@squirk regarding “the talk”, I know at 14 yo my own D would not have listened to me if I tried to tell her that. I’ve got 3 daughters and my experience has been that I can say something 5,000 times and then a favorite teacher or other adult (sometime even another parent) will say it and it’s the best idea she’s ever heard (SIGH!!!) The good news is right around the time you have to really start the college process, it does get a little better and they start to realize maybe we do kind of know what we’re talking about LOL. My advice is, at this point, just let her have the dream of NYU. As she goes through high school, summer programs, etc and starts talking to college counselors, coaches, teachers, other students, she’ll probably come to her own conclusion that she should have other options. You can always revisit the idea in a few years; for now, let that motivate her! My MT daughter is extremely persistent and independent (her first full sentence was “I do it myself!”) so I usually mention something once and then keep my mouth shut and eventually someone else “in the biz” or another adult she really respects says what I already suggested and then when she tells me that’s what she’s going to do because so and so suggested it, I just say “oh, great idea” and everyone wins. Another strategy that works well is that I do research online and then text or email her articles. I never say another word about it unless she brings it up, but I know she reads them because I’ll sometimes overhear her tell another parent or student about it. Of course, maybe you’re lucky and your D is more compliant like my other 2! 
Good luck!!
Oh, yes. I’m familiar. Not with D so much, but definitely with her older brother.
@squirk There’s always one LOL
@squirk , in my opinion, even more important than your child not having just one dream school, is being sure that someone else important in their life, such as a mentor, doesn’t have a dream school FOR them. At that point, even when the child is very happy with their results, it can be hard feeling like you let someone else down.
@MTSthistime - that’s another really good point. I need to keep myself in check and make sure that I don’t give off that vibe.
As much as I would like to see her succeed in her goal, I don’t relish the idea of her moving far away, and wouldn’t mind if she opted for something closer to home. It’s four years off, but still.
I think most people would say that CCM > Tisch regardless of the cost. The deciding factor is more likely WHICH program she gets into.
@squirk & others in coming year just my 2 cents- dare to dream go for it, CMU CCM, Michigan, NYU all of it, you never know WHICH lottery pick could come thru- but be prepared that a great outcome is your kid having ANY choices…like 2-3 choices is GREAT, most kids get 80+% rejections …general consensus over the years on CC is that for every 10 auditions. 1.5 acceptances is a typical result ( .5= a waitlist)…feel free to read my final decision thread, I think we had a GREAT outcome & suffered through over 20 rejections…everyone gets MANY MANY MANY Nos ( well almost everyone) & theres very minimal rhyme or reason to why certain schools say yes & others say no, what that phrase --the best laid plans of mice & men…?? I also agree with @rickle1 with the exception of a few schools like NYU & Michigan the audition is the ultimate decision maker-Even CMU told us pay no attention to the average GPA & test scores when it comes to the school of Drama. good luck its a wild crazy unpredictable ride that you can only truly appreciate once you come out the other side
@squirk, I think I mixed up some of your comments and some of @Ashland115 comments in this thread so if I misquoted either or both of you please disregard, i think my message remains the same for nearly all
@NYYFanNowMTdad - thanks. With my D getting MT-specific training every school day for the next four years, plus ballet and private voice instruction on the weekends (her choice, not ours), I am hoping that with 10 apps, we will squeeze out at least a couple of acceptances.
I really don’t see us applying to 20-25 schools like some kids are posting about on YouTube, but who knows?
@squirk our class this year I would GUESS that females applied on average to 20+. some were less NO DOUBT, but the vast majority were certainly north of 15 and many were 30…we know a girl who was a JIMMY AWARD nominee and got in to 2 schools out of 24 auditions- this is the norm…, we know another girl who went to a performing arts HS, passed EVERY pre screen, applied to 20+ programs had 2 yesses & 2 WL…its never too early to start- to your original question, & your daughter could truly end up being the sparkly unicorn- I hope for your sake she is…but I will tell you & most of the people who replied to your original post ( my respected peers) will tell you that even the most talented kids, the ones who have trained since they could speak and walk, the ones who have had numerous professional gigs, don’t always get multiple acceptance, very very few run the table…I know hard to believe, but trust me when I tell you this is the reality… Heres to hoping your D is one of the sparkly unicorns!!
