HS Class of 2026 and the Musical theatre/acting college audition

Is there a thread specific to parents of high school seniors 2026 that are just about to start the college MT audition season?

If not, can we start one or is this one?

Lol. I think you just started one. It’s still early in the process. Good luck.

This blog has some good information. They somewhere rank /rate Musical theater college programs.

Life After a Musical Theatre Degree — OnStage Blog Life After a Musical Theatre Degree — OnStage Blog

At this point of the process you should be parsing through the list of programs you want to apply to, finalizing and rehearsing your pre-screen materials, and starting the “regular applications” The process for MT moves quick, and in phases.

Well, I am replying to my own post just to keep this active because I don’t know if there’s a better space to start connecting with others starting the acting/MT audition process for 2026.

Common App opened 9 days ago and because we are notorious for waiting until the 11th hour to get things done, I had a big plans to jump in and send it out the first week
 hahahaha.
We DID get a jump start on essays
 looking at the common app prompts, looking at supplemental essays required by the different schools that she’s interested in 
brainstorming and coming up with solid concepts and rough drafts. Signed up with a coach and have one song and one monologue nailed down and participated in some virtual events with the different schools (especially those that count demonstrated interest).

Her summer was virtually nonexistent as far as college prep as she went to Italy with her school choir for competition, came back and directly went to Connecticut for the Yale summer Conservatory for actors which ended August 1.
So she wants to take a few days to see friends and decompress.

Right now we’re just kind of getting in gear. trying to figure out a system to keep everything straight. And reading and watching everything I can through ‘musical theater parents’ on Facebook and things on college confidential, school reviews from actual students on Niche and whatever else I can.

Just a little FYI, I was at BFA acting major at Syracuse University and graduated mid 90’s. I have been through this process, but it was NOT like THIS process. I documented it extensively on the musical theater parents Facebook page quite a while back just for comparison sake for other people to see what it was like. Maybe at some point I’ll copy paste it.

OK, back to the point

I’m still positively mystified about how these things get scheduled with unified and unified and coaching and travel just heard of PUA for the first time and trying to wrap my head around that.
Really wish there were more opportunities for in person audition prep, snd Mock auditions and things like that in Los Angeles but for whatever reason, despite it being an entertainment mecca it’s lacking in a lot of those opportunities. Even LA unifieds are waaay at the very end of everything and the smallest , so will probably be looking too earlier opportunities.

Started with a list of around 25 schools because that seems to be what everyone else is saying, but DD came back from the summer program, and after hearing other student stories doesn’t think that the chaos involved in all of that is going to be beneficial to her. She doesn’t feel the concept of a safety school is for her because she doesn’t want to go anywhere that she wouldn’t want to go for other reasons besides ‘it was the only place she got in.’ I certainly hope it doesn’t come down to that, I guess we will cross that bridge if we have to. .

But it’s early days and I’m sure it’s gonna change a lot. I do know everyone says don’t fill up your common app slots because you only get 20 and you should leave room for walk-ins or something you’re not anticipating.

And the next big thing on our list is tackle the request for recommendation letters when school starts up.

That’s where we are in our process with 1 week before school starts for SENIOR YEAR!
Please comment. Let me know where you are in your process/ask questions/Answer questions.
If I have any information, I will gladly share it.
just knowing there are others that are as confused as I am is helpful in itself :slight_smile:

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FWIW - We are parents of a student that’s in a BFA MT program, so we went through all of that 3 years ago - We can gladly offer “rear view” advice from what we learned, if you have any questions along that line. I feel like we were 80% successful - we have some regrets and sadness but at this point on our journey we believe it all worked out the way that it needed to for our daughter.

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Thank you
Im hoping others on this same path will either check in here or start a thread somewhere. When I look at CC and find an answer to something I’m wondering, I’ll realise the thread is 15 years old.

would love to hear your top 3 regrets.

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I’m a senior in an international school, and am also looking for something like this: there are hardly any resources for MT in my country, so any sort of guidance like this would make a huge difference!

Some of the regrets are strictly personal - I regret we didn’t redo the recording of her prescreens. The quality wasn’t great, video-wise. We paid for prescreen material, and the material was great but we didn’t get our videos until later, and we were home by then, and it would’ve been harder to redo them ourselves. Who knows if that would’ve made difference or not. We were in the middle of COVID, I regret we didn’t try harder to do more in-person, rather than virtual. Our daughter is much more an “in-person” person, I don’t think the virtual thing at that stage helped her. Now, though, she’s spent 4 years perfecting it. I regret we didn’t know about Moonifieds. That seems like the real ticket to get seen, a lot, early. I don’t regret the work we put in - when it seems like you’re pushing too hard, you’re not. Keep pushing. I don’t regret the net we cast, WIDE. Multiple tiers, safety, average, reach, and dream. Unfortunately, I am not sure our regrets really will help anyone else, but I thought I owed you a response at the least!

Don’t get discouraged, it’s a marathon, not a sprint. At the end of the day, I am not exactly sure this whole process isn’t just a little better than completely random. Don’t get me wrong, we saw the kids that are Michigan, CMU, Baldwin Wallace, etc - they were definitely a whole other level. But the majority of everyone else were good, and different in their own ways. The schools are trying to balance their cohorts, too, so you may be good enough, but if they don’t need another petite brunette that dances better than she sings, then they’ll pass you up. It’s just the process. I’m happy with where we ended up, sad we missed some we thought we should’ve, but in the end it worked out. She has hopefully found her “path”.

One last note, to add to this rambling - The process doesn’t end here. A1s. SETC. School auditions. The college process only prepared us for pushing harder non-stop to keep moving the process. It’s not a finish line.

Thank you so much for sharing. I’m curious for more information on the “next level” kiddos you saw. My daughter wants to go to college for musical theatre, but I’m not sure how she compares to all the others auditioning. She has had lead rolls in high school, but I assume all or most kids in this major have as well. Plus, her school is a small, private school. Is she just a big fish in a small pond? We are making a list of many levels of schools, but I want to make sure it’s even worth it for her to persuade this type of degree.