She's talking about a gap year

classicalbk
Fri, 11 Feb 2011 10:35:50 +0000

At a Q & A at NYC Unifieds last week, a male parent asked if we should give the kids the summer off before college started, “like in all the movies,” and the director of the program said (with a smile), “No! If the student doesn’t have a great performing JOB, the student should be getting some great training.” He particularly noted the need for boys to take summer dance intensives. So that’s yet another opinion.

I’m glad to have the heads up that the MT college experience may not actually be just like extended summer camp. ;)

Another thought about gap years - it means you graduate a year later, meaning you’re a year older, and you look a year older, which makes no difference for English majors but may be something to consider for theatre. For certain parts that could be a good thing, but for others a later graduation date would cut into your performing time as a certain “type” unless you are at a school that welcomes and encourages taking performing jobs before graduation.

That said I met two young women at Unifieds, one who took a Gap because the previous year she was waitlisted at all the best schools but didn’t get into one of those schools, and another who wasn’t happy with her current college and was going for a transfer. They both felt very much more confident the second time around (after getting extra training in NYC).