Unified Auditions: How Do they work??

[actress_06]

Posted: 8/8/05 at 12:20am

Just wondering how the unified auditions work because several of my perspactive schools hold auditions then, and it would be a lot easier than flying to every school location. So how do these work?
Thanks,
Kaija

[briarbrad]

Posted: 8/8/05 at 11:30am

Basically, it is just a lot of schools that get together in one agreed place and time to help students. This also helps the schools, as they will get more auditionees by doing the Unifieds than if they only did on-campus auditions. These happen in New York, Chicago, San Francisco, and LA. This is a link (http://www.otterbein.edu/dept/thr/unified.htm) to the Official Unified school list. However, there are some schools that aren't apart of the Unified group that hold their out-of-town auditions at the same time and place as the Unifieds. These schools won't be listed on this site, so you'll have to do some research to see what other schools "piggy-back" on to the Unifieds (some that I know of are Carnegie Mellon, NYU, Juillard [some years], Royal Scottish Academy...)

Each audition is seperate; that is, there is not one huge audition for all of the schools. You register for audition times with each school, and choose one of the these out-of-town locations when selecting a time. Some of the schools might travel to other cities in addition to the ones listed above.

Some people have suggested that schools might look more highly upon applicants who audition on campus as opposed to those who audition at the Unified auditions. I'm going to say that this just isn't true. The drama professors at these schools who make these decisions understand that is just isn't feasible for everyone to travel to each campus to audition. And in my experience, applicants who have auditioned at Unified locations (in fact, I don't know anyone who did their auditions on-campus) have had extremely favorable acceptance rates.
Updated On: 8/8/05 at 11:30 AM

[actress_06]

Posted: 8/8/05 at 7:59pm

Wow thanks...another question. Would I only be doing my audition once or would I have to do it numerous times??
Thanks again,
Kaija

[briarbrad]

Posted: 8/8/05 at 8:05pm

"Each audition is seperate; that is, there is not one huge audition for all of the schools."

It isn't a cattle call audition. You have to audition seperately for EACH school. Every school has different requirements and is looking for different things in its potential students. They want to be able to work with you, if necessary.

[dietcherryemma]

Posted: 8/9/05 at 6:45am

Precisely. I did some at Unified and some seperate. Both good options.

[erinrebecca]

Posted: 8/9/05 at 11:08pm

Unifieds serve a purpose for many applicants who are unable or unwilling to travel for on-campus auditions. You need to determine what the requirements are for the schools on your final list. Most schools require that your application be in before you audition, although some allow walk-ons during unifieds. Also keep in mind that those schools which are rolling admissions will undoubtedly have fewer spots by the time unifieds happen. There is a lot to the process of determining which schools are right for you and which to apply to/audition for. If you're doing E.D/E.A., you'll have to do that on campus.

[actress_06]

Posted: 8/10/05 at 1:06pm

Thanks a lot everyone. I'm planning on a BFA in Musical Theater Right now I have a list of 22 schools to go over and make a decision on because of travel costs, but since many of the schools hold auditions in Chicago I will be applying for most of those. Thanks again this information really helped a lot.
Kaija

[dancingthrulife04]

Posted: 8/11/05 at 9:27pm

I was wodnering this too, thanks for the info!

[jeff_thedancer]

Posted: 8/13/05 at 3:03pm

isnt there a big downside to this,as if you mess up one of ur dance auditions or singing..its sorta taking a hit from all the universities that show up insted of doing them one at a time?

cheers
jeff

[briarbrad]

Posted: 8/13/05 at 5:55pm

NO!!! Not at all because you audition for each school SEPERATELY! There is NOT one big cattle-call audition with all of the universities in one room. In reality, each school is in a different ballroom/conference room/rehearsal studio. So if you mess up on one, it will not affect any of your other auditions.