Oh Honey....they SO DON'T care. lolz

[AEC]

funny story.

DS17 took the ACT and got a great score.  You can tell he is different from me because 17 yo me would have said 'woo-hoo I'm done w/ standardized testing for college entrance forever'. DS though 'well...it's good, but what if some college likes the SAT better so I should ALSO take the SAT.'  Wishing to avoid hearing him be all stressed out for the next month while he preps for this exam I don't think he needs, I suggested he call the admissions board of a few colleges he's interested in and just ask them.

So he did.  Discission w/ CMU's admission person went something like:

 

DS17:  Hello.  I'm very interested in attending CMU.  I'll be applying this fall.  I just took the ACT and got a 35, but I was wondering if you have a preference for SAT over ACT so maybe I should take that too.

CMU Admissions:  that's a very good score. congratulations.  No, then don't care.  Wait....what department are you interested in?

DS17: Econ

CMU Admissions: nope, they don't care.

DS17: and Musical Theater.

CMU Admissions: <pause> oh honey.  They SO DON'T care.  <snicker>

He was honestly pretty insulted.  😛

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[klmama]

Has he looked into how it will work to double major at any of those schools?  He's interested in an unusual combination. 

[SanDiegoMom]

That is too funny! 😂

[Chris in VA]

That's so funny!  And wow that is a great score!

[MerryAtHope]

LOL, congratulations on a great score! I laugh every time I see the title! 

[katilac]

😅 

I know some high school theater kids, and they get so offended when people reference the Saturday Night Live sketches. I'm like, ya'll need thicker skin if you're going into the business! 

If CMU is Carnegie Mellon, MT students can't double-major, and minors are a challenge: 

Can a School of Drama student complete a double major or minor?

In short, yes (with the exception of music theater students). However, completing a double major would likely take longer than four years. If a student wishes to pursue a double major, the School of Drama major would need to be his/her primary major, and drama courses would need to be taken in sequence with no substitutions or exceptions. 

Completing a minor is possible within four years, provided the minor requirements don’t conflict with drama classes. In the last two years, students have graduated with minors in creative writing, english, political science, business management, gender studies and french and francophone studies. For music theater students, it’s more of a challenge to complete a minor as you don’t have as many opportunities to fit electives into your schedule. It’s possible, but it’d greatly depend on the minor requirements. 

[AEC]

yes, it's Carnegie Mellon. He's gotten conflicting reports about the possibility of double majoring if you're motivated and willing to take a bit longer than 4 years (he would be, and he's likely to go in w/ 10ish AP classes, so that might help some with timelines.

Michigan seems to explicitly allow 'dual majoring' between the mt group and other colleges, which is a plus - though I expect he'd fit in better at an overall smaller place like CMU.  We'll see. The admission %s on both schools are in the single-digits for the MT programs so it's unlikely he'll actually have to pick between them.

[madteaparty]

I think NYU Tisch doesn’t even require a standardized test score, just portfolio plus 3 AP. Or some such.

At our local public, theatre majors are *required* to major in something else, too 😂

more generally, I looked at the website of a (lottery) school that DS is interested in recently and it seems they really discourage if downright forbid double-majors. Is this common?  He will probably need to double major, so I’m wondering how widespread this is...

[Guest]

It is difficult to double major at CMU because the performing arts program is essentially a separate college-CMU is a merger of three smaller schools, and Margaret Morrison was a conservatory model,not a college one. And music theater is already essentially taking a full load of vocal performance plus a full load of theater. I started in their pre-college early entrance program back when dinosaurs roamed the campus doing both instrumental performance and music theater, and it quickly became untenable to do so, because essentially I had four concentrations at once. 

And I would say yes and no to the “don’t care”-the MT program does not really look at scores, but part of that is that no one makes it into CMU at all without some pretty awesome stats-so they can assume that their singers, dancers, actors, and instrumentalists have some pretty awesome academics, and then pick based on other skills within that subgroup. Basically, no one gets into CMU in performing arts without being multipotentalite. Which probably makes it a good fit for your DS. 