@squirk To @NYYFanNowMTdad ‘s point, there is a ton of talent out there. If you’re going to go top heavy, the more schools the merrier. They are literally lottery picks. There’s just a very limited amount of space. It’s like the Harvard AO saying he could replace his entire admitted class with the next rung of kids and not lose any academic quality at all. But they have to make decisions based on something and we’ll never know what that something is. In MT, it could be your kid’s look (relative to what they’re looking for). They may already have a few upperclassmen with similar look / talent and decide not to offer your kid because they know she’ won’t get cast in anything. There’s no way to know what they base it on. They may call it fit, but it appears quite random to the applicants. Many kids will experience passing elite program prescreens and not passing proverbial lesser schools. Some will get nowhere with 20 schools and all of a sudden bang out a yes at one of the top programs int he country. It’s just really tough.
Better to be realistic and prepare.
to @rickle1 point, I found this article interesting
" 1 out of 4 perfect SAT scores get rejected by Harvard. 3 out of 5 valedictorians get rejected by uPenn and Duke"
the mathematical odds of acceptances for MT at CMU ( 14 out of 2000?), Michigan, etc etc are lower than academic acceptances into these Ivy and" Ivy- like" schools
not to beat a dead horse, it certainly happens for some every year but to not cast a wide net would be doing your kid a disservice IMHO
@NYYFanNowMTdad & @rickle1 - thanks for the perspective. I’m new to this MT thing and only started researching the college issue very recently.
I suppose we all would like to think our respective kid will be the “sparkly unicorn,” but I believe that I am enough of a realist and pragmatist to not hang my hat on that aspirational thinking.
D’s older brother had his eye on one school only. He applied to this highly-ranked school and no others, and got early decision. Fast and easy. So perhaps the ease of his college admission process has lulled us into a false sense of security about D and MT programs.
I thought those kids on YouTube who were talking about applying to 25 schools were doing so out of sheer anxiety rather than actual necessity. Ten MT applications seemed like plenty to me, but it appears that I was missing some context.
@squirk…things will change ALOT before its time for you to truly worry about your list. AS your initial question asks- you are way ahead of where most of us were by starting now. The big thing that has changed increasing the number of applications is 2 fold in my opinion. Pre screens have been utilized more and more the past 5 years which gives you an extra layer to get through before the actual audition& this past year the common pre screen made it easier to apply to more schools ( kind of like the common app- but not really). My D is going to what many people would consider a top 5-10 program ( not that top 10 lists really matter) tThat school still does NOT use a prescreen,( Neither does NYU- but those are becoming the minority) I feel our list in retrospect was too top heavy. we only passed 5 out of 17 prescreen. so our list went from 29 to 17 before November 1st.
the best you can do right now is continue to let her enjoy her passion & you read all the MT threads from the past 5 years that are usually called " venting, sharing…etc" or some variation of that for the class of X & then the "final decision thread "for those classes.
Again my story is not the end all & be all, everyone finds their own proper path, but I recently posted a very long and thorough review of our process over nearly 2 years that might be helpful.
long story short- YOU ARE IN A GREAT PLACE BY STARTING ON CC NOW…it will unfold for you just as it did all of us.
BEST OF LUCK!!! Have fun & try not to stress too much
PS- my non MT daughter was a one & done to her top choice school too- I feel that was a " present to me" for the MT process that I was about to embark on- 
@squirk I think that there are those of us who had kids in prior classes (mine is class of 2022) that would say you don’t have to apply to 20+ schools - IF (and this is a big IF) - you have a very well balanced list with safety schools your D would be happy to attend. My, possibly flawed, recollection says that the 20+ schools trend seemed to start with the class of 2023. I don’t think there were many from class of 2022 that applied to that many. DS applied to 11 (yes - I know - boy so it’s different) and did 3 walk-ins at unifieds. His full list including the walk-ins had some tippy tops, some well known “next” tier, a well know BA program, and a regional, lesser known BFA program where the pool of auditioners was much smaller. He had 3 BFA acceptances (one of which was the lesser known regional), 1 BA acceptance, and 2 Wait Lists.
The well crafted smaller number of aps road is an option. Another option - when it comes time for applications, if your D is dead set on Tisch - you could consider going early decision. I could be wrong, but I feel like schools kind of give you an extra “point” for ED.
