West Coast MT Schools

Prof.Himmelheber
Wed, 27 Jul 2005 02:36:08 +0000

The application to the school and the freshman level of the dept. is simple - fill out only the ONE application (the university application, available on line). If the university accepts you, and you declare theatre as your major, you’re in the department (not yet the BFA program, which I’ll explain next)!

The audition into the BFA program happens at the end of the sophomore year (for two reasons). First, we are a public/land grant institute, meaning we must be accessible to a vast majority of students desiring and qualifying for an education here, including TRANSFER STUDENTS who can’t be “held back a year” because they opted to take two years at a J.C. We could opt to use a system like other schools, for example the University of Arizona, one that takes a student in at EITHER the freshman or sophomore level, but can release them from the BFA program at the end of either their first or second year of study (when many of the classes taken may not satisfy the general theatre studies degree requirements). This also forces the UofA to not accept students at any level higher than a sophomore - so transfer students automatically come in as either a freshman or a sophomore in the department, depending on where the department places them based on talent (not on units earned). We, as a California land grant/public institution, cannot do this - if a transfer student has taken two years of transferrable coursework at the Jr. College level, we must accept them in as a junior (unless they CHOOSE to repeat their sophomore year here in preparation for the BFA audition). And we have to be consistent - we can’t say, “Well this transfer student is talented, so we’ll make them a junior, and that one isn’t so we’ll make them a sophomore…” That is much too capricious to fly here.

The second reason we audition at the end of the sophomore year is to offer students who start here two FULL years of preparatory courses (all areas of the discipline except private voice are open to them) before being evaluated on their skills and talent. In those two years, the students work with most (if not all) of the professors in the discipline, get to know who their “competition” is, and know what it is we are looking for in the auditions (a definite advantage over the transfer students). We as a faculty are EXTREMELY candid with our students - we feel it is only fair to be so, as they are investing their time, effort, money and passion in their education here; and we feel we owe them an honest evaluation at every step. So if the student has taken all the recommended preparatory coursework, they really KNOW whether or not they are competitive by the time they finish their sophomore year.

I hope this answers your question. If you need more info, drop me an email, okay?

All the best,

eve