Unified Auditions 2009

College Majors Musical Theater Majors
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<p>anne1244- Unifieds vs on-campus: It varies by school but there are definitely schools that include dance at their Unified auditions. Once you come up with your list of schools, check each school’s website to get specifics about what they will require at their auditions. I know that all of the schools my D auditioned for at Unifieds in LA included a dance audition, including Boston Conservatory, Emerson, and Point Park. </p>

<p>There have been several threads about the value of auditioning on-campus vs. at Unifieds. My D did mostly Unifieds as the cost is significantly less. In her case she had a high acceptance rate so it was not a problem, but different people have different results. </p>

<p>Good Luck!!!</p>

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<p>NotMamaRose: You’re right about Boston Conservatory. I amend my statement that all of the schools offer BFA degrees in performance.</p>

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<p>Thanks so much, cktsing. It’s still a year off, but I am learning enormous amounts from the kind members of CC.</p>

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<p>Does anyone know any good hotels near the NY location?
Also, are all of the school’s auditions in one building or are they around Manhattan? Thanks!</p>

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<p>All of the unified schools should be at the American Management Association, 48th St. and Broadway. Other schools do hold auditions elsewhere.</p>

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<p>anne1244 - I am not sure that any school provides actual percentages between those accepted from Unifieds vs. those who auditioned on site, although at one point doctorjohn posted some numbers that indicated that Otterbein definitely does not seem to prefer one over the other.</p>

<p>We just went through this process and my D opted to audition on site. We did not have the opportunity to visit a lot of schools in advance, because we live in CA and most of the schools she applied to were far away. By auditioning on site she had the opportunity to get a feel for the school. Additionally, she has a lot of dance training, and she really wanted to audition on a dance floor as opposed to carpet, something that tends to happen at Unifieds. Again, this was her personal preference. She knows of a friend of hers, who actually preferred the carpet, because it was ‘less slippery’ :). Faculty of most schools however can easily get a feel for one’s ability, even if those auditioning are dancing on carpet.</p>

<p>Ironically, my D’s first choice school, and the one she will be attending in the fall, actually did not have a dance component al all, and all their auditions are off site :D. I should add however, that she had attended their summer program which enabled her to get a really good feel for the school itself to the point that it became one of her top choices. </p>

<p>Much of what to do will be really personal, and contingent upon where you live, what your D’s academic curricular requirements are in the fall/spring, what your budget you have in mind/set aside etc. </p>

<p>In hindsight, I don’t think she would have wished to have done anything different, other than possibly drop one of the schools she auditioned at, but I can’t reiterate enough that both Unified and on site auditions can be equally effective.</p>

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<p>I asked all of my adjudicators whether they prefer onsite auditioners over Unified auditioners. The general concensus was that in terms of admissions, it makes no difference. They ALL said that if admitted, they want the kids to visit the campus and get a feel as to whether they like it there or not.</p>

<p>At my Point Park dance audition, I really felt that the room wasn’t big enough to dance in, even though we were doing it in groups of 4 or 5. I also didn’t like their audition requirements of only 16 bars of one song and one 45 second monologue. It did not give anyone the time to stick out in their auditions. Even though their application fee was free, I am not going to reaudition there this year</p>

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<p>Just as an aside, it can be advantageous to audition at a site that is not as crowded. That way you can squeeze in some impromptu auditions. There are some interesting schools and finds at these auditions.</p>

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<p>Thanks for all the tips from everyone. I suspect budget/school schedule will dictate a combination of unifieds and on site auditions. I’m so glad to hear that the dance auditions are by no means automatically eliminated at the unifieds.</p>

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<p>I was suspicious of the Unifieds. I did find some stats on acceptances on site at the college and the Unifieds, and it made no difference. This was after the fact, for my son. I can tell you that he felt he did better at the Unifieds as there was not so much down time and he could repeatedly audition at various schools, adjusting things as he went. When you go to a college, you have one shot at it. The whole day is for those few minutes. It’s more efficient and more fulfilling in some ways to do the rounds in a day or too. We did it both ways, and I recommend that to all as different folks do better in different circumstances, and to put it all on the unifieds is definitely taking a chance as illness or other issues can crop up.</p>

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<p>It really doesn’t seem to make any difference whether a kid auditions on site at the school or at Unifieds. My D did about half of her auditions at Unifieds and was very successful and I can report the same with many of her friends. If she had it to do over again, I would definitely switch it so that she did even more at Unifieds. Traveling long distances by plane to schools and having to book a separate hotel, rental car, etc. can be very expensive in terms of time and money. Better to see where a kid is accepted and then visit those finalist schools once you have the offers in hand, I think, though I know a fair number of people disagree with me! :)</p>

