A LEVELS AND THEN DRAMA SCHOOL ?

[Kez]

Hi Shortguy,
O dear we were thinking the local option would be ok but after what you have posted it seems anywhere is hard to get into! I wonder if so many people will try next year with the tuition fees going up.

[Genevieve]

My ds will be in this position in a year or so and I am wondering wether he should go for the bournemouth uni (home) to do ba in drama or to try for London.
Are the London drama schools much better? or should we save on the living costs?

My DD is starting at Bournemouth Arts in September (not Drama) but has spoken with many that have applied for this course. Seems extremely difficult to get a place this year to do a BA in Drama. Many have been unlucky

Will be interesting to find out how many more applications they've had this year compared with last year, with students avoiding the fees increase !!!! -
With fees increase tho' I wonder how this will affect next year's applications, more students may take gap years to try and get some money together and defer their 2012 places to the following year if they can. I think this year's entry will be the most over subscribed though ?
What this may mean too though, is that more students will want to go straight to Drama Schools for a 3 yr course in September 2012, rather than go to University first studying other subjects, and then go onto a year's Drama course ! This would mean, that again, they'll be so many more applying for next year's entry perhaps. Not a lot you can do, other than work hard and fine tune audition pieces and give an outstanding audition !

Perhaps Drama Schools will be looking to take much more 'all rounders' from this year, more than they've done before ? applicants with strengths in all disciplines and not just one or two - It will make the process so much harder for those who are not already trained in drama, singing and dance surely ? Do you think that getting some paper qualifications, LAMDA, TRINITY exams would give applicants a better chance, as well has having a lot of performance experience outside of school , and do you think that academic qualifications would be looked at more favourably now- as the academic entry criteria for Drama Schools is quite low - Although perhaps schools like RADA would favour higher academic qualifications ? (eg. the only two girls my dd's heard of from local schools getting in to RADA at 18 - both were straight A grade students )
Those giving an outstanding audition on the day will get offered places regardless of how many GCSEs/A Levels, amount of experience they have i'm sure, but when push comes to shove, the audition panel will have to seperate a small handful from 1,000's of applicants ?

[pg]

I honestly don't think the paper qualifications will make a difference to the vocational schools. It is very difficult to know what schools look for - and the schools will find it hard to tell you anyway. If you've watched lots of auditions, what is easy to spot is a "certain something". Easy to spot, but very hard indeed to put into words.

There will always be a number of applicants who will be wanted by ALL the schools. It's those who are in the next tier, the bunch where the auditioner thinks: "they're really good, but so is he, and so is she, and so are they" where the decision-making is less predictable. Different schools look for different things too. My ds was accepted at RADA (and a couple of others) but rejected by another two schools.

I completely agree with Caroline A-C about "knowing your trade". This is where an applicant can make a difference to their chances. Those who have it "in their bones" tend to be like this anyway - they do take a genuine interest in the whole process and take part in everything they can. It's also important to watch other performers critically (in a constructive way!) and to think about the whole production, not just those on stage.

It's also important to choose good audition speeches to give yourself the best chance. This is where early preparation and research can pay off. This might mean doing lots of reading, but also lots of theatre-going. New writing festivals can be good sources of inspiration and mean that you are unlikely to be the twentieth that audition day with the same speech. (Having said that, my ds didn't exactly choose "uncommon" speeches for his audition - choosing one you feel comfortable and confident with is really important).

If you're not used to improvisation, getting together with other performers and doing lots of theatre games can also be useful.

When I went to drama school (in my late forties ! ) I was with lots of post-grads on a one year course. The Principal of the school said he enjoyed teaching the post-grads BUT was in despair at their inability to disengage their analytical faculties and react viscerally. This, I think, is what is exciting to watch at an audition: someone being bold and brave and full of (reasonably well-controlled) energy. Emotional maturity is welcomed and intellectual capacity is very useful indeed, but it's the...well, I don't know the word... perhaps borrow from Billy...it's the electricity within someone that can set them apart.

I remember Welshmum posted an article a few years ago (?) about the audition process for an MT course at one of the schools. It was really interesting, but one thing in particular stuck in my mind: one of the auditioners (or it might have been the Principal) said that over the last few years there had been a ten-fold increase in the number of applicants but no discernable difference in the number of applicants with the necessary talent...

[Genevieve]

viscerally.

