Can anyone tell me - how long did it take you to hear back on prescreen from Illinois Wesleyan?
I am loving the idea of a way to recognize other CC parents! (Also up for that silly drinking game…but I would be under the table with all of these applications!) I will be all alone tagging along with my S in New York, Chicago, a bit of LA, and now an added trip to Elon. Coming from CA just hoping for decent weather for all of this travel. Was in San Francisco last weekend for the Marymount Manhattan regional audition and it rained through our whole mini “vacation”. HA! These are exciting times…and I am definitely racking up the airline miles! Anyone out there that has experienced NY Unifieds with suggestions on what PARENTS do during all of these audition blocks?
I have a quick question for all of the wonderful CC parents out there faced with the “joys” of scheduling! I am sure many of you are leaping over hurdles of scheduling of auditions with school MT productions, but do any of your fabulous sons and daughters participate in show choir? I know it is a bit different world. Competition season is upon us, and it means long rehearsals and competitions weekend after weekend after weekend…tired bodies and voices. Wondering how you are managing it all if you are in the midst of it as we are.
One more question for the night. What are you doing to keep your kids healthy in the midst of school…travel…auditions…shows…etc? It is so nice to have the stress of applications done, but wondering if there are any tried and true “miracles” to keep the bugs away. (Other than the typical…wash hands, take vitamins, drink water, sleep,…etc…) :))
I don’t know (yet) whether they are miracles but my son is taking a daily dose of EmergenC and also elderberry syrup which is supposedly a natural anti-viral. I figured at the very least, it can’t hurt. So far, since Christmas the rest of us have been passing around a cold but he has stayed healthy. I’m also kind of a crazy person with the lysol around the house.
^^^add Manuka honey and Zicam to your regimen!
@mindatwork and @artskids You can make your own Elderberry syrup and save a lot of money. They really up the price at health stores! Just be sure you use local honey in your recipe. ( P.S. we love Manuka all the time!)
@3Blessings You are so right - this is the fun time! Enjoy those trips with your kids. Soak up every minute you get to spend with them. It really is a special bonding time. I will say again something I mentioned a while back… plan something to spend time on after your audition tour is over because the waiting game that starts at that point is crazy-making! You could be done with auditions in February and wait til early April for answers - or even May if you’re still on a wait list that you are hoping to get an offer from. BAL to all of you as you head into to the next several weeks of heavy audition season!
@collegeboundSam This is a great idea! I will be sporting a ZukAndSowash name tag next weekend in NYC. Would love to hang with any or all of you!
@pegski We are in CT. And it will definitely be interesting to see where they each end up. We are sincerely lucky & grateful that S is going into auditions with a couple of acceptances under his belt, so in the end, he will have a choice, Columbia College Chicago is one of his safety acceptances. We are looking forward to Chi Unifieds, as he has not been to Chicago before, so it’ll be great to have some time there to spend to check out the city & see what he thinks of it. Hopefully, he likes it, as he has several schools on his radar in the area. Best of luck to your S!
@lithpool fellow CT parent here who went through this a few years ago with my D, now a MT junior at Point Park. Feel free to PM me if you need a shoulder to lean on.
Can’t help but worry about the “what if’s” headed into this audition season. What do you do if there aren’t any yeses? How does one handle a Gap year? Are there things that need to happen ASAP if they need to take one (sign up for summer programs at colleges, programs for the school year, college coach if you didn’t have one before, do they have to retake the SAT even though they’ve taken them)? I know I shouldn’t go there until we’re there but I feel like I have to get myself ready for it in case it happens so I can be mentally ready to support my D. Praying that’s not what’s meant to be for next year but I want to be ready so we can try this again. Praying we don’t as it’s taken a lot out of me personally. But I’m my daughters cheerleader so I’ll cheer her on until the bitter end!
Does anyone have recommendations for how to record accompaniment piano for Unifieds? We have a good pianist at our disposal. Can it just be recorded on a cell phone? Or should it be done more professionally? Thanks!
@frisbee3 You have a long way to go before all results are in, but that being said, do not fear the gap year! My D only got into one BFA program her first year, and sadly, it was not the right fit for her. She decided to take a gap year, and enrolled in non-credit dance classes at a local college (she didn’t want to be considered a transfer student for the new year she would be auditioning for). Her gap year was the absolute best thing that could’ve happened to her, both personally and professionally (obtained an agent, callbacks for major shows, etc). None of this would’ve happened the way that it did had she not taken the gap year. Auditions the second time around were a breeze, and she is now attending one of the top MT schools with amazing opportunities being thrown at her left and right. The biggest downside-It’s really hard financially to swing two audition years in a row, and now into this audition season with my youngest D, making it three solid years of college auditions. Don’t give up hope, and know that a gap year is not the end of the world!
