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[0:10] Charlie Murphy: Hello, hello, and welcome to Mapping the College Audition. I'm your host, Charlie Murphy, director of MTCA. That's Musical Theater College Auditions. Check us out at MTCA.com. And today we have got a very special episode of Only Me Talking. If you like hearing my voice, it's your lucky day. If you merely endure the sound of my voice so that you can hear more of our guests talking, then this might be an episode for you to skip. Though I admire your dedication to your craft in fighting through the difficulty of what it has been in listening to me. I am calling this episode our spring break solo pod because I've been looking for an excuse to get in a few extra takeaways that didn't have time in previous episodes, or maybe even more importantly, a few that I didn't feel like were quite right to do to any specific school, but felt appropriate in the kind of school episode world.

So, you know, I still sometimes do those kind of random takeaways at the end of school episodes where the interview wasn't about all that, but I'm just trying to shoehorn it in. But I feel like in general, if the takeaway has too much negative in it, I do want to try to avoid making it seem like I'm talking about this specific school when I'm not. So, like, hey, why'd my episode get stuck with this takeaway? So, this is its own episode that gets stuck with the potentially negative takeaways. Um, but before I get too deep into the takeaways, the takeaway, we might say, class of 2025. Here we are. You know your mission. Many of you have now started to make and even release your final decisions.

So much congratulations to all of you. That is all so exciting. We cannot wait to celebrate all of you on May 1st with our official website release of where you're attending. Please don't let the trickly little bits of social media stuff that you've been seeing start to make you kind of feel pressure to make your final before you're ready. And I'm always speaking to that person who maybe hasn't made the decision yet, because I know that's where the peer pressure goes. But for many of you, you are ready, you have been ready, you've made your final decision, and we're already in full celebration mode, which is great. But you will all get there. For those of you out there who are not yet in that place, you will get there, I promise.

I'm going to do a little takeaway about school visits aimed at our younger students, but I'm gonna throw a little mini takeaway, a pre-takeaway before the takeaways, um, because I saw a post about school visits from one of our class of 2025 families talking about kind of the frantic and frenetic pace of squeezing on, squeezing in all of these visits at this time of year and just like wishing they had started doing the visits earlier with the early results that they had, knowing that they had some ins early on. I thought this was such an interesting point, and it's not one that we actually talk about a lot. You know, we often encourage you to receive your results and then decide which schools you're gonna visit for those all important accepted visits, which again I'll talk about later.

Those accepted visits are just so much more impactful than the prospective student visits. We've talked about that before. So our general advice there, and it's one that we don't give forcefully since each family is so different in their situations, but our general advice about waiting is really about maximizing your travel cost efficiency, right? If you know that your family has a max of three schools that you want to visit at the end of your process, or five schools, whatever it is, right? In visiting the schools that you think are somewhere in the middle of your list when it's still late February or even early March, there's a real chance that you end up visiting a school that otherwise wouldn't have made the cut from your pro con list.

You know, of course, we talk about that thing where it only takes one school to potentially find a great fit, but it's always our goals for our students to have multiple great options that they're really excited about, both in order for them to find the best artistic fit for them and for stuff like scholarship negotiations, right? And a lot of our students, they do have a lot of great options at the end of it. It's not at all uncommon for our students to have double digit acceptances into great BFA programs. So most families aren't in a financial position where it makes sense to visit that many schools. And honestly, if you're literally visiting double digits, at that point I'm like questioning your pro con list abilities.

If you're like, I need to visit 13 schools, right? You want to be able to trust some of that research that you're doing and gathering information throughout the year, researching curricula, all those things, your scorecard, right? And of course, it is true that in experiencing a campus and observing classes and picking up a vibe, you could be struck by the ineffable. So in general, I am in favor of more visits in the same way that I'm in favor of more auditions. All of that said, it's just worth thinking about what you're maximizing, right? Our advice to wait is really about maximizing that financial value, at least partially about maximizing that financial value, right? And avoiding the potential waste of visiting a school that you might have dropped to 12th on your accepted list and you might not have visited all.

But in visiting schools early in the process, as you get those acceptances, you're definitely maximizing the efficiency of your time and your schedule in maximizing visits. You're giving yourself the possible option to visit more schools than what would be literally possible if you wait until late March to start planning those visits after you've gotten most of your results. So if you're a family where finances aren't as much of a limiting factor, and if you know you might want a higher number of total end-of-year visits for whatever reason, I'm all for starting that visiting process on a slightly more real rolling basis. It's not a lot of downside, right? To each their own and making that decision.

You know, it's about finances and all those other things. And just realize what you're potentially gaining or losing in those choices. I do think the only thing I wanted to add in, that's why I'm saying it's not just about the money, is that I do think it goes beyond the cost of travel with encouraging more of those visits to be in March and April. And that there's like really a nice urgency of that moment in what's happening in that time period. You know, it's go time for the other students, it's go time for the schools, which means you're gonna get potentially different conversations with financial negotiations as things are laid out in front of all the parties with all the information. And I also think there is something nice about having some condensed nature of the visits in the sweet spot as you're bearing down on actually signing from on the dotted line, right?

You know, was it will a visit from like two months ago really be as impactful in how you'll remember it? I don't know, right? So just like with your actual auditions, if you're doing earlier visits to spread out the ease of travel, or because of you know, parents' work schedules, et cetera. Maybe don't choose what you think will be your favorite schools for those spots. If there are a few prime spots that you know are available in prime visiting season, you might choose from your early accepted schools an option that isn't at the very top if you have multiple early accepted options to choose from, right? And again, this is if you're not worried about the financial inefficiency of that choice, which we're always sort of urging the financial efficiency.

It's you know, not only for the time of year, but I do think students will get better at actually visiting and will get more comfortable at visiting as they go, just like auditioning. So there are some potential advantages if you're doing that, if you do do an early visit for a school that isn't necessarily top of your list. Again, that's not necessarily for all families, but I thought it was kind of an interesting point uh that came up just as I was reading a Facebook post that I said, I'm gonna squeeze this in to the bonus solo pod. Okay, that ended up turning into a longer takeaway. That's basically a full takeaway before the takeaway episode. I was trying to do it as a bonus, and it basically is almost just another takeaway.

