With the college application season slowly coming to a close, many high school seniors are beginning to receive their official acceptances. But for a Musical Theatre applicant like myself, the real work has just begun.
In my last college article featuring Gigi Coo ’24, who is also applying to college for the performing arts, we talked about filming our prescreens. Prescreens are videos showcasing your talents (acting, singing, and dancing-wise) that you send to each school as a sort of preview. The most important part of prescreens is that they are the determining factor for almost every program in deciding which applicants get a live audition slot or callback.
Having sent both academic and artistic applications to over 20 schools, the past few weeks for me have been full of anxiety as I await my first round of results. Luckily, I was fortunate enough to have passed all of my prescreens, meaning I was now given the opportunity to make appointments to audition in-person.
Quickly though, I grew worried that I wouldn’t be able to make it to all my schools, seeing as most of them are in different states. However, my audition coach, Drew, notified me of an event called Unifieds, in which a plethora of colleges and universities come together in a certain city to host their live auditions, allowing auditionees to knock out almost all of their appointments in the span of just one week.
This year, Unifieds were hosted at the Palmer House Hilton in Chicago, IL. After talking to my parents and weighing our options, we decided that my mom and I would take the week long trip to Chicago to begin my audition journey.
With that being said, here is an exclusive look into the first part of my week auditioning in the windy city:
Friday, Feb. 3
My mom and I woke up bright and early and headed to LAX for our 6 a.m. flight. After trying to navigate through check-in and TSA by ourselves (we’re just girls after all), we finally boarded our plane and took off. During the flight, I prepped for my first audition at Elon University, which I had to do virtually as soon as we got to the hotel.
Soon enough, the time came, and after getting situated in our hotel room, I opened my laptop and logged onto Zoom. This ended up being my quickest audition, lasting a total of three minutes. Yes, you read that right: three minutes. I sang my two songs, performed my monologue, was told thank you, and promptly left the Zoom meeting. Now, a quick audition is not a bad sign at all, but it was still a little jarring for me at first.
I spent the rest of the night getting ready for the week ahead before getting cozy in bed and going to sleep.
Saturday, Feb. 4
I woke up right at 5 a.m. on Saturday, my stomach in knots prior to my 9 a.m. NYU audition. After getting ready in my tiny hotel bathroom and packing my bag with all of my essentials, I went over to the audition room and checked in for my appointment.
To be quite honest, I blacked out for the entirety of this audition. I think it was the nerves, but I genuinely can’t remember anything about it. The only thing I do recall is feeling an overwhelming sense of relief as soon as I walked out the door.
Sunday, Feb. 5
On this day I had my University of Michigan callback. Also insanely nervous for this audition, I prepped all day for my timeslot at 2 p.m. In this appointment, I ended up singing three songs and performing one monologue. They were very nice, and I had a great time, even though I felt like I wanted to throw up on the inside.
I also had my dance audition for Michigan after my initial appointment. I’m not necessarily a “dancer-first” archetype, but I still tried my best to showcase my authentic self.
It was also in this dance audition specifically that I met a ton of new friends. There are probably over 1,000 hopefuls who participate in Unifieds week, and it was really fun getting to meet people with similar interests from all around the country!
Monday, Feb. 5 – Thursday, Feb. 8
Following my first two days in Chicago, Unifieds was officially in full swing. My schedule for these next was incredibly booked and busy, so, in order to save you some time, I’m going to propose a speed round, consisting of the audition date, school name, a self-rating of my performance, and a short description of why I ranked it as such.
So, without further ado, I present my auditions from Monday – Thursday:
(Monday) The New School: 5/10; not exceptional but also not bad at all. Just “meh” all around.
(Monday) Montclair State University: 7/10; my vocal audition was great, but the dance call was really hard.
(Monday) University of Utah: 11/10; I received an OFFER ON THE SPOT! I already loved this program and the faculty so much, so getting to be offered the first spot in the Musical Theatre class was a dream come true! I cried. A lot.
(Monday) Long Island University Post: 10/10; I did well in both my vocal and dance auditions, it was a huge confidence boost and I still feel good about it.
(Tuesday) Nazareth University: 8.5/10; I really liked the faculty in this audition and think I performed pretty well!
(Tuesday) Baylor University: 9/10; The faculty were super nice here and I was also able talk to an old student about the program. Altogether, it was great!
(Tuesday) Drake University: 8/10; The other students in this audition were exceptionally nice, and I had a great time. The dance was moderately hard, but I pushed through.
(Tuesday) Millikin University: 7/10; My voice was feeling really good in this audition for some reason, which worked in my favor and boosted my self-confidence yet again!
(Wednesday) Pace University (Acting): 9.5/10; There were 15 auditionees and I was one of only five to receive a same-day callback! The faculty’s suggestions on my monologue were really insightful, and I felt inspired.
(Wednesday) Pace University (Musical Theatre): 8/10; The dance portion was much harder than I expected, but I persevered. The singing part afterwards felt awesome though!
(Wednesday) University of Hartford: 5/10; This dance call was the hardest of the whole week, and I definately struggled. My voice portion wasn’t my absolute best either, but I am proud of myself nonetheless.
(Thursday) Cal State Fullerton: 7/10; My timeslot was moved up, meaning I had to go into the room as soon as I got there, so I wasn’t able to vocally and mentally prepare like I would have. It still went pretty well in my opinion, but I know I probably could have done just a little bit better!
Overall, while auditioning for colleges was extremely challenging and taxing at times, it was also incredibly rewarding and fun. There were definately moments where I felt not good enough, but at the end of the day, I think I did my absolute best and I’m proud of myself for that! Now, it’s time to play the waiting game. Keep following my journey here on the Royal Reporter for future college audition articles!
