<p>Excellent points, Alexa! I also have very much admired your blog posts about Coastal. You avoid glib generalizations–your writing is always based on real information, so clearly all those visits paid off. Thanks for your contributions, and I hope you know how much they are appreciated!</p>
<p>scorey13, my D was accepted into Indiana but didn’t audition there–it was her BA “safety”. I know it’s too late now but so nice to know a little about them. What a great topic with such great comments. And Times3, in answer to your pm, no, that wasn’t it haha, but I guess most of us had those days.</p>
<p>Thats awesome! It really is a wonderful school but congrats to her and wherever she ends up!</p>
<p>Two of our big surprises in this process have been Ohio Northern and Coastal Carolina. The faculty at both of these schools showed a genuine interest in everyone who auditioned for them. Both programs are definitely up and coming and have much to offer. In addition, the scholarship money they have both offered make these schools very attractive as well. I would encourage anyone in this process to include these on their list of schools to consider.
We did find that visiting schools on campus typically raised our opinion of them and their program - which can be difficult if you don’t get in! So be careful of falling in love with a campus, school or program before you’ve been accepted. To try to avoid this, my daughter auditioned at Unifieds and preferred to visit campuses of programs only after she knew she had been accepted if possible (that didn’t work for a few schools she auditioned for that only held on-campus auditions).<br>
There were a few “big name” schools that really turned her off by their attitudes at auditions which definitely moved them down on her list. It’s hard sometimes not to be impressed by names and reputations but she experiencing these attitudes made her realize some of these programs would not be for her no matter how highly they are ranked. The important thing is to find a program where you will learn and be happy.
For those who did not get in their top choice - One thing she has kept in mind that she heard during the audition process is just because you are rejected from a program does not mean you won’t have a successful career and just because you are accepted to a certain program does not mean you will be successful. Good words of wisdom!
If we were to do anything differently, it would be to apply to more schools. We actually took quite a few schools off our list during the application/audition process that she just didn’t think she would be happy attending. Fortunately we have a number of good options to choose from, but I think we missed out on getting to know some terrific programs my daughter would have enjoyed had we applied/auditioned for more.</p>
<p>Times3, I see you responded to Alexa but I don’t see her post on this thread. I know you mean the same Alexa who goes to CCU because I am familiar with her blog but her post is not showing up on my feed. </p>
<p>I agree with mcpcwhite as well. So true! What my daughter has learned about herself and what she is made of through this process was the first real test of whether she has the tenacity for this career path! And as far as a mother/daughter bonding time, it was great. Some lows and highs, like a crazy rollercoaster that we just want to get off of already! </p>
<p>The traveling was pretty grueling. We tried to have some fun everywhere we went but all of the trips had that persistent element of stress that…not vacations…not by a long shot. And juggling the absences from school (her school has a very strict attendance policy even for really good students who make up all their missed work). It always made me cringe when people would say “have fun!” when we would say we were going here or there for an audition on the weekend. Yeah okay. I can think of other ways to have lots more fun. 
We made an effort to make the most out of the experiences of course, but wow. The first weekend we were actually home was last weekend. It was so weird to not be unpacking and repacking for the next trip. If it weren’t for the blizzard on the East coast in February, we would have traveled every single weekend (half of them 5-7 hour drives, the other half requiring air travel) from January 18 to March 4th. Not complaining, but I am really glad we don’t have to do this again. She has 2 good acceptances so far, and all she needed was 1. :)</p>
<p>TM2013, you’re right, the post I responded to is gone…makes me look like I was hallucinating! But I’m pretty sure it was there. :/</p>
<p>We traveled for the first two weekends in December and then six consecutive weekends starting January 8th. Crazy! And just like you, I had no idea what to do with myself when we were finally done…although my son was in the school musical so he was swamped. Now that’s finally over and I find myself obsessing over CC instead! :D</p>
<p>This is indeed a lovely thread that will have great info for next year’s prospects. Good question!</p>
<p>I do hope that everyone continues to read the OP and see exactly what question the poster is asking since the actual title of this thread could be deceiving. She/he deliberately dismisses any discussion about the (her/his word “top”, my word “usual suspects”) and focuses on everything else. Only pointing that out because if you throw every school into the mix it is also very possible to have your biggest happy and impressed surprise happen at one of those “usual suspects” as well. :)</p>
<p>My daughter’s favorite audition was in Chicago at CCPA (Roosevelt). It was an on campus audition not at unifieds. The students were given specific audition times and were told to come early if they’d like to warm up. She was able to warm up in a practice room which really lessened the stress that morning. They first had her do a vocal evaluation, then she sang BOTH songs and did BOTH monologues. Plus the auditioner spent some time chatting with her and getting to know her. She said she felt like an actual person, not just a voice.