But there you go, class of 2025. That was supposed to be in my call to action section of calling you to action, but there's not much to call you to action anymore. Oh my! But for the class of 2026 and younger, I'm still calling you all to action. You know you are in the midst of our spring master classes that are happening online. Keep diving into those classes. They're happening as I record right this very moment. Uh for any of you though who have not yet joined up with MTCA, if you're interested in hearing about more of what we can do for you, we do have another one of our wonderful meet MTCA workshops. I think they're wonderful at least, this upcoming May 7th at 8 p.m. Eastern. You can sign up on our website.

You know it, it's MTCA.com to get the link. It's held online, it's completely free. And it's a great chance to meet me to see some examples of what MTCA coaching looks like in different disciplines, as well as take some steps to plan out your own process. This is great for juniors for you know what will be rising seniors, but also really great for sophomores and freshmen who are just beginning to look at this process and want to get ahead. You all heard Amy Breslo last week. She talked about her child as a sophomore started with us, and she wishes she started earlier. I mean, I think that's pretty early if you start as a sophomore. It's pretty great. But it does just help in general the earlier you do it, just to see what's down the road.

So again, that's May 7th, 8 p.m. Eastern. It's completely free. You can sign up at MTCA.com, tell your friends, tell your calendars. I'll see you there. So, okay. Here's a point in previous pods where even when it was kind of a solo pod, I would like play the music now so that you know that I'm out of the intro and into the main body of the podcast. But I'm gonna say, let's just be crazy and go right into it, music free, okay? You can all imagine the do to do do do, and we're here. Now we're in the actual podcast. We're doing the actual takeaways. It's begun. Okay, so this is by far the biggest inspiration for the solo pod, and why I wanted to squeeze it in at this time of year for any of you who still maybe haven't made that final decision and need to hear this.

I want to talk about the idea of the trusting of your sources of information. So to trust the source of your information. Or maybe, maybe more importantly, what I'm really talking about is understanding the motivation behind different sources of information. Like take this podcast, right? I'm hopefully as clear and cogent about my biases as I can be. And certainly something I try to stay conscious of always, right? Both in being aware of them and trying to be as objective as I can be, and also just in being transparent about any potential conflict of interest if I see one presented. But if I were you, I would always be a bit naturally skeptical of anything I say that relates back specifically to MTCA or in making our listeners more likely to be MTCA students, since I, Charlie Murphy, financially benefit from families joining MTCA.

Now, of course, I try to counter some of that by making it the stated mission of this podcast to be a resource for all. And I do say to myself that in making it a resource for all, in doing the best job I can to make it a resource not for MTC students, but for all, including people who can't afford MTCA or choose to use other resources, I'm actually benefiting MTCA as well in terms of positive word of mouth, branding, all those other things. So you hopefully have a reason to believe that I could be genuine in wanting to help everyone, which I really do, right? I hope somewhat out of the goodness of my heart and who I am as a person. Certainly I wouldn't want to run a company that felt competitive in some of the gross ways that this industry can be at times, but also because you can link up the truth of that motivation to an incentive structure that is somewhat logical.

But even still, anytime you hear a call to action or a little quip thrown in about how great MTCA is, I would recommend just on principle that you take it with a grain of salt because of my incentives and it's coming from me. For instance, I'll make the statement, MTCA is the best option out there, in my honest and genuine opinion. I truly believe that. But you shouldn't believe me when I say it, because it is me who was saying it. And even if I have an MTCA alumni on the podcast who is not financially benefited in those ways, but who says the same, you should still be naturally skeptical that I probably wouldn't choose an alumni who didn't recommend MTCA, right? This is just like general healthy skepticism as you're evaluating your options.

Now, let's turn into the way this gets abused. So on a smaller scale, I certainly have seen this abused by like other college prep services who you maybe abuse their power in these situations and say things like, You need me, I'm the only one who can help you to get you where you need to go, right? Anytime you hear that, I would just run in the other direction. It doesn't necessarily mean that person isn't good necessarily, but it is evidence against them for sure, and that they're choosing to engage in this predatory tactic, this predatory tactic that is just not accurate. Again, I think MTCA is the best, and our teachers are truly amazing. But are we the only good teachers out there? Of course not.

Did we invent good acting, good singing, good dancing? Do we have the only valid perspective on the college landscape? These would be ridiculous claims and just not how art or anything works, right? And sadly, I've seen this exact kind of practice from other teachers, normally more individuals than companies, but a bit of both I've seen it from companies too, in trying to sort of be proprietary and predatory and claim students in this way. You know, just a praise on their vulnerability in a moment where students and families are very vulnerable because this is a stressful, vulnerable process. And honestly, I'm always like super grossed out about it, but I don't speak too much about that concept in this context because it doesn't feel too necessary.

For the most part, those people and those companies tend to fizzle. Families catch on to these people, that they're for the most part charlatans, if that's how they're choosing to practice. And these practices are just kind of antithetical to how they can helpfully engage with this specific process. And so you kind of don't need to say much about them, right? Sometimes, sadly for the families, they realize this only after they've committed huge sums of money to some of those people and companies. But in those cases, a lot of those are families that do have the resources that enable them to do that, and they kind of chalk it up to a valuable life lesson before they move on to teachers with more integrity.

Okay, which brings me to why I'm talking about this today. You're probably thinking, I know you aren't bringing this up only to make us more skeptical of your own calls to action with MTCA, nor to make some random point about competitors who will likely self-immolate. But the reason I bring it up now is I'm seeing it in more and more college faculty than I ever used to see it before. I mean, it's always happened that some college faculty would at times speak inappropriately. Throughout the years, we certainly heard stories through our students, which in general I take some grain of salt when this is happening, that it's happening at a kind of highly pressurized and sensitive moment for the family.

[13:26] Charlie Murphy: So exactly what did the faculty member say, or what exactly what they did could be a little murky. But in the past few years, I have seen more inappropriate email correspondence, which I have the direct proof of what is said, and I heard more and more inappropriate post-audition conversations than I ever heard before. So that's why I'm throwing this advice out there to the broader public, which is that same question of incentive structure advice, that that same idea of what is this person's incentive structure should absolutely apply to college faculty members as well, right? And I think sometimes we have this mysticulation of college faculty members in our minds. And so then we think, well, uh I wouldn't think of them as as the same sort of susceptible in some of the same ways that other people are.

