<p>This is a question I found myself struggling with a lot throughout my auditions – should I judge a program based on how clearly directed and smooth an audition day was?</p>
<p>I think I had this problem because a lot of my auditions were so much fun and yet others really paled in comparison, or just turned into a headache for both me and my parents. Late auditors, e-mails from drama departments that always seemed to skirt the questions I asked, general impoliteness… all of these audition issues are things that have now negatively marked the programs they represented in my mind.</p>
<p>So the question is, what do you do with a poorly run audition? Forgive and forget? Give those running it some leniency for what is hopefully a simply bad day? Or should we look at the school holistically and include a bad audition as one of many factors that goes into a decision as complex and important as this?</p>
<p>Personally, I think everything is information and data so, yes, you should look at this as another factor in your decision.</p>
<p>One piece of information is how smoothly the auditions are planned. But you mentioned emails from drama departments - I think these are <em>very</em> important in that they inadvertently reveal the climate and culture of the department. Impoliteness is a bad sign, but skirting questions is an alarm bell. You don’t say what the questions are, but if a program won’t answer reasonable questions, I think you should cross them off your list. </p>
<p>You don’t mention this, but another piece of info we used was the Freshman class, if my D auditioned on site. Some of the schools seemed a huge mismatch for her–the entire class seemed to be people she had nothing in common with. Some schools seemed to foster a really braggy conceited attitude (one Freshman girl told us several times how ‘talented’ she was because ‘obviously’ she had to be if this program wanted her!). THat was a huge turn-off for my D. </p>
<p>Overall, don’t be afraid to trust your gut. What one person thinks of as awesome, another person can’t stand. IT’s very individual. Best of luck.</p>
<p>I agree with Connections…your gut reaction is very important. This is where you are going to spend 4 very important years and you must feel like this is where you belong.</p>
<p>I think you can consider it an indication of how they treat people. At my son’s USC audition the actual audition part was lovely but the administration was really inconsiderate. Hard not to see it as symbolic of the theatre department vs. the rest of the university.</p>
<p>Agree with both of the above responses. Between my son’s interactions with auditors and my own observations (read: “eavesdropping”) in the waiting areas and halls, we definitely were able to gather some strong impressions of the department’s ethos and culture. With one very clear exception, the faculty and current students at on-site auditions were warm and welcoming, interested in the auditioners, and articulate about their programs. And in several cases, the audition experience won us over to programs that had been lower on the list (even after visits and info sessions). </p>
<p>I was also interested in the variety of ways the schools structured their auditions. Ours were almost all on campus (only did one at Unifieds) so we had a range of experiences to compare. Some of the variables included: providing the option to attend a class; warm-ups (guided group warm-up vs. “do you want a practice room?” vs. “find a corner of the hallway and warm up on your own”); collegiality of other auditioners (at some schools, there was group applause whenever somebody left for or returned from their audition); information sessions (all but one school provided some kind of info session for students and usually parents too); presence of current students, either as assistants with the process or as ambassadors for the program, or both. I’m sure there are more that I’m not thinking of right now, but we found these to be really useful points of comparison when we talked about the auditions later. </p>
<p>Bottom line, though, is what both connections and photomom have said: trust your instincts, whether or not you can figure out exactly what they’re based on!</p>
<p>We dealt with one school that made so many administrative errors I began to fear my D would go there and it would be a nightmare for 4 years. It started with miscommunications about admissions paperwork and went all the way to forgetting to send her an admissions letter from the theatre department! I finally decided that it is a functional university, and this was probably just a coincidence, but I was relieved she chose another school. </p>
<p>What was more important was that we had such unpleasant contact with the theatre department secretary - on the phone, in e-mail and in person when she went to audition. I know for these kids that person will be their surrogate Mom in many ways, and I wondered how her personality and working style affects the students’ life.</p>
<p>This is a very important question, I think. I feel like I’m a very intuitive person when it comes to the “little” things, and it’s true that gut reactions count for a lot. It’s tempting to ignore these signs. After applying to ten programs, I’ve catalogued a lot of “gut” reactions to the whole process: each email (or lack of), information provided without having to dig for it, mixed messages about what to bring to audition or what to send, the current students helping with check-in, the questions the auditors asked my daughter, whether they talked to her at all, etc. </p>
