<p>This is an interesting discussion. As one trained in research, the mathematical model makes sense. But of course the biggest variable here is that the audition process is a subjective one, and I’d have to get down into the weeds of my statistics text to go back and figure out what type of analysis might be more appropriate with subjective data.</p>
<p>As a new parent at this with a daughter in her junior year of HS, I am interested in getting more info from the more experienced parents about how to select the right college for interviews/auditions. Not to brag, but my daughter should be accepted academically pretty much anywhere she’d apply. We’re trying to work with her on is establishing her list. So how do you know which programs would be a stretch, more of a safety pick, etc. In general she wants to stay near the Midwest, and prefers somewhat smaller colleges (since her high school is huge). We do have folks she’s worked with who are going to help with this, training for auditions, etc, but any advice on how to determine what schools are stretches, more realistic options, etc would be welcome!</p>
<p>I’m new at this too-- and I will be interested to hear what the seasoned people say. It seems to me (from everything I have read and seen thus far), however, that although you can get some great information from coaches and other sources to kind of make an educated guess where she should apply to have a good range of likelihood… you cannot escape the fact that it comes down to a crap-shoot. And by that I do not mean it is left to chance whether someone gets in-- obviously that depends on real talent and other assets. What I mean is that (as is stated a bunch in MT on CC) there are no safeties. And accordingly, there is no way to feel assured that you are choosing the “right” schools to apply to. BUT you (and she) can do you research and do the best you can to make an educated guess. If you look at a lot of threads in MT you will see many people applying to non-audition programs in addition to a range of audition programs for this very reason. That said, maybe a MT summer program could be helpful. Unfortunately my D decided to go for MT after it was too late to participate in a summer program. My other D, who is studying vocal performance, did participate in summer programs for that genre. It was somewhat informative (that is, we saw that there really are a bizillion super talented sopranos out there!). It wouldn’t surprise me if summer programs in MT also gave students kind of an idea where they stand in relation to their peers-- at least they get to see what it is like to participate with talent on a national, rather than home town school, basis.</p>
<p>Jefffandann- Can you find some real pros that don’t need you to keep coming back time after time for lessons who can give your student a frank evaluation? We did that before embarking on this journey last year - it gave us some hope.</p>
<p>ANY program which requires an audition cannot be considered a safety, so it is really wise to have at least one school on your list that is non-auditioned, that you would be happy to attend, and for which you qualify academically.</p>
<p>Acceptance rates at auditioned programs can vary a great deal, from around 1% to about 30%. It’s a good idea to have a wide range of schools in this category.</p>
<p>Finally, you need to look for personal fit and preferences. This is sometimes hard to discern without actually visiting the school. I also suggest that you try to see a theater production during your visit. My D eliminated several schools from her list this way; in several cases she didn’t like the “vibe” of the campus or department, and in another instance she felt the production itself was not up to snuff. We actually started visiting colleges in her sophomore year.</p>
<p>I can tell you the original list my D started out with was not the list she ended up with. As she began looking in depth at the curriculum for the schools on her list some of those fell off the list. And as we explored the various school threads here and did more research some schools got added. As with onstage’s D, there a couple of schools that came off the list after the on campus auditions. She learned as the process went along more about what she was looking for. When she sat in on classes, visited with students and faculty, and saw a production at the school she now attends, she knew that she had found a program that offered everything she wanted. I am glad that she did some fall visits and auditions as those really helped her hone in on what she was really looking for.</p>
<p>My d will graduate in May. Along the way she has seen many of her peers change their minds about majoring in MT. Fortunately, some attended a summer program and changed their minds before college but for others it took a year or two of college and getting away from home to find out if they were fully commited. That’s where a larger school is nice. It is so much harder and often more costly to have to change schools if you decide to change majors or if you decide to persue a concentration that is not available within a small department.</p>
<p>I think a good summer program is helpful in that is does let you see who else is out there. There often is the opportunity to meet teachers involved in college MT programs and their insight is often priceless. It won’t get you into a particular college just by going. I’ve seen that. It may refine some techniques, let you meet other committed students, and help you decide if this is really for you- all positive, but can be expensive. It was a good thing for my son. Coaching can also be expensive, but a good SAT prep class will cost $1,000. I think proper coaching can save almost as much as it costs. A good coach will tell you where NOT to spend your money applying. They know where you have no chance. Saving one trip to a campus where you have no chance can save you $1,000. You need a coach who is honest with you. They will narrow your choices.</p>
