#41: Helping You Balance Along
Monday 8/26/24
I’ve been having a ton of conversations about “how to make my list of schools for college” for students applying to acting and musical theatre programs. To me, this is as critical a step as the audition itself. It’s actually less important WHERE you apply to - the most important part is that the list is balanced. Don’t forget, MOST people need to apply to 15-25 schools depending on their individual desires.
And, yes, grades need to be considered because you still need to get accepted to the school itself. But what I’m going to talk about is how hard the department is to get into.
You need to choose schools that fit the following categories - and remember individual talents could affect how many of each category the student applies to:
Non-Audition: about 10-20% of your list. everyone needs to find 2-3 or more schools that have great programs where no audition is required! Did you know Northwestern, a prestigious college with one of the most famous acting programs in the world, is non-audition? Now, not all non-audition programs are created equal. You have to look into each of them on your own.
Competitive: about 60%-70% of your schools should fall under this category. These are programs that require and audition and/or a prescreen. These schools may not see as many applicants as some of the “highly competitive” programs OR they have more slots they can fill. A competitive program may want a class of 20 but they only audition 1000 students instead of 3000. OR, in some cases, they have room for more like 30-40 students.
Highly Competitive: about 20-30% of your schools can be in this category. These are schools that take a very small amount or very specific group of students. Perhaps these schools really favor dancers, or they have 20 spots of 2000+ applicants. These schools can have high academic standards or not - sometimes excellent theatre schools aren’t necessarily incredible academic institutions.
Pie In The Sky: This is not a category students MUST have, but they tend to want to put all of these schools on their list - the main ones that come to mind are University of Michigan, University of Cincinnati - Conservatory of Music, Penn State, and Carnegie Mellon. These schools (aside from CCM) have VERY high academic standards PLUS they take very few students. For example, a few years go Carnegie Mellon had 23,000 applicants and accepted 12 students. Penn State also historically takes 12 students. While Michigan and CCM take more, they also have thousands of applicants. As you see, I did not assign a percentage here. These schools should only be applied to if the student meets the academic standards AND their ability matches. If a student and the family is realistic, then these are fine schools to “throw on the list” but shouldn’t be counted towards the total amount of schools. If you want to have “no regrets” - I’ll never stop you. But even if you are the most talented person in your school - so are the other 3,000 applying. There is a LOT at play. You can like some of these schools, but don’t fall in love! Don’t visit them. Send your prescreens and see what happens. Then visit the school when you audition or after you get in!
If you nail this part, you will be in good shape to have choice when this is all said and done. I always want my students to be able to choose. Some students don’t follow these guidelines and, as a result, the decision gets made for them. Follow these categories, aim for about 20-25 schools not including the Pie In The Sky, and you SHOULD be in a position to choose between 3-5 schools.
It’s a lot, but you’ve got this!
Dreams Don’t Die
Julie