Sophomore Looking for Safety/Target Schools for Playwriting/History Double Major! (INTERNATIONAL SCHOOLS WELCOME!)

Chance Me / Match Me
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Demographics

  • US citizen, dual citizen of Canada
  • State/Location of residency: New York
  • Type of high school (or current college for transfers): Small (~150 kids) private high school
  • Other special factors: Disabled??? Hook??? Does that count??

Cost Constraints / Budget: For the sake of this, we’re going to say anything goes. My parents have already said they will pay for my tuition (full disclosure for the sake of this, my family is solidly upper-class).

Intended Major(s): History & Playwriting/Dramatic Writing Double Major. (Also applying to a few schools History/MT Double Major if possible, so feel free to chuck out a few non-reach schools for that if anyone has any ideas!)

GPA, Rank, and Test Scores

  • Unweighted HS GPA: 3.93
  • Weighted HS GPA: School doesn’t calculate
  • Class Rank: School doesn’t calculate
  • ACT/SAT Scores: N/A

List your HS coursework

  • English: English II/III
  • Math: Algebra II (done Algebra I and Geometry)
  • Science: Chemistry (completed Conceptual Physics)
  • History and social studies: Modern World History, US History
  • Language other than English: Spanish (fluent/all levels completed; skipped 2 grades)
  • Visual or performing arts: Drama I/II, a BUNCH of things outside of school
  • Other academic courses: Mock Trial (not currently)

Awards

Extracurriculars

  • work professionally as an actress
  • writing program at unspecified university since I already fear someone is going to find me on here (free to attend; 5% acceptance rate)
  • runs podcast about musical theatre
  • songwriter, also for musical theater
  • playwright and librettist/lyricist → have had a few staged readings and a few things produced at local community and regional theatres
  • won multiple local history bees and competing at an international one later this year
  • just really big into history in general

Schools

  • Reaches (tentative ideas): Northwestern, Yale, Emory, Oxford, Cambridge
  • Targets (I need more lol): NYU, Kenyon, Royal Central
  • Safeties (also need more): UW Madison, UBC, McGil, UIowa

I consider target schools 30%-60%, safeties 60% and above. Let me know if that should change lol. Only schools where double majoring is allowed. International schools, France, Australia, other parts of Europe, welcome!

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Are you planning to do ACT or SAT?

I’m not sure about all your schools but NYU is a reach (for everyone). Admit rates are single digits.

I also assume you know you can’t apply to both Oxford and Cambridge in the same year, so you’d have to choose which one works better for you. You need, I think, a number of APs with 5s for both of those.

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Yale isn’t known for double majoring. The history department in particular is so rigorous, that you’ll want to use your non-history courses to explore all the other incredible departments without boxing yourself in.

Why a double major?

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Is your current math at Algebra 2 but you are going to Pre Calc or higher?

DePaul has a Playwriting degree and they note In addition to the major’s requirements, students complete 52 quarterly credit hours (13 courses) in the university’s Liberal Studies Program. Courses are taken in theatre history, writing, quantitative reasoning and technological literacy, philosophical inquiry, religious dimensions, scientific inquiry, understanding the past, multiculturalism in the United States, and electives. These liberal studies courses are scheduled during the first three years of the program.

Others to look at (not sure if can dual):

Ohio U
SUNY Purchase

I think your academic rigor might not be enough based on what you wrote for your reaches and maybe even your safeties - like Wisconsin, which is not a safety - but then your career (acting) background might compensate.

Iowa doesn’t seem to have an undergrad in playwriting.

Good luck.

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Prolly both for testing. I’m taking the PACT next month. Fingers crossed I do well.

And yeah, whoops on NYU as a target. I originally had it as “target-borderline-reach” because I read online Tisch’s acceptance rate in 25%. I’m not applying to like their business school or anything, but it’s a solid reach. Thanks for pointing that out.

Oh my god yes I’m an idiot lol on the Oxford Cambridge thing. Leaning more towards Cambridge just in terms of campus and some musical theater stuff they have I could do outside of academics.

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Yeah, I’ve heard their history department is no joke. A friend’s older brother is currently going there and he’s having a… delightful time (sorry, that was intended to be sarcastic). I might just apply history there, but I’m also not totally sure if I want to apply at all because I don’t know how much it fits with my undergrad overall goals. Maybe for master’s but that’s like… getting way too far ahead.

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More like half of that, and highly dependent on portfolio/audition as relevant, so hard to chance or pigeonhole.

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Yale does not admit by major. It literally won’t matter what you tell them on the application.

I think you have time to figure things out!

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There are at least 100 colleges in the US where you can do musical theater stuff outside of academics.