So anytime you hear a faculty member at a college say something like, This is why you need to go to our school, you should just understand it's their job to get you to sign on the dotted line. Sometimes our families kind of struggle in flipping that switch and making that change with their accepted schools, right? They spent so much time dutifully filling out applications, scheduling auditions, and being in the position of please, oh please accept me, that once they're actually accepted, they're still in the mode of pleasing the school as opposed to switching to being that consumer who's evaluating their options from the position of power. This is why I talk about holding on to a bit of the end at the beginning, you know, in that idea of you always being the consumer.

That's what you're actually doing. Not only does it make you a more confident auditioner, but I never want students to entirely forget that idea that they are the customer, even as they have to respectfully let the colleges decide whether or not they're gonna make their products available to you. You are ultimately the customer and you're ultimately the one making the decision. And again, the idea that a college faculty member is gonna pitch you is not at all inappropriate. They should pitch you. There's nothing wrong with them giving you even a pretty hard sell. They'll tell you, this is what we're gonna do for you, this is why you should go to our program, this is how much we want you. Those are all great things.

I'm actually turned off if a program doesn't have any of that. If there's no sell, right? You know, of course, some of the more prestigious programs might not feel the need to make the hard sell, you know, in the same way that I blessedly don't feel like I have to make a hard pitch for MTCA. They can trust that the work that they do will speak for itself. And to some extent, they can let their program sell itself if they know you're there on a visit, if they know you're talking to alumni, et cetera. But I still would want in those conversations to feel like I'm wanted and not like the program truly doesn't care. But the reason for this long preamble is as soon as it turns the corner into why you need my school, or why my school is the only school for you, or even worse, and I've seen more and more of this happening, programs starting to talk down other programs, that is an enormous red flag for me.

That doesn't mean the program who's doing it is necessarily bad, again, right? But it does mean they're crossing a line and I would no longer look at that particular source as a reason why I should attend that school. Meaning I would not use that faculty member and what they're saying as a reason to attend the school. Could you, in those moments when someone crossed the line, could you be catching a professor at just a tricky moment? Sure. Let's all give them grace. Everyone makes mistakes. Maybe they just lost a bunch of students to a particular program and they just can't help their frustration and they know they're speaking inappropriately, right? If enough other sources that don't have that incentive structure that I mentioned are giving you reasons to keep that program in the mix, I'm all for it.

I'm not saying you have to take the program out of the mix. But the important thing is that you shouldn't take the person who is telling you why they are the only one to get you where you need to go as any kind of source of truth to believe them. You know, we always make these dating analogies on the podcast, and I'm gonna make a bit of a dark one. But those moments where our families feel that kind of pressure feel like an abusive relationship to me. Not that it necessarily goes to that level, but the number of times I'll hear families talk about like, I'm getting a lot of pressure from this person, and then they almost start factoring the emotional needs of the professor instead of their own wants, it's a really dangerous game, right?

I mean, a lot of teens are people pleasers, they want to make everyone happy, but you shouldn't go to school X over school Y because it seems like school X will be mad at you and make you think you made a terrible decision, where school Y seems okay either way. It's not that you necessarily have to do the reverse, but it should be about your needs, not about the egos of the professors involved. You know, and even if it seems like they sometimes like they don't act like it, these are adult professionals who have for the most part been through this process before and they will all be just fine. If you care about their egos and their emotions, they're all going to be fine, right? What do you owe them?

You owe them prompt and professional communication, especially in these pivotal weeks, as they've offered you a coveted spot in one of their programs. Often there are a lot of spots, but you do not owe them that you're going to fix all of their problems by choosing to attend their specific program, right? That's not the transaction that's happening here. They shouldn't need you, and you don't need any of them, right? You are searching for your best fit based on all the information you have and what that foundational four years is going to be in your life. And you want to do it with as little other noise and nonsense as humanly possible. And again, I'm speaking specifically to those places that cross the line, but often it's hard for our families, even when programs aren't crossing the line, right?

A really aggressive young professor who's building up a brand new program can be really attractive, right? You can respect what they're doing and you really want them to succeed, and you can feel all of those things and still feel like maybe another more established program might be better for you, even if you're still rooting for that other program and you really like that professor, right? They're doing their job and aggressively pursuing you as they should, and you might be doing your job and turning them down. Or again, of course, it could be saying yes, right, if you feel they are the best fit for you, but that's not normally the harder emotional thing. Sometimes you go, man, I'm really rooting for this person and I want to be the thing that helps them, but is it actually best for me to do that, right?

And again, that brings me to the flip side, which is that I really do recommend seeking out other trusted sources of information that do not have any incentive in where you go to school. You know, of course, this is why we love our MTCA end-of-year consultations with our students, and that our only motivation as MTCA is your ultimate happiness and success in whatever industry you end up in. You know, of course, you could say we have a very loose tie to your potential long-term success in this specific industry if you end up being another alum of ours who's on Broadway or whatever. But one, I would say not only is that a very loose tie, but it also generally lines up with your own incentive goals of your success.

And truly, I will say, we are as happy if you end up being a successful lawyer as a successful Broadway star. We have happy alumni families refer us from both families in both situations, right? But beyond MTCA, even again, because we're talking about this podcast from respective people who aren't necessarily MTCA students. Do you have trusted industry professionals that you can talk to? Do you have a mentor that you really trust who knows something about the industry, right? Previous students who've gone through this can be a great resource of information, right? Truly, people in general love giving advice, especially in this pivotal time of your life. You would be surprised how loose of a connection might be willing to jump on the phone with you and talk to you for free for 15 minutes, right?

