Anonymous wrote:Michigan—A Rod’s kid. Wesleyan if want love liberal arts.

Madonna's daughter started there as well. But seems to have decided, like her Michigan-matriculated mother, to drop out to hang in NYC.

3 from dd's hs went to NYU for theater

JMU has a nice musical theater program.

Liked Elon's program

We were very impressed with Cincinnati College Conservatory of Music. I also know a kid who studied theater at Purchase and was very happy.

Anonymous wrote:DC isn't at the point of making a list yet, but what places are people excited about right now? (Bonus points for naming anything outside of NYC.)

Hopefully to therapy to change majors

Lawrence and Chapman. Lawrence has a music conservatory-- not sure if they offer MT.

Anonymous wrote:Muhlenberg, Shenandoah, Elon, Ithaca, Emerson, Boston Conservatory, Syracuse, Penn State, Michigan. So many possibilities! A lot will depend on if your student wants to go the BFA route.

Oberlin is adding a new Musical Theater degree, which is exciting!

Plus 1 Syracuse

UMW is a popular one for theater kids.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:CMU

I love how DCUM always comes back with the most difficult school to get into. They accept 12-20 students a year into MT.

So what? OP didn't ask for easy to get into, she just said not NY.

Anonymous wrote:To work at Starbucks so they know what job they will have after graduation.

The theater grads I know are all working in professional jobs. Some in theater, some not, but none of them are at Starbucks which I can’t say about grads I know in other fields.

My kid went through the audition process for BFA Acting last year. It's like doing two college application processes at once because you do all of the Common App stuff and then also all the auditions and applications/essays/tapes on sites like Acceptd for the artistic admission.

Some top BFA programs not in NYC include: Michigan, Boston Conservatory, Syracuse, Boston U, DePaul, SUNY Purchase, Rutgers, CMU, Emerson, USC, CalArts, Minnesota, Ithaca, UNCSA. There are also some smaller schools with very reputable BFA programs: Rider, Shenandoah, Point Park, Baldwin Wallace to name a few. These are all audition-only programs. It's a whole thing, and most have acceptance rates under 5% because they only take 10-30 kids total. Northwestern is another school with a strong theater program but there is no audition.

My son was accepted to a few but ultimately decided that he wanted to do a SLAC with more academic/career flexibility. Some of the above-mentioned schools also have MT programs, but that audition process and the dates may be different. Also, different schools have different rules in terms of how rigid they are with other core/academic classes for the college curriculum and how much they weigh your overall academic performance when reviewing all of your application materials.

There are a few FB groups geared towards parents navigating the complexities. There are also college audition companies that can consult and help with the process. Good luck! It was fun but a lot of work!

Anonymous wrote:To work at Starbucks so they know what job they will have after graduation.

Yawn.

Anonymous wrote:Muhlenberg, Shenandoah, Elon, Ithaca, Emerson, Boston Conservatory, Syracuse, Penn State, Michigan. So many possibilities! A lot will depend on if your student wants to go the BFA route.

Oberlin is adding a new Musical Theater degree, which is exciting!

Good list!

This is a good list: https://playbill.com/article/big-10-2023-the-10-most-represented-colleges-on-broadway-in-the-2022-2023-season

And this is a good article: https://www.backstage.com/magazine/article/musical-theater-college-programs-know-3220/

Norwalk Conservatory might be worth looking into