 

[RootAnn]

1 hour ago, madteaparty said:

... and it seems they really discourage if downright forbid double-majors. Is this common?  He will probably need to double major, so I’m wondering how widespread this is...

Some places super encourage it (Tulane?) and others almost forbid it. Most places encourage it now especially if you come in with lots of AP/DE/IB. Oldest DD avoided places which discouraged it or where the core courses made it difficult to double major across vastly different "colleges" (like business and a science or foreign language and a science).

[GailV]

Um, getting into *ANY* MT program relies on a heck of a lotta luck, and a widely cast net.  If he honestly wants to double major with one of the majors being MT or acting, he needs to apply to many schools that offer the chance for theatre students to double major.  

CMU lists that 2,900 students applied to the School of Drama in 2016. They took 80.  The number of applications has probably gone up since then. 

I assume you know this, right?  That MT is a totally different game than getting into a school for things like Econ or Engineering or English. That people may audition to 10-12 schools in hopes of getting accepted ... somewhere (often involving a trip to a Unified audition and doing several auditions in one weekend).  That thousands of kids are competing for a handful of spots (although, being ruthlessly honest, it's easier for boys because fewer are in the pool).  That the reasons a person is accepted or not to various programs seem sort of ... capricious/mysterious ... since the schools are essentially building a team, and may already have several kids of your "type" on the roster.  

(Also, bonus impression: getting into MT seems even tougher competition than getting into an acting school.)

Having said that, we have a friend at NYU Tisch who was planning to do a double major with Econ.  I think at Tisch you start in theatre, and then after a year or two you're allowed to start your other major. Tisch does have a MT studio, although they use their discretion to stick you into whatever studio they think is appropriate for the first 2 years.

If he really wants to pursue MT, I would SO MUCH NOT CARE about the SAT, and be spending all the time on monologues, solos, dance numbers ... because each school will want something slightly different for all of those (eg, monologue length varies, CMU doesn't care about a dance audition but other places do). Many kids use a coach to help them with this process; MT college auditions are a special type of crazy.

 

[katilac]

7 hours ago, AEC said:

yes, it's Carnegie Mellon. He's gotten conflicting reports about the possibility of double majoring if you're motivated and willing to take a bit longer than 4 years (he would be, and he's likely to go in w/ 10ish AP classes, so that might help some with timelines.

Michigan seems to explicitly allow 'dual majoring' between the mt group and other colleges, which is a plus - though I expect he'd fit in better at an overall smaller place like CMU.  We'll see. The admission %s on both schools are in the single-digits for the MT programs so it's unlikely he'll actually have to pick between them.

I think part of the issue is that MT classes are taken in a very specific order, no exceptions, you don't have control over your schedule (making it that much harder to schedule the second group of classes). Because the order is so specific, I'm wondering if another problem is that you will be ready to graduate in MT in the four years, but not the other major. I know some universities have rules about staying after you are eligible to graduate, so that may play into it. CM's website doesn't leave much wiggle room; it states that MT students can't double major, period, and that minors are challenging. 

CM does their own thing with units instead of credits, so your son can hop on and see how many units each of his APs will be worth. They do accept most of them. 

Does he know about Unified Auditions? http://www.unifiedauditions.com/universities.html

1 hour ago, dmmetler said:

 the MT program does not really look at scores, but part of that is that no one makes it into CMU at all without some pretty awesome stats-so they can assume that their singers, dancers, actors, and instrumentalists have some pretty awesome academics, and then pick based on other skills within that subgroup.  

Yes, MT doesn't care about ACT vs SAT, but they know their pool of applicants has very good stats. This is no problem for the OP, but I know so. many. theater kids and even teachers who will say that the MT department makes its own decisions, yadda yadda yadda. Yes, they do, but the cold hard reality is that the MT stats are very, very close to that of the general student body. This is true at many schools. And teachers should know that, grrr. 