Again, if you're someone who maybe can't afford a professional company or whatever to have this kind of structured conversation, I'll bet you can find someone who would give you professional advice. And I'll bet you have a mentor who has the right incentive structure would have this conversation for you, right? And it's those triangulated sources that I think will help give you a real perspective that is as unbiased as possible. You know, it'll still be biased by that person's professional experiences, but their motivation would only be to help you, right? Whereas I love talking to current students and alumni of the programs, think it's a great idea. But the students and alumni of those specific programs, they do have a natural bias, even if they say they don't. I mean, the number of times I've heard our students say, I'm not just saying this because I go to this school.

I'm always like, yes, you are. You're saying because you go to the school, right? I mean, I believe that you're feeling unbiased, but you are biased if you are at the school already, right? You know, I remember doing that with one of our students who was deciding between Carnegie Mellon Acting and CCM as two final options. I was as coach, I was doing his end of year consultation, and I told them, hey, listen, I'm I think I'm gonna give you as unbiased advice as possible, but you should absolutely seek another source who wasn't at either school and who wasn't me, because I went to Carnegie Mellon for acting. So as much as I would try to be as unbiased as I can, of course there's going to be a bias toward that choice for me, specifically, because it's the choice that I made, right?

You know, and the nice thing about an unbiased source, especially an expert one, is that if you do get any kind of aggressive push from an unbiased source, you know, if I had someone give me strong advice between two schools who didn't have a conflict in their incentive, I would take that as good evidence in my quiver for those who are looking for that kind of expert guidance. Again, assuming that person really has some expertise, which I know so many of you are looking for that little bit of like, can you can I get some specifics? Can I get some real information, right? If you hear a smart industry professional say, Yeah, I do see a big difference between school X and school Y in terms of reputation, that's really helpful feedback, right?

It's not the only thing that's gonna matter to you, right? Ultimately, it's just a grain of evidence. But I think it's what many are seeking and can only be possibly found from a person who doesn't have any skin in the games in terms of where you ultimately attend. You know, you will sometimes have generous faculty members say something like, Hey, honestly, I know I'm one of the I accepted you, but I'm looking at your options, I'm looking at your finances. You should go to Carnegie Mellon over my school. You'll hear that sometimes happen, right? And a lot of faculty members will do that, or some faculty members will do that. A lot of faculty members will think they're doing that. They'll try to do a bit of that, just trying to, in trying to understand your options, trying to be a part of your process, offering themselves as like, hey, I can be a helpful source of information, even though I'm a biased party that's in part of this.

And sometimes they're also just trying to like, hey, I'm willing to have you go to this school over my school, but not this school over my school, which is just a little bit gross, right? So in general, I would try to keep them at a distance of, hey, tell me why it should be your school. That's absolutely appropriate for their job to tell me what you would be doing for me. And then you and your family are the ones who are gonna be at the decision-making table, making that ultimate decision, and then potentially inviting in trusted, unbiased opinions where you can. Because ultimately you wanna seek out information all over the map, alumni and students of the specific programs, professors and program heads, absolutely trusted professionals, mentors, in and out of the business, podcast interviews like this, whatever it is, right?

And then you wanna have the confidence to make your own decision. But the real driving force behind this takeaway, if this is all you take away from this takeaway, is please be very suspicious of anyone who's pushing really hard at you to attend their program if their incentive structure lines up that the result that they're pushing toward helps them.

[23:50] Charlie Murphy: Okay, wow, that was a crazy long first takeaway. This is gonna be a long podcast if they're all that long. I promise they won't be all that long. Um, but let's take a short break and dive into a few more on the back end.

[24:03] Charlie Murphy: Okay, we're back. I promised in the intro a little takeaway on school visits, and I'm gonna keep this one broad because I think there's ultimately so much to say about school visits. This could be a whole episode just on school visits, right? I talked a bit in the intro about the timing of the accepted visit versus the prospective visit and how very different those are. I mean, really night and day in terms of the quality of access that you get. It's not just that you get more access, which you often do, into like taking classes, taking voice lessons, taking a dance class, whatever it is, but you're just doing it from such a different perspective as an admitted student. You know, let's say a smaller program is amazing.

They allow you to take a voice lesson as a prospective student. They allow you to take a dance class as a prospective student. That's awesome, right? But you're taking that lesson in the back of your mind, you're still thinking about trying to get into that program, right? You're still auditioning, you're in audition mode. So you're not really able to fully be a consumer while still in audition mode, right? Whereas once you're admitted, you really get to be fully a student and just consume and see what it would be like to be that student. You know, I talk about the idea of bringing that consumer into the audition room and it how amazing it is if you can be in the mode of truly student while auditioning.

But most 17 year, 18 year olds are just not capable of that kind of maturity, realistically. I mean, that's incredibly hard for professionals to have that level of confidence and ease. You know, we would tell ourselves, let's just see what it would be like to be in this Broadway production. I kind of wonder what this director would do for me. I mean, that's the best place to audition from if you can get there, but most people don't. They're part of them is still thinking, I want the job, please like me, because like please like me, right? Okay, but so let's move on from the accepted student visit, which we talked about in the intro, and it's kind of its own thing. I want to talk about these visits that happen as a younger student.

So you may have heard MTCA give the advice in general to not focus too much on visits as a younger student, just from a pure cost benefit perspective. If you're gonna look at 25 schools ultimately, the idea of visiting all of them before you even send in a pre-screen, it's just not very efficient, right? And for the audition-based programs, especially those most competitive ones, the idea of any kind of like demonstrated interest, it's just not a relevant factor, right? If you're interested in Michigan, you don't need to show them that by visiting before you audition. You've heard some examples from smaller schools on the podcast where they will say something like that. And I think there's some validity to that in that an early connection with a school that might only get a few hundred applicants, you know, they can meet prospective students in a different way and they have the ability to lay that foundation earlier.

But for most of our students, schools that are that small are not the primary initial focus. So if they aren't local, if they aren't easy visit, I wouldn't make that factor heavily into your visiting decisions, right? You may have also heard us talk about trying to use those early visits, we're talking about those freshmen through early junior year visits to really learn about different campus aesthetics. If you're trying to be as financially conscious as you can, you can try to kind of map out different times that you're already visiting to different areas.