<p>One of the administrators for a top program on my D’s list is incredibly friendly and genuine, but forgets to answer questions and writes sloppy emails, which makes me wary. And yes, people do have bad days. Even though I feel discerning about people and situations, I can also be quite taken by good advertising, by photos of the schools shows, well-designed web-pages, and great sounding study-abroad and honors programs. </p>
<p>When you know acceptance to a particular program is extremely competitive and desired by many, and it’s graduates are getting work, yet you have a bad gut feeling, isn’t it REALLY difficult to say no? Do you think that some of these schools/staff get lax in a way–they know that people are willing to put up with poor treatment or disorganization because the program has gained a good reputation?</p>
<p>I used to be more judgmental about “sloppy e-mails” but have learned that it’s usually because the writer is using a hand-held device and answering e-mails on-the-go. They figure, it’s better to respond to twice as many people than to send fewer, more polished responses.</p>
<p>One school actually sent my son an e-mail thanking him for auditioning! I am sure it was an automatic system, but it was a thoughtful touch.</p>
<p>In our case, we give a lot of weight to the opinions of the theatre professionals we know in our city. These people audition a lot of recent graduates every year, and have formed a perspective about how well-trained the people are.</p>
<p>The least helpful area is the boilerplate web page and brochure. They’re all the same. Every school does a lot of blah-blah-blah about commitment to excellence. It’s a lot more useful to look at the curriculum if you can find it.</p>
<p>The way a school interacts on multiple levels (admissions department, general administration, department administration, faculty) is, I think a real indication of what is to come. Sometimes the admissions department and the general admin have their act so well together than it’s possible to overlook weaknesses in the department itself. So it’s important to remember that marketing is an important component of admissions. I think this is a problem more likely for those who are doing non-auditioned or non-performance BAs where one does not interact as much with faculty prior to admission. </p>
<p>My D4 auditioned last year and found most of her experiences to be neutral to positive, with the exception of Emerson, whose audition she left feeling for sure that she would not want to be involved with them further. (No surprise: she was not accepted.) The most positive experiences were Fordham and Rutgers. Fordham, where the faculty responded to every email, read her play in advance, and even sent personal thank-yous to her recommenders (!) was the highlight. At their audition they served a buffet breakfast to students and parents in the waiting area and were warm and welcoming. At Rutgers, when she walked into her audition, the first thing the auditor said was that he’d viewed the (unsolicited) DVD she’d sent. Kudos also to Bard, a non-auditioned program, where faculty and students spent personal time with her on her visit. NYU was tougher to get a handle on, but she did get personal replies from faculty, and the admissions counselor spent 45 minutes of his busy day in a personal conference, answering her questions, post-admission. All these interactions make a difference. IMO, if the administration stonewalls you, if the faculty are unresponsive or unapproachable, if the students seem arrogant and have no inclination to be ambassadors for their own program-- then that’s a red flag.</p>
<p>I agree with glassharmonica. You have to base some judgement on your own interactions with the department. I have had a dickens of a time getting through to a human at two schools, it makes me very wary, I must admit.</p>
<p>Great thread! Two years ago we visited a school since we happened to be in the area even though my kid was just a sophomore. Beautiful location, and the program has a good reputation, but we also ran into a very unpleasant secretary that day. We asked a simple question, and, oh my, I couldn’t believe the attitude. We walked out of that office and crossed the school off the list then and there. And from subsequent observation, I still feel it was the right decision. Stick with the spidey-sense, there’s something to it.</p>
<p>Photomom5, I feel the same way you do about getting through to a human. Sadly, the worst culprit is the telephone company, and I can’t exactly boycott them…</p>
<p>Some really good thoughts here. Particularly interesting are prodesse’s thoughts on e-mailing (and her LOL-inducing last comment), and RsrchMom’s notes on popular schools.</p>
<p>It’s nice to see that most everyone is mostly on the same page. Personally, I have such a hard time faulting representatives for poor electronic communication because it just seems like departments are dealing with hundreds of kids, auditioners and students alike, every day and someone is bound to fall through the cracks. However, I did find one particular instance at my auditions to be beyond forgivable, and consequently didn’t apply (they sent me the entirely wrong date to audition at Unifieds, and I couldn’t – nor wanted to at this point – stay the next day to audition after feeling a little frustrated by the mishap.) </p>