[katilac]

One more thing: MT and Econ would not be a double major, it would be a dual degree, which is much harder than a double major at most schools because each college may have very different requirements. If a student wants to study history and French, those would both be BAs and thus a double major. If a student wants to study business and French, that's likely to be one BS and one BA, thus a dual degree. 

My oldest is on track to finish a dual degree this coming year, it's not impossible, but it was really hard even going in with 33 credits and having a coupe of substitutions approved. One degree would have made for a more relaxing college career, lol. My youngest wants to do the same but its early days yet, I'm trying to keep her open to changing her mind. 

[GailV]

1 hour ago, katilac said:

. Because the order is so specific, I'm wondering if another problem is that you will be ready to graduate in MT in the four years, but not the other major. I know some universities have rules about staying after you are eligible to graduate, so that may play into it.

Yeah, younger dd is running into a bit of that  -- she had so many dual enrollment credits that she has to make sure she isn't eligible to graduate until she's actually completed all the courses she wants to take.

[AEC]

Thanks for all the inputs.

Yeah - we're aware of the special entrance process, that each school wants something different for the application and that at the auditions. And that the acceptance rates are super low.  It's utter craziness.

hadn't see unified auditions before - that is so awesome, thanks. (there's two on there he's specifically interested in - Michigan and FSU due to their connection w/ Disney)

Any idea if those unified auditions are 'as good as' going to the campus or one that's specific to the particular program? We'll for sure ask the programs, but I wonder if it matters even if they say it doesn't?

 

Edited May 11, 2019 by AEC

[katilac]

2 hours ago, AEC said:

 Any idea if those unified auditions are 'as good as' going to the campus or one that's specific to the particular program? We'll for sure ask the programs, but I wonder if it matters even if they say it doesn't?

 

 

I can say that our state's performing arts school goes every year to the one in Chicago and they seem to get all their kids in somewhere. I know they got a couple of people into CMU over maybe a three-year span. Others I specifically remember (recently) are SMU, Webster, and Boston.  There's more but I'm not a theater person and I don't recall them. Some of the schools give some decent aid. CMU is not one of them, lol. They are not needs blind and I'm pretty certain that the two kids that I know got in were full pay. I know one of them was MT but not sure about the other. 

A total of zero students from there audition at the university instead of Unifieds, I wouldn't worry about that at all. Unifieds are A Very Big Deal and the schools take them very seriously. You can only do so many schools over those couple of days, so if there are other schools that are close enough to visit and audition, sure, go ahead and do that. But don't spend a fortune and don't worry that Unifieds are a step down. 

I think that College Confidential has some active MT forums. 

[catz]

On 5/10/2019 at 1:27 AM, klmama said:

Has he looked into how it will work to double major at any of those schools?  He's interested in an unusual combination. 

Honestly, my high stat kid applying to dual degree programs found this the bigger issue.  Some of those performing arts profs don't want their students to double degree.  Even if all the literature says they're super double degree friendly.  CMU is one school where he heard one thing from admissions and another directly from faculty.  Just ask the hard questions if 2 different areas are what you really want.   And don't waste time on schools where profs balk at dual degree.  No matter what admissions say.  The profs of auditioned programs are the ones filtering out before auditions. 

ETA - I know plenty of people who've gone to unifieds and had good luck with that process.  That is very typical.  It is nice to visit campuses though.  

Edited May 13, 2019 by FuzzyCatz

[GailV]

Other universities not on the official list have auditions adjacent to Unifieds. In other words, they're in town having auditions at the same time, but in different locations.

Others at Chicago last year: Julliard, Boston Univ, NYU, Minnesota Guthrie, DePaul ... I think there were others, too, but I don't recall who all was there.  

Some schools will have walk-in spots -- if you're there at Unifieds and they have an opening, you can audition, then fill out the University application later.