[26:53] Charlie Murphy: And you know, you pop over to a city campus next time you're in Chicago, and then you know, maybe you've seen a suburban campus because of where you live. So you can then plan a 30-minute drive to a more rural campus experience in the other direction, right? You know, maybe you have a sibling who attends one of those big football schools in a big college town, even if they don't necessarily have a theater program. You just have your sibling tag along on a visit next time you go, and you can get that experience, right? I think that kind of thing is really smart in terms of just learning about different school fields in general, in terms of how you would use those visits. It's in those cases less about the specific school, though, of course, bonus points if it's a school that they actually are already interested in from a theater perspective too, and more it's just about learning about what they don't know about what college is, right?

And I think really the thing I would add in today is that I would extend that conversation of exploration beyond just the aesthetics, right? That goes specifically for the schools that you can visit in person and just also your school list research in general. Depending where you are in the process, the way that you should evaluate a school should really change. For me, anything before senior year should really not be so much focus on this question of am I interested in this specific school? But more broadly, using the exploration, the exploration of your potential interest to help you determine the shape of your list. You know, what do I like about this school or what do I dislike about that school?

And how can that help me circle back and continue to shape the things that I'm looking for? Because I want all of our students to have informed opinions on those big questions, and that just doesn't happen naturally. If you don't take the time to think about it and really understand what some of those concepts are, you'll just sort of inherit other people's opinions about what's good or bad, right? For some of these questions, it's not such a big deal. If you don't care about something like study abroad program and you just use your friend's opinion on that, okay, fine, right? But for other questions, it could be really foundational to your education. I think every student needs to wrestle with the question of what kind of BFA I'm looking for if they're looking at BFA programs.

Of course, this goes broader to the question of do I look at BFA at all or at BA programs? But with many of our students, they come in thinking they want an audition-based program. But most haven't gone much farther than that in really knowing the intensity of what school, when it's 90% artistic, really feels like. Are you really okay with giving up the other aspects of the college experience? Or the flip side, for people who are like, I want intensive MT training, but I also want a double major. Have you really sat with what that schedule might feel like? Some students sit with it and they go, Oh, well, that actually doesn't really feel very intensive to me at all from an MT perspective if I'm just trying to train in three disciplines.

And sidebar, you know, I sometimes casually say three disciplines, but as regular listeners will know, there's a lot more than just three disciplines when you're going on musical theater, right? All of the different forms of dance that you got, you know, you could like be 10 disciplines just in dance, right? And then just breaking down acting, you got speech and movement and text analysis, all these different things you gotta do to make it all up and to make up what is acting. And at MTCA, we break down singing. When you talk about the singing element, we break that into two disciplines right off the bat of vocal tech and song coaching, which each have their individual disciplines, right? So, and that's how the schools do it too.

There's a technical singing training to learn, and then there's song performance as it differs from non-singing acting and how those two dovetail, all those things. So, all that to say, it is a lot to learn, and there is no one magic formula that says this is the right balance that every school should model and emulate, right? You're gonna have to cut corners somewhere. Something's gotta give, right? Whether you're losing some academics or you're shorting a discipline, or you gotta go find a time turner and attend 48 hours of class a day. There's just there's just no way to do it in a way that's like, I want the same level of training as this conservatory and I want, or same intensity, I should say, of training, and I want the same amount of academics as this liberal arts program.

It's like good luck. How do you make all those things happen? There's just no way to sort of square that budget. But jumping back to the question of visits, we're here talking about visits, is what the takeaway is about. If you're not being conscious in those early visits, it can feel like you're just collecting individual data points about specific schools. And again, that's right, you're not gonna know until later in the process if that school will be interested in you beyond the application of pre-screen. So you don't even know if it's an option for you, nor do you know that you might even be interested in that school many months later, right? So it can feel like you're in those early visits, almost like you're playing battleship.

If you're just doing these like random isolated visits, you're like, yes, that's cool, not that school, right? We don't want it to feel like these are random hits and misses, right? If you can be in conversation with some of these bigger questions, both from the campus aesthetic question, but also some of those bigger questions of liberal arts, BFA, conservatory BFA, BA, music theater versus acting versus vocal performance versus musical theater dance versus just being a theater major and likely a BA, right? I think that will help you form a plan that helps make it feel like your research is more going towards something. You're sort of moving the progress bar forward in a productive way that isn't just the random scatter shot battleship.

So even if you're someone where travel isn't necessarily possible, maybe you're someone who's spent some time at this like really conservatory-like program for whatever reason. Now you go, well, I could do some online research into what some of these more liberal arts BFAs feel like, and maybe I'll see another one that actually happens to be convenient for me in a visit in the upcoming months, and then I'll make that happen for me, right? And then as you get into senior year, the actual visits can zero in a bit more on that specific school. You know, from using the experience of the live auditions that happens, that's certainly a big part of it, and then to those accepted visits that we talked about again at the top.

I hope that makes sense. You know, in some ways, what I'm really saying is these first few years, it should really be more about learning about yourself than about learning about the individual schools. But using the structure of a school visit and a specific school to then sound out those questions about yourself. You know, it also, as we've talked about so many times, it has the bonus of making you a more attractive auditioner in the room if you've had those conversations with yourself. When you're asked, hey, why my school? Why are you applying to my school? You're not just regurgitating stuff you've read on the website, you're like applying your artistry to that question because you're saying, Here's what about your website attracted me to you, and I know what about me is attracted to you, right?

Okay, we're only two questions in, and I feel like I have to move toward wrapping this episode up. We're already over half an hour of actual recorded time. Man, I can really go on about a subject. It's disgusting. Um, I'm gonna punt a few of them. I jotted down to a future takeaways pod. So if you guys like these, let me know. I'll try to weave them in a bit more. If you don't like them, feel free to let me know that too. Of course, the former can be in a positive rating in a review, of course. The latter, let's save that for an email, right? Let's we gotta keep those five stars on the reviews, right? I'm just gonna finish with the two that I had jotted down from Amy's pod. Uh, I went on and on with those takeaways and I had a couple extra from Amy's pod that I promised you last week.