<p>However, I find in person offenses harder to justify. I had one auditor that coughed throughout my entire audition, and then sent me on my merry way even though I had waited a long time for my audition because they were behind schedule. It seemed to me that if people have to travel to a school for auditions there should be some sort of level of courtesy or interest involved in the students they are auditioning.</p>
<p>I found the point made earlier about the design of websites and pamphlets interesting. I’m sure this is a relatively hard and minute issue on a grander scale, but have people actually found that the quality of the representational materials really do reflect on a quality of a program? I never even thought of that, but I guess it could make sense…</p>
<p>I was amazed at the contrast in auditioning experiences. The best, by far were CalArts, Cornish and UCLA. They said everything to make this very stressful experience welcoming and even inspiring. I don’t know if it is a West Coast thing, but we didn’t feel this way about the east coast schools at all. And even some in the midwest were not warm at all. I think your gut is important and from my experience indicative of what is to come.</p>
<p>Some of the East coast schools are “warm”. Boston University has a great guy running its auditions, and I have heard very positive things about Coastal Carolina. I’m sure others can provide additional examples.</p>
<p>We had wonderful experiences almost everywhere: BU (Paolo is amazing), Muhlenberg, JMU, Hartt, Ithaca, and Otterbein–couldn’t have been nicer or more helpful.</p>
<p>I’m going to risk sounding very cynical here, but I do want to say that people often have their “friendly face” on during campus visits and auditions. Many kids are strongly influenced by a very welcoming approach to prospective students, and it can be a little rough when you get on campus for real and no one is trying to “woo” you any more. </p>
<p>I definitely agree with vibes - when my D and I were visiting schools, one day she had a horrible cold. It was all she could do to drive into the campus, raise her head and look around. But she got some really great spot impressions, and I’m not sure she would have had any more accurate feelings if she’d taken a tour. There are so many schools out there - why not pick ones where you have a great gut feeling along with everything else? Some of the gut feelings seem a bit irrational, for good or for bad, but that’s just the way people are, and I’d rather my kid had some good emotional traction when starting college. When she was choosing among acceptances, her top 3-4 were schools she had the best vibe about. After that, she scoured the curriculum and other factors.</p>
<p>If my kid’s gut seemed always to pick extremely competitive or prestigious schools, I guess I’d have to have a talk with him/her about expectations. I can forgive a sloppy audition process if it seems only human, not a pervasive negative attitude. I don’t tend to judge a school based on the other applicants we meet, but I do think meeting students who actually go there really helps. I really appreciate great website info, but I’ve decided anyone can have a good website and it really doesn’t reflect the overall quality of the school.</p>
<p>When my D visited her current school (twice) she got to talk to students, and there was a very strong vibe of “these kids are like me” - particularly in the theatre dept. These are very valuable factors in choosing a school.</p>
<p>^Exactly, EmmyBet…although you usually can get a little bit of a read on whether the friendliness is grounded in something real. And it’s weird to audition at a school where very few people even bother to “fake it.” </p>
<p>Re: websites, since they’re almost always a function of the school’s marketing department, not their theater program, it’s wise to avoid putting a lot of weight on them as anything other than one source of information. At the school where I teach, all of the website pagrs are generated by folks in an office who rarely ask us for material and only at the last minute (usually when we have a million other things going on). I hope nobody judges our arts program too harshly by that site! :)</p>
<p>I agree that they might as well “fake” it - they are performing a kind of service and they do want prospies. I never even told my D about how that one school forgot to send her an acceptance letter. After hearing about several acceptances to that school here, I finally wrote the dept head a very polite e-mail, and he was very apologetic and sent it out then. Maybe he was just an absent-minded professor, but there is a certain public relations role they do have to play, at least during admissions. But his dept secretary was definitely nasty - she treated both of us very badly during every encounter (it just occurred to me that maybe she was the one who didn’t get the letter out?). By contrast, I am happy every day that the school my D is at has a wonderful departmental “Mom” - including to us parents!</p>