<p>In addition to threads mentioned above, here are some threads that address the audition process and various aspects of selecting schools at which to audition. It was looking through these threads that got me thinking about the process and motivated me to create the OP for this thread:</p>
<p>Thanks for input everyone. We will be meeting with a local coach here who is experienced with college placements, and my daughter has participated in Summer Stock now for several years, is in a top show choir, has gotten leads in plays, etc. This is just such a new experience for a guy traineed in science; this board is very helpful!</p>
<p>Here is a summary of the data as I was able to interpret it:</p>
<p>33 data points
Average Number of Auditions = 8.24
Median Number of Auditions = 8.5
Maximum Number of Auditions = 20
Minimum Number of Auditions = 1 (stopped the process after 1 acceptance)
Number who “retired early” from the process = 3</p>
<p>Here is how the data was distributed:</p>
<p>5 or less auditions = 6 people (18%)
6 auditions = 4 people (12%)
7 auditions = 1 person
8 auditions = 6 people (18%)
9 auditions = 5 people (15%)
10 auditions = 6 people (18%)
11 or more auditions = 5 people (15%)</p>
<p>Note that 67% of the students did 8 or more auditions.</p>
<p>Many of the respondents did a mix of auditions for MT and “Straight Acting” programs.</p>
<p>While us fathers are way out numbered by the moms here, maybe we are starting to catch up! I have a Junior daughter as well. </p>
<p>Given your post, I’m sure you are familiar with familiar statistical modelling expression – garbage in garbage out. We can develop a great model for identifying how many schools to apply to but its not very helpful if we have no way to assign the probabilities of our child being accepted at a particular school. So the key question becomes being able to fairly evaluate where your daughter stands vis a vis her peers.</p>
<p>How do you do that? Advice of acting coach/professional is fine but I question how reliable that is. An acting coach is not very likely to have a good feel of the relative talent level of other kids unless he really specializes in auditions and very few do. Also, the acting coach wants the business so I wonder how honest one can expect the assessment to be. </p>
<p>I think a better alternative is to put your daughter in a place where the talent level is much more reflective of what she is going to be up against than what is in her high school. Being the top kid in your local high school does not tell you much unless your kid happens to attend a really elite performing arts school. In our case, my daughter attended Frenchwoods for two years and spent last summer at Stella Adler. The feedback she got from these programs plus the opportunity for her to observe her abilities as compare herself to the top kids at these places has been invaluable for us to make the assessment about where she stands. For us, it also confirmed what my daughter had long thought which is that it’s her acting abilities that really stand out among her peers rather than her singing ability so I think her list will be all acting BFA schools except maybe she’ll audition for both at the schools that permit you to do that.</p>
<p>Editing to add I see you reference that your daughter has attended summer productions so that could be helpful depending on the quality of the production. Before Frenchwoods, my daughter did a summer local theater program but the talent of the kids did not compare to Frenchwoods.</p>
<p>Thanks for the input. We have a local Summer Stock stage program that is run as a professional theater company with professional directors, choreographers, etc, and it is extremely competitive to get into. My daughter made it now three years straight, and is slowly moving up the ladder. She also is a junior in her high school’s competition show choir (very rare for junior girls to make it), and just got a lead role in the fall drama production (the high school has over 4500 students so that alone makes it very competitive). She also did a music theater intensive this past week with local professionals who were very complementary and when we asked point blank if she was going down the right path, they were very positive and indicated she should find a spot. So we’re cautiously hopeful going into this. And the woman we’ll be working with to coach audnitions and such has a very good track record. I just don’t think because of her many committments she can take off for a month this coming summer to go to another program.</p>
<p>I wish I could have kept her interested in science and engineering, but what can you do?</p>
<p>It’s wonderful that your kids can attend these strong summer programs. I’m sure she/he gets a lot out of it but they have little value as a vehicle to size up the competition for a specific college program. There will be kids that will be getting spots at the most competitive theatre/MT programs this year, next year and beyond that you’ll have never bumped into at any of those programs and some of them will indeed just be that top kid from a local regular high school who has just “got it”. </p>