So I'm not gonna cut those. I'll cut some of the ones that were we're sitting from earlier. Um, the first, a shorter one is just about school inflation that happened during COVID. Um, you know, in the same way that I talked about Amy's first child Jack and the way the pre-screens have changed so much since 2016. I also do think it's worth noting that both pre-screens and the convenience of COVID has contributed to this remarkable phenomenon of school inflation that's really been happening for 15 years, but has really accelerated in the last five. You know, I've said this before in the pod, but we used to meet students 15, 20 years ago, and it would be pulling teeth in convincing their parents to let them audition for double digit schools, just trying to get to 10, 12 schools, right?

There was a lot of demystifying of this process about how competitive it was. And the people would have this idea that like you could do CMU in Michigan as you reach schools, and then it'd be like Point Park and Ryder as your safeties, and you'll be good, right? That may be like a little bit of a comedic example, but only a bit. You know, of course, for any of our newer listeners, you probably don't need me to say this, but I'll repeat no audition-based school could ever be a safety. Though I'm sure if you're this deep into this episode by now, you probably already know that, right? And then we would hear all of the reasons that this list was actually realistic. They might have a list of seven, eight schools, but they say, Oh, my child's a dancer.

So, you know, they'll get into a school like Point Park, no doubt. They take, they like dancers, right? Or my child's a guy. So this process is gonna be, I understand why it's hard for girls, but for guys is so much easier, right? I mean, it was such a high percentage of our students that we would have to spend so much time helping them understand just simply how competitive this process has become for everyone, right? That it's you don't have some secret, you know, magic formula that means it's not actually competitive for you, right? You know, we'd be talking about statistics, be talking about what a balanced list was. And, you know, while we still will have a decent chunk of students where we they need a little bit of help with what the meaning of a balanced list is and what it might look like, the number expectations from the median student has become night and day different, right?

Enough years of their peers doing more schools has made other students think that they need to do more schools. And then a few years back, all of a sudden we had the first, you know, we for the first time we'd have sometimes to start saying, hey, you actually could be cutting this list down a little bit from where you are, right? It used to sort of be like we would just encourage more and encourage more, and eventually the family would like cut it off where wherever their personal max was, right? They would be like, okay, I hear you, but no more than 20. And we go, all right, good, 20. That sounds great, right? But now we hear families coming in and sometimes expecting to do 30 plus schools.

And I think a large part of that last influx of inflation is due to some of the things that popped up during COVID that Amy mentioned, like with Grace doing so many schools, I forget it was, I think it was 30 plus schools in all the different forms. So just like actual inflation, it's hard to say definitively what any of the biggest driving factors are. You know, some people say we we gave out too much money during the pandemic. It's the supply chain, whatever, right? But it has definitely happened. We can see that it has happened in the same way that you see inflation happen, right? I think the biggest thing to demystify right now, I think the biggest thing is helpful to you as a listener for any of our younger students, is that anytime you hear a number like 30 plus, and some people they do have numbers above 30, right?

In the vast majority of those cases, you're hearing about a student's final number, not their initial application. So as you continue to work through your way through the process, you're gonna have multiple opportunities, whether it's via some kind of consortium audition like a Pittsburgh Unified or a walk-in opportunity. Many places we have walk-in opportunities where you could add some schools to your list. And students choose to do this for various reasons. Some might add schools to make up for spots that opened up due to a pre-screen rejection. Some might add schools because they just they're on top of it. They have availability in their schedule and they want to keep exploring more options, as well as just improving as an auditioner with more cracks of the apple, all of which we encourage.

These are all great things, and we encourage our students to do it, but it's just worth diving past that big number, which a student will often like proudly boast about at the end of their process. They'll be like, whoo, I was exhausting at 45 schools. What a process. But then you dig deeper, and it might be they did 18 initial applications, but they did Pittsburgh Meet Unifieds and they added another 15 schools there with a kind of modified application. Then they did a few MTCA walk-ins or a few walk ins at Unifies, and all of a sudden you have a totally different number than what they set out to do. So just worth thinking about that in your initial plan. And I also think that just like the pre-screen process has gotten so much more competitive, but out of proportion with the actual increase in final audition percentage competitiveness, it's worth thinking about just the mathematical curve of how this competitiveness works, given that each individual student can only take one spot at one program.

So when you're looking at your ultimate number, there are a chunk of schools that take a very small percentage of their applicants and which yield a very high percentage of those applicants. Of course, none of the schools yield 100% as they're taking from each other. They're likely only taking from each other for the most part, right? Those numbers are daunting and competitive. So if you're looking at attending some of those schools, which a lot of our students want to attend one of those schools, you need a high number of those schools on your list due to the subjective nature of this process and how difficult they are to get into. But then as you keep moving down the order of competitiveness, there's another chunk of schools that are still really competitive to get into, but that maybe won't yield as high a percentage as some of those students that they accept end of going to the other schools in their group and also some of that first group, right?

But then pivotally, there's another chunk. There's a third chunk of schools that is actively recruiting students, even if they're an audition-based program, right? Because the idea of being audition-based looks good in this process, and some of them will have auditions, even though they do accept a large percentage of the students they see. That doesn't mean they accept all the students that they see, but they see a large percentage of the students that they see, right? And I think just recognizing those differences between groups is also helpful as people look at their total numbers and their balance and they're making these decisions, right? While it might make sense for me to have a large number of those most competitive schools where they may be accepting 1% in some cases or 4%, whatever it is for their initial students who audition, I don't think you necessarily need a large number of that last category of school.

It's great to have some on the list. They increase your list balance. They offer a viable option for many students. Whereas you may have 12 for the first category, 12 of those most competitive schools, 15 of the most competitive schools, whatever your number you choose, with the hopes of getting a few. So you have those scholarship options and all those things we talked about. You likely don't need to have 12 of the last category of schools. If you had a few on your list, you will likely have an offer and a school to explore as an option. Now, if a school like that is your goal, which is nothing wrong with that, for some students, that could be the idea that that initial goal is one of those kinds of schools is the fit for them, then giving yourself a lot of options there is great.

And maybe because that's your goal is that third category of schools, maybe you wouldn't have any of the most competitive schools in your list because that's something you actively don't want. But for a lot of our students, that first category is the goal. And I think they've started to intuit those numbers and they understand the idea that they're safety numbers, and then they just can take that advice a little bit too far in terms of adding schools across the list, including that third category of schools, just because they don't know the difference.

