<p>MomOfAPrincess, in the end, it all amounts to the same thing: kids who want to study acting or MT at Syracuse have to audition into the acting or musical theater program. They take the same core courses (as explained by the people in the department at two information sessions I attended with my kid) and at the end of sophomore year, there are some choices to be made. One choice is that the student <em>herself</em> decides to pursue the BS track, which means taking more liberal arts courses. (In this case, the student cannot enroll in upper level acting/performance classes.) OR the professors decide that the student has not mastered the material enough to go on to the upper level, BFA classes, and the student moves on to the BS track. OR (yet again!) the student wants to continue to upper level performance classes, and passes her juries/evals, so she <em>does</em> continue to the BFA track. It really is a semantic difference. From what the folks at SU have said, students in both “tracks” do the same things freshman and sophomore years, and it goes from there, according to both the student’s wishes/desires/interests and the teachers evaluations of whether those who do wish to move on in the BFA track can do so. Does that make sense?</p>