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<p>How many auditions can one expect to squeeze into the NY city unifieds? Are you expected to be at a certain school for lets say 1/2 day or do you schedule your singing, dancing, monologue for a specific time? What happens if one school is running over? Do you then lose out on other school auditions that you had planned on?</p>

<p>Thanks in advance for any info. We are starting this process and it feels a bit daunting. Getting good grades and SAT’s now seems to have been the easy part.</p>

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<p>My D did 7 auditions (6 scheduled and one walk-in) over the three days of New York City Unifieds, as well as two other regional auditions that were held by two other schools. So she did 9 auditions offsite for schools. </p>

<p>Some kids frankly thought she was crazy to do so many, but she really did take it all in stride and wasn’t stressed out about it at all. Keep in mind that, for many schools, the auditions are in one self-contained block of 10 minutes at most, though others require a half day. </p>

<p>Re: scheduling. Yes, scheduling auditions at Unifieds is a scary and daunting task, akin to putting a puzzle together. The only thing I can tell you is to investigate the requirements of all the schools that you might want to audition for, and then keeping those requirements in mind, begin by setting them up, one at a time. You can make it work. The most difficult ones are schools like Ithaca, which require a whole half day (and thus which my D did offsite when they came to DC-Virginia) and Boston Conservatory, which require a separate and somewhat lengthy dance audition. (For the record, my kid decided in the end to travel to Boston for that one, as it made it impossible, or almost, for her to schedule other auditions at Unifieds.)</p>

<p>On the other hand, schools such as Otterbein give you an exact time to report to the particular room they are using, so they make it easy. (You go in and do your monologue, sing and then dance. No one else but you and the wonderful Dr. John and a few students are in the room.) It’s pretty much the same with Penn State, even if they require a group dance call at the beginning. Syracuse does regional auditions in New York and DC and also schedule you for a morning or afternoon time. </p>

<p>Believe me when I say that it <em>can</em> be done. But you have to start with one school and work the thing like a puzzle, as I said. The key is to begin early, so that if you have to ask a school to switch a time or date, they still have room to do so. </p>

<p>Also keep in mind that my D was extremely fortunate that she stayed healthy through the whole Unifieds process, so scheduling so many auditions back to back worked out really well for her. Good luck! If you want to know more specifics, feel free to PM me. I am happy to help in any small way I can.</p>

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<p>There was a good feature article in The New York Times recently about the Unifieds. Does anyone recall reading it or know if there’s a link?</p>

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<p>There was quite a discussion about it a couple of months ago.</p>

<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/musical-theater-major/496700-ny-times-article-4-20-08-a.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/musical-theater-major/496700-ny-times-article-4-20-08-a.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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<p>Just a different perspective, My D auditioned for 3 schools at NY Unifieds and 2 offsite that weekend, 1 each day we were there. She found 0ne-a-day somewat overhwhelming, as each school had different requirements, different shoes, etc, and she needed different songs, sheetmusic, CD’s etc. She did get into her first choice that weekend, but could not have kept up with the pace that NMR’s D was able to do (Kudos to her btw!). I certainly met other kids with similar paces as NMR’s D but just letting you know my own D felt one was enough to focus on each day, so each to his own style, process, etc…</p>

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<p>tashmu, I am glad you posted, as I definitely do think that people need to take into account their own kid’s style, energy level and so forth when deciding how many to do. Mine found it kind of exciting to do an average of two auditions a day (usually one in the a.m. and one in the afternoon) because it sort of put her on “a roll” of energy and enthusiasm and one audition served as a warm up, in a way, for the next. (In between auditions, we didn’t really linger around talking with a lot of people or socializing. She is typically “all business” and we went back to our room betweentimes, though we met up with friends in the evening and so forth. But she is the type of performer who comes out of auditions more energized than tired, if that makes sense.)
One thing that people might consider (I have heard of others doing this) is to do auditions at two Unified locations. In other words, do some in, say, New York and then a few more in Chicago. I believe it would still save you money and would allow a kid to audition for more schools without traveling to different campuses. The nice thing is that there are so many options for auditions, that it all works out in the end. Best of luck to everyone!</p>

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<p>my son did 6 auditions at Chicago unifieds. We stayed at the hotel that the auditions were in and spaced them so there was one each morning and one each afternoon. This made it logistically easy. For him it was no problem and he could have done a few more if there were schools he was interested in. He did vary his monologues some but used pretty much the same songs. He had two songs and two monologues as his first choices, and had a spare song and monologue in case they asked for different material. He did use his alternate song at one audition. We even had time to spend a few hours at the art museum a few blocks away.</p>

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<p>alwaysamom, thanks for the link.</p>

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<p>Thank you all for your input. My D. is off to CMU summer program Sat., but we are starting to think about how this audition process plays out. Great advice from all of you. Thank you.</p>