[40:11] Charlie Murphy: And it's again, we're pro-adding the third category of schools, but it's just about the numbers, right? I've had examples of all of those different kinds of schools in the podcast, and I am a firm believer that for the right student, I'd support attending any of those schools. But you likely would not have to have 10 schools in the category of a Midwestern state, Texas, a Carthage, a Longwood. You don't need 10 of those kind of schools, right? Those schools, there are significant percentage difference, a significant percentage difference that you know between them and a Carnegie Mellon or a CCM, which I think many of you would understand that there's a big difference between those two. But there's also a significant percentage difference between those schools I mentioned and a Merrimount or Montclair, right?

Which not everyone does realize that. I think not everyone realizes that it's not just the drop from the Carnegie Mellon to the world, but there's also a significant drop in percentage numbers compared to a Merrimount or a Montclair. Again, I could give you many different examples, meaning the Carnegie Mellon being the most competitive, that tier, the Marymount Montclair being the most competitive, and that there is that other tier of schools that are just not at the same order of magnitude of competitiveness that even those competitive schools are. So the only really downside to this inflation ends up just being your time and to some extent, you know, your dollars if the schools have applications fees, though many of the schools will waive an application fee for you.

But I also think it is worth being considerate of your finite energy too, right? If the numbers really get higher, right? You know, it's something I started saying in the past couple of years at Pittsburgh Unified, which again, we love Pittsburgh Unifieds, right? But as their numbers of schools that they have attending, as it rose from 20 some schools, then past 30 some schools into 40 some schools, and I think this year it looks like it's gonna be 50 some schools, almost 60 schools attending. At some point, not only are your returns diminishing, but you also you just can only keep in contact with so many people, right? And my favorite part of PUA is that it is in large part populated by that second category of competitive schools that are not the most competitive, which is just so excellent for that time of year and where you all are in their process.

But then, as more and more schools have found out about it and all the amazing talent that's there, more of that third category of schools, the ones that are more actively recruiting, have tried to become involved, and I'm all for it, right? As well as unfortunately, there's some schools that are in that first category of most competitive schools that have become involved. But there's absolutely no downside to that third category seeing you and reaching out to you with interest. That's all upside. But just for your own lists, as you feel that unmistakable pull of that inflation, it's something to think about is that you don't necessarily need to add too many of those schools to your own personal list with an actual application, unless they're actually your personal goal, right?

It's so hard to know on your end, and it's such a foreign concept to us that you have had that much exposure and interest so early on that you might actually have to begin erecting boundaries on your end. But for our students, where that first category is the focus, and we know it's your own interest, it is in your own interest to audition for those schools in that first category a few months later and to keep your focus there, you will sometimes have to fight that tide of the inflation that is pulling you naturally in that direction of going, add me, add me, add me. And in general, the answer is always gonna be why not? Except at some point you have to make a decision for yourself where you go, enough is enough.

There is, there is some number or there's some amount that just starts feeling a little bit ridiculous for me. So, two takeaways about influence and pull today. Very interesting. Influence and pull. I wonder where that comes from with me. It's some fodder for therapy for me this week, I guess. So let's take one last ad break and then we'll wrap with one more takeaway back in a flash.

[43:41] Charlie Murphy: Okay, we're back. And my last one is just a general parents' takeaway coming from the Amy pod, which is just about the students's fire, their motivation, their passion to do this. You know, we've talked about all the different ways that parents can be involved, whether that's only as a financial backer and the student is leading organizationally, whether that's as a receptionist helping take delegated tasks, whether it's about really leading the aspects of organization and scheduling, if the student wants that or needs that, right? That's the CEO COO model I talked about with Amy, right? We've also talked about some of the ways where over involvement is potentially not helpful, namely in the artistic work itself, right?

That is, this is a precious for a young artist. And even if you had smart things to say, which many of you, I believe you actually do have smart things to say artistically to your kids, you're not always the most helpful messenger for that information. And sometimes it's not about just that you're not the right messenger, but sometimes it's about the student actively needs to find it on their own. This is something that good directors and good coaches know is how to lead an artist toward making a choice, even potentially to what that choice might be, without just like giving them the answer. Anyone who's ever acted before has had the experience where the idea of like echoing someone else's line reading, or even just echoing their specific motivation behind a line, if it's given to you, is just so much less powerful than having that light bulb turn on and discovering a choice for themselves, right?

That just makes it such a more sustainable choice for an HO week to say, I know where it came from in me, or for in this case, eight months of an audition process, if you're making that connection and you're really finding it, even if it's a bit slower and more tedious. But we know that the artistic stuff. But the other aspect beyond the artistic, which brings up this takeaway, which, and I don't always remember to say this aloud to the parents, but it's something that happens more often than I wish it does, is I think it is really important that the students are also driving that fire behind the process. It's not just that they have to be the CEO if you're the COO, and that the CEO has that kind of decision-making power, but it's also like the want has to come from them.

I mean, this is separate and apart from the idea that the student has to like want to enter into this business and want to actually do this. You know, every once in a while you're gonna get a stage parent where it feels like they are the ones actually motivating the choice and the kid actually is in that into it. But I'm actually not talking about that here, right? I actually rarely find that case in this in our students that it is really the parent pushing the idea of it. But I do sometimes find parents in the way that they will choose to be the COO for those who are more of the Amy Brezzo like parents who really are well organized and have that skill set, that sometimes they're taking up a lot of oxygen in the room.

And even when we're not even talking about the artistic, just in the organizational own strategic stuff, in a way that that taking up that oxygen can kind of diminish the fire from the student's end. You know, and I'm not sure that I have an easy solution of what exactly to do in those cases. I think it is going to be so individual to each family of what works best in your dynamic, but it's just something to stay aware of, right? Are they, the student, still fueling their passion and their drive to do this? Sometimes overscheduling can get in the way, exhaustion. But I also think there can be a parent who's a really good manager who might be micromanaging certain aspects of this where it just lets the students take too much of a backseat.

