down acceptances at Stanford and Brown) and some got into those BFA schools but chose Yale, etc. So, they only had two or three BFAs on their list.

And following up on jbehland a bit…yes, I think the outcome at one’s audition has other factors in play like he brings up some. I can say that I also think some kids get better at their auditions as the audition season wears on. My daughter, like jbehland’s son, did not do Unifieds. She applied to 8 BFAs and did on campus auditions from December through March. Here is how that played out in terms of sequence of the auditions and the outcome (albeit, this is just one example and I can’t generalize but many kids say they improve through the audition season and conventional wisdom is to not to make your first audition at your first choice BFA program in fact):

1st audition - accepted academically in EA, deferred BFA in EA, rejected in spring to BFA (also came down with a cold the day of the audition)
2nd audition - rejected
3rd audition - accepted
4th audition - accepted
5th audition - accepted
6th audition - Priority Waitlisted
7th audition - accepted
8th audition - accepted

(so her results started out not looking that positive and got quite positive after that)

Another factor…just one example…after the first audition, my daughter changed one of her audition songs for her remaining auditions.

How many programs should you audition for? A "Freakonomics" approach

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