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 
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.
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.