Again, I don't think there's a perfect balance here. Since like taking some of the minutiae off the plate allows the student to focus on more important things, but I guess it's worth checking. Are they actually focusing on the more important things with that time that you're giving them? Or is the parent just like doing some of the work for the student, right? Or maybe even trying to control the process in the way that makes them comfortable as opposed to the way the student feels comfortable. You know, I recently heard this in a consultation. It was part of the reason that made me want to do this takeaway again. It's not the first time I've heard a version of this, but it was one of the most sort of stark versions where a parent was telling me that the parent is a fan of the podcast, and I encouraged the student when talking to them.

I was like, we were talking about a specific school at that time. And I was like, Hey, you should listen to my interview. Your mom says she's a fan of the podcast. You should listen to this interview with that professor. And I even was like, listen, you don't have to listen to a whole hour of it. You could just grab a 10 minute slice of it and just see what the vibe is of the professor, just partway through the conversation, just get a little vibe of the professor. You don't have to go deep on the information or anything, right? And the mom was like, Oh, I love that episode. I'll listen again and I'll grab a really good 10-minute chunk for you. And I sort of felt like this is too close to like chewing your food for your kid, right?

That's not to say that definitively that this mom was wrong or that this choice is wrong. I have had a lot of parents who say they listen for their children and then recommend certain episodes. I'm not necessarily against that. I do understand podcasts as a medium is not necessarily what 17, 18 year olds are into. It's a little bit more what people our age, which I'm now the age of the parents, right? But if the kid is only into TikTok, are you using the equivalent of TikTok to do some version of research on this medium, or are you just sort of punting that research and winging it because you're like, I don't like podcasts, I want to do something else, right? And that's not really at all podcast-specific advice.

I feel the same way with all kinds of help, right? Like whether it's making spreadsheets, helping with resumes. Again, some help, not a problem. But if you're an actor, you need to know the content of your resume and you need to care about the content of your resume. You need to take ownership and have pride for the thing that you are handing out with your name on it, right? It's the same thing with the spreadsheet of material requirements. You want to have had you know some time on that website and read about what the schools are looking for. Even if a parent takes a pass to build the initial sheet, you know, to get a sense of anything that would be helpful to know organizationally, if they're sort of, hey, I want to make sure that we're in what we're doing organizationally, I'm all for that, right?

Right. Maybe the parent is serving as a double check to make sure the child isn't missing something important because they go, I don't want this mistake to be the reason it sings the kid's audition. Okay, but the child shouldn't just be like totally uninvolved in all of those parts of the process, right? They're the ones who are gonna have to walk in the room and actually book the school. So they should have a relationship with the process that is not just an automaton going where they're pointed. You know, it's sort of like you know, this idea we're saying that laying the foundation of your education in the Amy episode. This is also key to the idea that you eventually, as an actor are gonna have to be someone who is doing all of this for yourself as an adult, right?

You will never go through as crazy a process as this while you're also going to high school. I mean, this is way harder organizationally than any individual thing you'll do as a professor, but you will potentially have to juggle auditions and a side job and a personal life while you're opening a show, maybe someday with a child. And you're gonna have to have a sense of like all the things that go into getting yourself to an audition prepared and what that means, right? Making your plan for warming up, what you're gonna wear, and just like how all of these things come together to make you psychologically successful. The child has to be connected to that process, and it's good for them to be connected to that process.

You know, it's kind of like in producing this podcast. I have two amazing producers who collect notes for me. They do find a lot of information, but I have to have an understanding of what those processes are and what I'm delegating, because at the end of the day, if something is missing or incorrect, it falls on me. I'm the one who looks bad, right? That doesn't mean I need to actually do every aspect of myself, or even that some aspects I can't delegate entirely. Like at this point, Kelly does all of my scheduling. I'll like book a guest and I'll be like, Kelly will schedule you, right? But I have to have a relationship to what that schedule is and why it's important, and maybe most importantly in this, some idea of the stakes of what would happen if something went wrong.

I need to care that the guests get scheduled and that we don't make a mistake there, and that we've thought about the order of episodes and how they're gonna impact our listeners, even if it's not something that I'm weighing in on every specific aspect of, right? And a student auditioning needs to have that same kind of investment in making sure their application gets in and their audition gets scheduled and all those kinds of things, even if they aren't the one who's sending every email and actually responsible for every step, right? I guess really what I'm suggesting is that the kids do need to be invested in some way. And if that's something that isn't coming easily to your family, it is worth investigating why that's happening and if something is potentially dousing that fire or if that flame would fan a little bit higher if it got a little more oxygen, right?

Most of our students do really feel invested in the process, but I know how tired and burned out students can get. And it's just not a successful place to do the process from. So how do we keep that fire lit and how do we keep the process motivated as much as possible? And I do think that is a family investigation. Sometimes just in a family dynamic, whoever's kind of in charge in the family dynamic in general sort of just de facto becomes in charge in all these situations. And it's a moment where the child might need a little help to step forward and may have the ability to step forward if only you'll let them. Okay, no real genius for that aspect. I think it was just something that's kind of interesting that has come up a couple of times.

Something really to watch out for, a red flag alert that I think is not too uncommon just in making sure we're not dousing our fires and that the fire is still burning at all. Man, I say the word fire a lot in that past takeaway. But if your fire is still burning for this podcast, after what feels like three hours of recording, it's only been like an hour. It's only been a normal podcast episode length, produced by the inexorable Meghan Cordier. 54 minutes. I'm guessing as you read this, it'll be the 54-minute mark. Then, you know, you can hit us at a rating and review. Five stars if you're feeling good. Also, comment on all of our social media posts with why you think we're doing great. And you can also tell us your favorite types of episodes.

You want more solo pods? Sure. You want some unknown schools, some secondary interviews with some of those most popular schools, more francy Broadway guests, more alumni students and their parents. Well, good news, it's all coming your way in the next few weeks, maybe with the exception of more solo pods. We'll see about those. But the other things are all coming in the next few weeks. And you know, you can check us out at mtca.com for more information about what we can do for your individual college prep process, as well as information on our upcoming Meet MTCA workshop on May 7th. That's MTCA.com. I think I messed up saying it the first time. To my young artists out there mapping their journeys. Trust that you are enough for the right program, exactly as you are right now. Now keep striving. We'll see you next week.