@soozievt is a college counselor who has been through this and has written many times about the balanced college list. You might look up her prior posts or maybe she’ll chime in.
@speezagmom - I agree with all you are saying so I hope it doesnt seem like we are coming from opposite ends of the spectrum. I LOVE the program your son attends, too close to home for my D, but dont you think your program has evolved from a " less known regional" to a nationally known rising star now? I feel like the hidden gems of today end up getting alot of well deserved notoriety & thus I think your kids school had over 1000 applicants this year as I have seen Rebecca at some college fairs. interested to hear your perspective on that.
I have a feeling that trend towards applying to larger numbers of schools has to do with the common prescreen. It’s so easy to just drop prescreens on multiple schools, people think “why not” without thinking about whether the school is a good match - we were guilty of that in a few instances.
Thanks, all. We’re going to take a family trip to NYC in the spring (COVID-19 situation permitting) and we’ll take a tour of Tisch, maybe also hit Pace and AMDA while we are there. Give her some exposure to what a MT school in a big city looks like.
Knowing my D, I suspect taking the tour of Tisch, and seeing where it’s located in proximity to Greenwich Village and Broadway (more specifically, the Broadway theater district), will only solidify her belief that this is the “one and only” school for her. Almost positive she would/will want to shoot for ED.
Fortunately, I will have plenty of time to talk her down from that mindset. And who knows? Maybe Tisch won’t call to her like she thought it would, and she’ll open herself up to the idea that other places might be a better fit.
I admit I am relieved that you all are not calling me out as “crazy helicopter-parent” for thinking about how to get all of our ducks in a row this early in the game. It’s only because I know the road is arduous that I want to start playing the “long game” in terms of preparation.
@Squirk having her have an open mind is key. And getting her to see schools to get a feel early on is great. You can start to build a list of what’s important. My D really wanted to be in NYC too and was admitted to TIsch (and that had been her dream from way back) but ultimately chose another program in the city because she felt it was actually a better fit for her.
And not to beat a dead horse, falling in love with a particular school is really setting yourself up for disappointment because statistically, no one gets in to any of these places…but somehow they all do, just maybe not the place you fall in love with. My D was fortunate as she had some great choices (4 BFA MTs, 2 BFA acting and 2 BFA WLs). But if she would have only applied to the “top 10” she easily could have been shut out. And having great choices made the sting of rejections go away quickly.
Not meant as a brag in any way, but just to show you how random things appear, D was one of 75 (out of 1200-1500) kids to pass both the MT and Acting prescreen at CCM. Yet she didn’t pass the prescreen at several schools (all great) like Coastal Carolina. Same prescreen thanks to the common prescreen system. Makes you scratch your head. BTW she thought she knocked the CCM live auditions for both out of the park…and was rejected by both.
Law of large numbers was her friend. I think she applied to 23 schools and with about a 50% prescreen pass (which made up about 75% of the schools). So that means for 3/4 of her schools, she was only allowed to audition for half which I think was 9 and then direct audition with 5 and a couple of walk ins. Halfway through we even discussed getting shut out and taking a gap yr vs. just going to college at a BA program. Luckily for her, it worked out in the second half and those tears of joy flowed.
Law of Large numbers…
@NYYFanNowMTdad It is quite certain that Molloy/CAP21 has gained more popularity, however, Rebecca told me when we were in the decision process that they had auditioned over 1,000 for the class of 2022 as well. I would guess that they had more applications this year than they did 2 years ago, but her “auditioned” statement likely included walk-ins. Even so, they accepted 80 kids out of 1000+ auditions to net their class of 35 for the class of 2022. I suspect the yield is higher today so probably not quite as many acceptances. In any case, I wouldn’t necessarily call that a regional audition pool. The one regional BFA DS auditioned for had about 100-125 auditioners - for their class of 20-30 kids. That was the size pool I was thinking of when saying regional.
@squirk Incidentally, CAP21 is the studio training portion of the Molloy/CAP21 BFA. CAP21 did the training for NYU until 2012 or 2013. Might be worth a look for your D. I think you’d find that all the cappie parents on CC have fantastic things to say about the school and program. It’s a little different scenario because campus is on Long Island, but training is in Manhattan. If your D isn’t sure about being in Manhattan 100% of the time, it might be an interesting alternative.