<p>I’d recommend starting out by securing a good, affordable, rolling-admissions, non-auditioned safety school (in my daughter’s case it was Temple-- we are in-state and she knew it was a good program.) Once you have that acceptance, you can relax a little. Did I say relax? It’s going to be a hard year! 8 or so auditioned schools plus a few non-auditioned schools should yield some good choices for April. Your daughter will have most of her answers before April 1 (my daughter did not hear from one of her schools until the second week of April, and this was not a wait-list admission; they were just slow.) But then you start comparing financial aid offers.</p>