Our surprise school was Muhlenberg. We just happened to hear about it from a friend and my D applied the very last week applications were due. AND her audition with Charlie Richter was the very last day of auditions. She loved it. Loved the audition (another very personal, warm one), the theatre facilities, the school itself and the theatre program (a BA in Theatre perfomance with a very strong dance program) The auditions are for scholarship only but Mr. Richter’s evaluation is taken in to account with the application.</p>
<p>My D had a few surprises along the way. As a junior, she had her sights set on a big name school. When we met the head of the school and hear them talk about the program, both her and I had done a 180 degree turn. She actually decided to cancel her audition for that day and not apply. It was obvious that it was not a match for her.
Ohio Northern was not on the list until this fall when we attended an informational session at Moonifies. She really connected to John Armstrong and later visited the campus after her acceptance. She was really impressed with the students, atmosphere and training. We had not previously known about this program, but it has been a great “hidden gem”.</p>
<p>What surprised me was that the “big name schools” that my D auditioned for seemed to not even matter after the audition. We came, we saw, and were not all that wowed. The students were nice and friendly, the facilities beautiful and the faculty accomplished, but the vibe was all wrong for my D. That surprised both of us. I’m still glad she did those auditions just to find out what she DIDN’T want in a program. If we had to do it over? I think we’d both say to add a few more schools early on in the cycle to try out the material. The material my D ended up using at Unifieds was completely different than what she started with!</p>
<p>OK this isn’t “good” surprised but we had kind of a bad experience with _____ (are we not saying names of bad-experience schools?). My daughter got her application in early early early. I was so obsessed with getting everything done so we could get the audition dates we wanted/needed for it to all work out. I did get the audition on the date I wanted with this school, and they told me it would be in the afternoon. We had a kind of tight schedule that weekend because she had an an audition at another school, too. Well, a few days before the audition we got a notice that her audition would be at 7:30 in the morning. I called them and they said that because a lot of people wanted that date, they divided the day into morning and afternoon, and assigned us to morning. I said, “But we were originally told afternoon! Can we change it?” No. Could I be put on a list if someone in the afternoon cancels? No. All of these no’s were said with complete lack of emotion. I asked how they decided who to put in the morning and who in the afternoon, and they said it was random. But inflexible. Which meant because of where we were staying (with family) we would have had to get up at 4:30 am. My daughter decided to nix the audition altogether (she already had been accepted to one place at that point). So we never saw the school, and they never saw her, so who knows what we both missed. But when I called to cancel, they acted like they couldn’t care less. :(</p>
<p>I wish you all would say the names of the schools where you had bad experiences. Inquiring minds want to know! This is College CONFIDENTIAL, after all! :)</p>
<p>I prefer not to for a couple of reasons, but primarily because I don’t want to hurt or insult anyone who ended up loving the school and attending! </p>
<p>Last year there was an “audition horror story” thread on one of the boards (the theater/drama one I think)–pretty funny stuff. But they didn’t start it till everyone’s results were in. Maybe we can revive it in a few weeks…sounds like there are a few stories out there this year too!</p>
<p>There were a couple:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>As theatermom2013 said Western Michigan. I also live in Michigan and I was wowed and liked it a lot. It seemed like an amazing under the radar MT program. They only do on campus for MT, but I encourage everyone to audition. </p></li>
<li><p>Elon-I loved it. I did not expect to like the south and my mother wanted me to audition there. I really loved the students and the program there. </p></li>
<li><p>Point Park- I am by no means a dancer and they were so welcoming everyone talks about their reputation as a dance school but by no means did I get that vibe and I love the program and they gave me some great scholarships. For those applying next year who are non dancers still audition there especially its free application and no audition fee.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>I agree Times3…and the school where we had our negative experience is one that people have cited as a favorite. There is also a certain “top tier” school that is often given a bad rap for the attitude at their audition days, and we could not have had a more positive and warm experience there…so I do just think some of it is so individual. But anyone who wants to PM me (MomofaMTson), I will be happy to share more off the public thread.</p>
<p>I also had 2 schools that surprised me in a negative way </p>
<ol>
<li><p>I did a walk in at Unifieds (ended up doing about 12 walk ins) and this one was horrendous. I walked in and they talked about the girl before me in front of me in a derogatory way and it made me feel awkward. The head of the program as the accompanist. When I went to go give my tempos he responded saying “I am the head of this program I will pick your tempo”. He played everything very quickly and I went with it but was really not liking it. Then they asked me to apply and I never did. </p></li>
