Importance of rigorous academic classes?

MichaelNKat
Sat, 21 May 2011 08:05:19 +0000

As a student puts together a list of schools to apply, it is important to fully explore the role of academics in the admissions process at a particular school. There are schools where the academic review is entirely separate from the talent review, schools where both are blended together, schools where academics are given equal weight to talent, schools where talent is given greater weight than academics. There are schools where you can be rejected based on academics and you are done regardless of the outcome of your audition and schools where the theatre department can influence the admissions outcome where you are borderline on academics. There are schools where the academic criteria for admissions are set high and schools where they are not.

Academic load in h.s., from a college admissions perspective, even for MT students, is all about how to make yourself as competitive as possible, within the range of your capabilities, so as to maximize your options. Look at the list of schools at the top of the MT page that have their own forum (i.e. are the frequently discussed schools). You will be surprised at the number for which a 3.6 gpa is just “average” and at the number for which it is “below average” in the profile of incoming freshmen. There are certainly a number of high quality MT programs at which a 3.6 is a very strong showing and therefore the audition will clearly be the the most important determining factor. But even at those schools, a student may very well be competing with many others with much stronger academics and where talent is determined to be relatively equal between two students, the one with the better academics could likely get the nod.

The point is not that those who are not “honors/AP” students or have lower academic achievement should despair, that is certainly not the case; there are high quality schools where the academic profile for admissions is not as selective as others. I think the point is twofold. 1) Many of the more desirable MT programs have high academic criteria and the higher your academic achievement the more options you will have. 2) Taking the most demanding h.s. curriculum within your capabilities is critical to developing the work ethic and time management skills essential to succeeding in a BFA MT program. A student who has not taken honors/Ap classes can certainly find a good MT program where that wont be a fatal deficiency in the admissions process but a student that has not consistently pushed him or her self to achieve the best they can will likely struggle greatly in any BFA program regardless of the academic standards for admission. This holds true even for the schools that soozie identified as being less academically selective.