<p>The only thing that seeing how talented other kids are should do, no matter where your find them, is to serve as a reminder that next year when you apply, you have to spend considerable time thinking through the list based on what makes sense for your own kid. A student with a good list will absolutely get in somewhere. Establishing what makes a list “good” is way more than an exercise of assessing relative talent in limited pond. You already know your kids are talented and are providing opportunities to build their skill sets in something that they love. You can’t do a damn thing about the relative talent, academic standing, teacher recommendations and training of the other kids who will be applying too.</p>
<p>I think maybe you are assigining something more specific to my post than I attended. How one does at a particular summer program is surely not going to tell you precisely how one would do at a particularly school. And I don’t doubt that many of the kids that get into top schools never attended a summer program and as you say – they just “got it”. However – how does a parent/child make that “got it” assessment because (if wrong) the list of schools are wrong. But if that same kid rises to the top of a more competitive talent pool than exists at a local high school – how can that not provide a meaningful data point the kid really has “got it.” I’m using rising to the top in a general sense – it could be landing major roles, it could be feedback from faculty, etc.</p>
<p>You indicate teacher recommendations are important. Again understand I’ma neophyte at this, but from what I’ve been told what it really comes down to is how you perform at auditions. How much in your opinion does resume, recommendations, academic standing affect admission?</p>
<p>I could be misunderstanding you but I thought what you were pondering was an extension of the original post which does deal with the subject of getting admitted into a college program. I took what you said to essentially mean that you felt it was less about number of schools to apply to and more about having a way to measure the relative talent to decide of your own child has “got it”.</p>
<p>I get where you are coming from and believe me; I’ve also asked myself the same question since this is a really big leap and also a huge investment. But in the end I concluded that I did not need to look anywhere but right at my daughter to know the answer. I think any parent that experiences one of those “how how how does he/she do that?” moments that move you beyond words and touch you to your core knows what I’m talking about. Think of any truly great moment on stage or on screen where you’ve had that reaction whether it was your own kid or someone else’s, Meryl Streep, Laurence Olivier, Steve Carrell, Elmo (OK I’m stretching this) etc… How do they do that? Can your kid do that? If they can, they’ve got it. </p>
<p>It was that moment and many others that followed that I knew I might as well stop hoping for sustaining the interest in science and engineering as jeffandann laments If you’re there, you can build your list of schools on all of the other factors that determine fit. It’s still daunting but it’s doable. We’re a year ahead of you. We’ve got the list. The applications are all in and she is working her way through the auditions. She will not get in everywhere but that will not be because every school on her list is not a good fit. They all are good fits and she will get into one or more of them for sure. She does not control the number of other candidates that are also good fits so there is no point in worrying about it.</p>
<p>Best of luck!</p>
<p>@jeffandann just seeing your post as I’m replying to ActingDad… it depends on the school that you are applying to. Some schools truly focus on the audition and others take a hard look at the academic standing, recommendations etc. so the answer is: it depends.</p>
<p>also @jeffandann in a universe where there is often many equally talented kids for every spot, there is a lot of discussion on other posts about things like: type, alumni connections, feeder schools also coming into play. That is why I’m saying you might as well focus on what you can control and usually that means your own preparation and the fit of the schools you decide to chase.</p>
<p>How can you tell? I am now a bigger fan of summer intensives run by professional theatres rather than other organizations because in my very large, theatre-heavy city, I have seen students go from the intensive straight to an equity job. This is a pretty good sign the student is not totally spinning his/her wheels. Put your face in front of pros (people who direct and/or cast equity level shows) in some sort of situation where the pros give feedback and see what happens.<br>
I also found it helpful to run my student up to NYC to let her experience the joy of the sit-around-all-day-and-pray-to-be-seen auditions, to see if she had the mental fortitude as well as the talent. I didn’t want to discover any faintness of heart after four years of college payments! :)</p>
<p>You make a valid point classicalbk. From my experience though, casting for equity jobs for anyone under the age of 18 is also very much a function of who shows up. I know many extremely talented kids that do not show up at that age because it is too much of a trade off for their regular school work and or requires a family disruption (like a temporary relocation) for one or more of the parents. In the end the kids that make the sacrifices have to be legitimately talented, but I would not say more talented than many of the kids that “just say no” (or whose parents do anyway) at that slice of time in their young lives. So for us as a measure of “how can you tell?” that system would never work. But truly a valid measure for many others. :-)</p>
<p>Nice analysis. I haven’t read the follow up threads but did you account for higher degree of success for local applicants or in state vs distance and out of state.</p>