<li><p>This school had been towards the top of my list toward the beginning. They had all the students go into a waiting room with students and wait. I tried to just sit in the corner and focus myself as I do before auditions but the students were overly obnoxious and kept making me feel uncomfortable and there were a ton of students in the room.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>dg22894, good to know about Point Park. My D avoided it because she thought it was more of a dance emphasis program. D didn’t audition at Western, I think it was the poster just before me. :)</p>
<p>And as far naming the schools that were bad experiences or that we were less than impressed with, some of it is subjective. What I described (with the grouchy auditioner and the broken chair incident) was an audition for Emerson at Unifieds. We heard others say that he was crabby that day and pretty rude. He was also talking about wanting to go to lunch when my daughter walked in for her audition. Other schools that I was less than enchanted with were for more subjective reasons. Nothing specific, and certainly would not apply to everyone. I thought the Pace’s MT program seemed great on paper but everyone had such a worship of Amy Rogers (perhaps it was deserved) that it was almost like a small hush fell over the room and you could hear a chorus of angels for a moment every time her name was mentioned. It’s great that they thought so highly of her and I am sure she is phenomenal, but it was all a little too much for me. They definately talked A LOT about how absolutely amazing their program was and how wonderful Pace University had become over the last 10 years for theater. My daughter loved the acting program faculty and current students much better. But that’s just a personal thing. She was allowed to audition for the BFA acting program in the afternoon as a “walk in” because they had some open spots. Her MT audition was in the morning. They have a pre-screen video audition requirement, and so the on campus audition was a callback. But what they failed to mention was that during the MT audition, they were doing on the spot cuts. They said that if you were not invited to “sing for Amy” you were no longer being considered. It would have been nice to know that before the audition, just to be mentally prepared, you know? It really jacked up the nerve factor for the kids to hear that for the first time during the informational meeting before the auditions. See? Just personal peeves that might not have matter to others, but didn’t sit well with me. (or my daughter) One other place was simple just not a good vibe, not what she was looking for and when she saw the short “recital” that the current students performed for them after the dance call (nice touch!) she knew that she wasn’t a fit. Still, it was a pleasant audition experience, she just didn’t feel that she would fit in there.</p>
<p>Does that help? It will be interesting to hear how other people felt about their not so great experiences as well as the programs that really impressed or surprised them.</p>
<p>I can respect that, Times3. I’m so thoroughly enjoying this discussion. I think I’m still too junior on CC for PMs, but I’ll keep reading and learning as much as I can.</p>
<p>For my S, it’s been quite a learning experience. After a lifetime of sports mixed with singing, he only discovered his MT passion about a year ago. Once the performance bug hit him, there was no turning back. Suddenly all the sports equiment in our house was replaced with song books, jazz pants and dance shoes. The two of us have been fumbling through this crazy college audtion process the best we can and have been very happy to have CC to turn to for help. But even finding CC was probably too late for us. We should have done a summer program, gotten coaching, and started everything much, much sooner. The more I read on CC, the more I realize how completely clueless and unprepared we were. MY S survived the auditions - 7 schools down with 1 audition to go. He’s gotten 2 rejections and 2 acceptances (to small programs near home) so far. He feels lucky to have gotten any yesses, really, knowing what we know now. </p>
<p>The surprises for us were Ithaca - which we loved - but that audition room was so cold and harsh with the stopwatch, and no interaction from the auditors. Ithaca was only my son’s second audition (one of many mistakes) and while we loved the program, the atmosphere in the audition room threw him off his game and for the first time in his life, he got nervous. When the rejection came from Ithaca, we weren’t surprised. We liked Pace, too, but thought they could probably have handed the whole callback thing in a kinder, gentler way, so the kids who didn’t make it didn’t have to do the walk of shame in front of everyone. The school that pleasantly surprised us was NYU Tisch. We figured big bad NYU was going to be the most cold and impersonal of all the schools, but the auditors really took the time to talk to my son and make him feel comfortable and, as a result, he had one of his best auditions there. </p>
<p>If we could do it all over again, we would do everything differently including, as many others have noted, applying to more schools. But mostly, we would have started much, much sooner. We’ve learned a lot along the way. My S has been a trouper through it all - absorbing it like a sponge, taking rejections in stride and never for a second wavering from his commitment to his passion. I’ve learned that this is definitely the life for him and I think he will be able to shoulder the struggle that this life has in store for him. And that knowledge, for me, has made all of this craziness worthwhile.</p>
<p>MomofaMTson, I like your description of the “walk of shame”, because not only did they have to do it in front of their peers after they read the list of those chosen (or not) for the next step (to “sing for Amy”), they also had to walk into the lobby in front of all the waiting parents for the same thing. On the day that my daughter auditioned, they cut another 3rd of the kids right there.</p>
<p>I agree that we need a “audition day horror story” thread later on when everyone’s decisions are made! I’ve got a couple of great stories, including what parents ought NOT to do…like the mother who tried to go in the audition room with her daughter! And I thought I was a stage mom!</p>