So you're saying I ultimately made the right decision! LOL!

And yes, I've heard that it's not as selective of a school to attend anymore since they opened the LA campus...which is a shame because there was a TON of great faculty there and the classes were VERY small and hands-on...Seriously, my graduating class was probably around 100 people or something like that...I loved the personal attention!

Sounds like a bit of a shame to me that they decided to "expand"...

It sounds like you're blaming the school for this. If a group of people can kill your friend's desire, they weren't that strong to begin with.

Well its true that the faculty of certain programs can rub certain students the wrong way or just the requirments of certain programs. What worked for you, didn't work for my friend. I was just simply telling Jazzy that I had a friend who went to Roosevelt and was extremely disatisfied after being there. My friend still loves to perform but felt the program at Roosevelt wasn't very supportive. Everyone has their own opinion.

Even at my old university, within a certain program its very hard because there is only one professor who is in charge of the entire department and teaches most of the classes (its not the theatre department, its within the music school). This caused a lot of people to drop out of the program and change their major or schools, even though they loved what they did, because the professor was so condescending to them. Other people in the program did well and loved it.

To each his or her own.

My new dillemma: Should I major in theatre or musical theatre? I love both equally. I figure I could major in theatre and get a string acting, scene analysis, directing, design education at school and then do voice and dance lessons outside of school.

On the other hand, I really want to be able to perform in my school's musicals. Do most schools let non-MT majors participate in the musical? Particularly Emerson. They're doing (did?) Assassins this year! How cool is that?

I started off Musical theatre, but now have changed to acting. My suggestion for you would be to start musical theatre and see if you like it because the switch from MT to Acting is easier than from Acting to MT, generally speaking.

I know that, at least at my school, musical theatre majors took scene analysis, directing and design all as part of the MT curriculum. So look into the curriculums for each of the schools you are interested in. With the B.F.A. musical theatre at my school, you also got to perform a solo recital, whereas the B.F.A. acting majors just did final scene presentations for graduation. Though everyone went to showcase in NYC.

As far as acting majors being able to be in the musicals, it depends on the school. The girl who ended up getting the role of Charity in Barnum was a B.F.A. Acting Major. I actually think she has one of the female leads in Pippin this year, but as I'm no longer in undergrad, I'm not sure who she is. So it really depends how interchangeable the departments are at your school. I mean when we did Candide in the opera dept., a B.F.A. musical theatre major played Candide! So these are all questions to ask the head of dept. at the universities you are interested in about.

Thanks, Kate. Where did you say you went again?

I wanted to be a vocal performance major, but it doesn't look like I'm going to be excepted into any of the music programs that I auditioned for, but I don't want to give up on music and singing! Does anyone have any advice?

SUNY Fredonia

And I just noticed that we have the same current obsession listed! lol
Yay for A Little Night Music. I love the score!

Just keep trying. Some schools may have pre-music programs. If you show some potential,they will accept you as pre-music and you will take voice study/instrumental study (lessons) and the basic core music classes that all the incoming freshman will take. After one year as pre-music, you will reaudition to determine if you've shown enough improvement to be accepted into the actual music department. Almost everyone I know who started as pre-music, with the exception of a few people who just didn't work hard and let things slide, got accepted after their trial year.

If your school doesn't offer pre-music as an alternative, try to take what music classes you can and see if you can take private voice study on the side (it may cost you a bit) with one of the voice teachers on faculty, or even take the voice class that is offered for non-music/instrumental music majors as part of the music curriculum. Then reaudition after your first or second semester.

What programs did you apply to?

I applied to three schools in Texas: UT at Austin, Baylor, and SMU.

Oh, GOD! Same here. There's this one moment in the "Now/Soon/Later" sequence when all three are singing together and I get chills EVERYtime.

I've been doing some research on Fredonia. Is there a lot to do around there?