I think you are rushing things!

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Bishop’s University in Lennoxville Quebec is a good choice for playwriting / history, and has very good musical theatre (and they know how to spell it!). It is one of the three universities in Quebec for which English is the language of instruction. I think that it would probably be a safety with your stats. It is a small university with a relatively compact campus which is relatively easy to get around. We liked it quite a bit when we visited. One daughter was admitted and seriously considered it (along with a few other small universities in eastern Canada). She did get her bachelor’s degree at a small university in Canada, did very well, and is currently getting a PhD at a very good university in the US (but in a different major than you).

Lennoxville is a largely bilingual small town, quite close to the largely French speaking small city of Sherbrooke. The first two people who I met who were from Lennoxville were bilingual to the point that they did not have a single first language. One of them told me that their earliest memory was that everything had two words to describe it, and their second-earliest memory was realizing that the words came in two groupings and some people only knew one of the two groupings. Anyone who I have ever met however who was from Lennoxville has been fluently bilingual in both English and French.

There is also a Drama Studies program at Mount Allison University in New Brunswick which is very good. We liked Mount Allison also (deciding between Bishop’s, Mount Allison, Acadia, and St Francis Xavier was the most difficult part of one daughter’s undergraduate university admissions effort – PhD admissions were tougher but went well).

You can save several buckets of money while getting a great education in Canada. You will pay tuition either as a Canadian citizen or possibly (depending upon some details) as a resident of Quebec (which is even better). I also do know several people who got their bachelor’s degree in Canada and then either got or are currently getting a graduate degree (either master’s or PhD or both) in the US, including at some very highly ranked American universities. You might want to see if you attend university in Canada whether your parents will put any money you save towards any potential future graduate degree or towards an unpaid but worthwhile internship.

Applying from a high school in the US, with dual US/Canadian citizen, one university (specifically Bishop’s) missed the fact that my daughter was a Canadian citizen. Along with her acceptance they sent information regarding costs for international students and how to apply for appropriate visa’s. A quick call to admissions plus a fax of her Certificate of Canadian Citizenship cleared this up quickly and easily (a text picture would work just as well today). We found admissions at the small universities in eastern Canada to be very easy to deal with. Admissions at McGill were just as helpful, but sometimes took longer to get back to us.

It might be worth also looking at Concordia in Montreal, but it is quite a bit larger and my understanding is that it has two main campuses (it was formed from the merger of two universities).

Our daughter seemed to enjoy studying in Canada, and found quite a few opportunities that were relevant to her major. One difference with respect to the US is that there seem to be fewer general education requirements, which allows you if you want to take more classes relevant to your major. I think that this has for example helped to set my daughter up to do well in her current PhD program. Another plus of studying in Canada is that it does allow you to get to see a bit more of the world, while still being relatively close to New York (or to New England for us).

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Do you see your interests in playwriting and history as separate, or are you interested in crossover fields like Public History? There are more grad programs than undergrad ones in this field, but undergrad opportunities do exist, and might dovetail really well with your writing and performing arts interests.

For example, Tsbna already mentioned DePaul on the Playwriting side of things; they also have a Public History concentration within the History BA. What makes a double-major less viable here, though, is the fact that the Playwriting degree is a BFA.

Another, somewhat similar school to look at is Loyola Marymount. The Theater Arts department offers both BA and BFA programs, and playwriting is one of the concentration areas offered. Program - Loyola Marymount University The History department offers a concentration in Applied & Public History. History Concentrations - Loyola Marymount University . It may be possible to blend the two BA programs and cover the bases of your interests nicely, while also taking advantage of the school’s extensive entertainment industry connections in Los Angeles. (Those connections make all related programs competitive to get into, but your background may make you a strong candidate.)

You might find more ideas here, if the idea of a public history program is interesting to you.

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Another thought would be to do a history major somewhere and then do the National Theatre School of Canada’s’s 3-year certificate program in Playwriting.

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For a target (would be a safety but this program is audition-based), you may want to look at Concordia University (in Montreal)'s BFA in Performance Creation, which you could combine with a double degree in History.

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Great list of schools !

Consider adding Loyola Marymount:

https://CFA.lmu.edu/programs/theatrearts/

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Madison is not a safety for anyone. Not even in state.

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oberlin is pretty similar to kenyon from what i understand

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I mean one has a conservatory.

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Mount Holyoke College. Just received a 6 million gift in 2024 for two new faculty chairs in film/media/arts and creative writing named after two notable alums.

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Ooh, yes, I’ve heard of them before! Thanks so much! :smiley:

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How… did… I… forget… this… Lin-Manuel Miranda went here… :joy: But yes, will def add to my list!