After admittance, D communicated with current students, parents, faculty members, and heads of the programs. I also emailed/texted/messaged parents of students. Plus, we both had many conversations with trusted coaches and other professionals, and we visited/re-visited each school (including one waitlist, where she was treated as an admit), complete with seeing at least one production at each.
Interestingly, although she liked the location and the school, D wasn’t blown away by the whole experience of the visit to the school she ended up choosing. Although we were super impressed by the show and the audience there, we obviously caught the head of the program on an incredibly busy day, and D didn’t completely love the couple classes she observed. However, we realized that we visited at a time when they were working on projects, etc. So, D fortunately didn’t write off the school. Instead, she initiated more communications with the program head, who was always responsive and engaged in them, and with many students and some other adults. As she gathered more information, she began to beam when she spoke about the school (unbeknownst to her); in her mind, she was sort of undecided between a couple of her final choices, but her demeanor showed differently. (Even acquaintances picked up on it.) It wasn’t long until she made her choice, and, if you’ve followed my posts at all, you know that she has continued to be extremely happy with it! The program head has proven to be as invested and incredible as his communications indicated, and D has found her classes to be engaging and stretching. The moral? Look at the whole picture, and dig as deeply as you can!