Along with the questions of how to stay well, and not to jinx ourselves, what happens if your kid does end up with cold/flu/laryngitis for unifieds or other auditions, where rescheduling is not an option. Say they can barely talk let alone sing. I assume they still go, be confident, croak through best they can? Would faculty ever be willing to look at other material ie video/youtube of them singing in good health? Or just look at prescreen carefully again? Hopefully won’t happen to anybody, just curious if anybody’s been through this and there’s any way to have a “back up” plan
I highly recommend Zicam swabs…for all family members the minute you feel cold coming on then repeat every 4 hours. I swear by them.
For piano accompaniment. You can record on prorecord on your phone off of Musicnotes (their app for songs) which includes different keys and tempos. Or order on Audition trax great site). You can also convert any youtube karaoke using video converter.com to make it into a MP4. Don’t forget to add dead space at the beginning so your child has time to get to their spot before singing.
I think we’re going to switch to elderberry gummies instead of syrup for Unifieds but I just put some individual packets of manuka honey and real lemon in my Amazon cart. S likes to drink hot honey lemon water in the winter. (He likes Throat Coat too but realizes it’s just a placebo + sometimes he thinks it makes his throat feel dry. Thanks for the tip about the honey, I hadn’t heard of manuka honey before.
@ZukAndSowash, we have the tracks recorded on the phone.
@frisbee3 My D ended up taking a “gap” year and we are doing the audition process again right now. I put gap in quotations because the audition season starts in August and is non-stop, so there really isn’t a break. (Be careful about doing any college courses in that year, since then your kid wouldn’t be considered a first year college student when they apply for MT programs.)
Our first mistake was not having looked into enough programs. She only applied to 6 schools last year. That got cut down to 4 immediately because of 1) sending in a prescreen that was not well-recorded and also at the tail end of the submission window 2) and then not being able to schedule an audition at BW because of the slots being full.
My D ended up auditioning for 4 schools (NYU, Shenandoah, CCM, Cornish); Cornish was added as a walk-in at unifieds. She was accepted at Cornish and waitlisted at NYU.
While she loved the vibe of the faculty at Cornish, she ultimately decided not to go to there because she felt it was missing a strong dance component, and that is super important to her. I was very worried about her not going anywhere and what an unintended gap year would do to her frame of mind. But, she made the call and was positive that she’d rather do the gap year and try again in order to get more dance training.
So, she went a summer camp in NYC and also a College Audition Workshop. She’d been to the summer camp several times, but for some reason, we didn’t really pay much attention to the college audition process.
The college audition workshop was excellent and helped her to find schools she hadn’t had on her radar. She ended up with 20 schools on her list this time around. She filmed her prescreens super early and submitted them all by 9/15.
She passed all her prescreens, with one redirect to acting (CMU). She’s had 6 auditions so far, of the three that have early results she has 1 yes, 1 hold, 1 waitlist.
My S is a junior, so he could be starting this process in the summer and I’m already talking to him about the positive side of taking a “gap” year.
My advice to people starting this process:
- Pick more schools than you need. If your top school has rolling admissions and you get an early acceptance then you could potentially release an audition spot (thus not having the expense of travel), but it’s harder to add schools late in the game.
- Discuss a gap year. The audition process is so insane, I have no idea how seniors are expected to handle the stress of their senior year, senior shows, PLUS the endless audition season.
- Don’t love/hate schools too much until the all decisions are in. It’s agony to spend a lot of emotional energy comparing your top 2 schools and get into neither.
- Use a coach or a mentor (a mentor could just be someone who has some actual experience in this process). Going to a college audition workshop is very, very helpful. My D ended up going to one in NYC and one local in Ohio. Both were great and very worth the time and money.
@BrennaK and @Gapyearguru thank you both. I’m a worrier and the Gap year idea has been keeping me up at night. My daughter is academically a good student which has helped with school acceptances but the audition processes seems so random you never know. We are still early and I hope I’m worrying for nothing. She still had a lot of auditions but she was quickly rejected from her first audition which threw us and has had a few late prescreen rejections that have made me concerned. Both of your responses make me feel like a Gap year isn’t the end of the world and can actually be a good thing which is nice to hear. Also nice to know there are things you should and shouldn’t do if you take a Gap year. Hopefully I won’t be needing your advice for next year but I know who to turn to ?
I wish we had found this site when my son was a sophomore! I am ashamed at how clueless we were to the workings of this entire process! I had no clue some hired coaches, did audition workshops, ect… And even though they stress your prescreens need not be high tech, I’m guessing it makes a big difference just how well they are done. Just the application fees and audition fees are expensive. Then adding what some of these intensives and coaching must cost?? I’m not sure I’m ready to spend a chunk of his college savings before he even gets accepted! I’m going to trust the process and hope that his talent shines through and is seen. Madness starts next weekend for us–we are going to enjoy the travel and the stories we will be able to tell! haha