<p>OP, I’d also suggest you think about how you view education itself. There are many of us here (and I put myself in this camp) who do not view BFA programs as strictly vocational training or a means to getting a job, but as a method for artistic, social and intellectual growth. We want our kids to envelop themselves in a peer group and recognize that this may be one of the last times in life this will be possible. We see that a college diploma is a useful tool to have along the path of life-- not just for theater – for employability in future endeavors. </p>
<p>There is another camp – and an equally valid one – and I have to say I subscribe to this one as well to some extent, because I do not think that everyone belongs in college, and there is alot of pressure on students coming right out of high school to conform at the wrong time in their lives. And that is: if you are not interested in book learning, being with primarily your peers or a degree at this point in your life, then focus on vocational training, which in essence, is what these non-college studios are (I am NOT using the term vocational training in a derogatory sense, so I hope no one is reading into it that way). On this path, you still have an option to get a college degree at some point in your life, but you will have to recognize that you will enter the college world as a “non-traditional” student and will not have credits to apply. Your options will be more limited if you do not want to be at a college where the students are all in their late teens, early 20s, but as long as you are aware of that now, this is a possibility down the road.</p>