I will have to look that word up !
Thanks pg - it is those who are 'in the middle' kind of thing following their audition that I wondered how they select from ? and how they separate them - and I understand it's so hard to know why one candidate would get in over another unless you're on the audition panel, and there's no answer to that. It is life experience which aids performance too, and maturity, as you say, so some may be asked (as a friend of mine was when she auditioned for Central many many years ago now)...."come back next year"....I read that one very well known actress got in to RADA at 16, when you could at 16. She'd lived abroad for some years prior, so she was mature and worldly for her years ! ..It's all food for thought, and lots to work on. Off to get my dictionary... .

[islandofsodor]

Off on a slight tangent here but

Dh and a colleague were thinking of perhaps in the summer holidays running a workshop/series of workshops on audition for drama/musical theatre school preparation. What type of things they look for (though that is subjective and as has been stated differeent schools look for different things)

A sort of what to expect, how to prepare, repertoire etc.

Do you think there would be interest in this. I guess there is a lot of this sort of thing in London, but not in the Midlands/North West.

[Genevieve]

I think that's a very good idea ! I haven't come across any in London, yet, but having a search on this at the moment

[Caroline A-C]

Just for information, there was a special suppliment in The Stage (think 19th June issue) about getting into Musical Theatre courses and a number of the vocational school departmental heads stated what it was they were looking for. Very interesting article for those looking to audition next year.

[pg]

I will have to look that word up !

My mum's ghost is shuddering at the word "gut", but that's what I was gutting at (I was eversowell brung up).

"from the GUT !!" was a favourite phrase of the Principal at Oxford. It's courage to follow your instincts rather than "watching" yourself and analysing "what would my character do here?". All of the analysis needs to happen before you embark on the speech/performance and then you need to throw caution to the winds when you get up and do it.

OOh, I'm off on a really arty farty journey now. Somebody stop me!

P.S. I think a summer course on audition preparation in the North/Midlands would be great!

[Welsh Mum]

As far as actual qualifications are concerned, then they are not needed to get onto an acting course. However, having said that doing singing, music or dance exams can help improve technique etc; though they are not needed they can improve your chances by increasing your skills and talent. This is not only true of MT courses; increasingly many acting jobs require some level of dance/singing/instrument, and they are elements of even "straight" acting courses. There is singing in most second round auditions for acting courses, although you don't need to have the same standard as for MT it does help if you can perform a song with confidence.

[sapphire]

Off on a slight tangent here but

Dh and a colleague were thinking of perhaps in the summer holidays running a workshop/series of workshops on audition for drama/musical theatre school preparation. What type of things they look for (though that is subjective and as has been stated differeent schools look for different things)

A sort of what to expect, how to prepare, repertoire etc.

Do you think there would be interest in this. I guess there is a lot of this sort of thing in London, but not in the Midlands/North West.

DD would definitely be interested in something like this near Manchester!

[MAGGIEMAE]

My question on this is what happens if dc would not be up to doing A Levels.

[Welsh Mum]

If your DC works better in a practical way then BTEcs are always an option (though there are written elements they are less theoretical than a level).

[Caroline A-C]

My ds is just about to finish a BTec in Performing Arts instead of A levels. He has enjoyed the course which is largely practical but has had a fair amount of written work, particularly the actor's logs. He is off to Arts Ed in September to start a BA in Musical Theatre and this was absolutely the right course to enable him to do this.

[paulears]

Maggiemae - Please "not up to A Levels" is really quite the wrong way of looking at education. The way things are today, it is simply not a case of being "up to them". What is needed to pass A Levels and BTECs is application and dedication. The kids I've seen at inner city comps, country academies and colleges all over fall firmly into two categories. The ones that try hard and do the work, and those that don't. Most of the bad work that crosses my path is very clear on this one. For A Levels, where there is an exam paper, it's so clear that all they know is what the teacher taught them, and so when a question comes up that involved being able to be a bit wider, they have no clue, so waffle and do badly. In BTEC, where perhaps the task is about doing research - they simply collect of the internet but don't bother to read it. I've seen plenty of kids who might well have the tag of being a little, er, educationally challenged, get excellent results at A Level and BTEC because they put in hard work in their own time - not just the couple of hours a week of class time. Time and Time again I see so called bright people who are damn lazy do badly, and see real sloggers do well.

If people have a real interest in the subject, and would do it for fun, not just for an qualification, they will get decent grades.

As people are saying, the real choice between so called academic and vocational courses at any level is simply how best they learn.

I'm what's known as kinaesthetic - I learn best by actually doing (often laughingly called touchie-feely) So for me BTEC would have been best, even though I did A Levels

Try your own learning style test - and this will show if you would be better doing academic A Level style, or vocational BTEC style learming.
http://www.vark-learn.com/english/page. ... stionnaire

[Genevieve]

true ...the bog standard academic route through the system is certainly not for everyone - but I don't think it's as simple as that. I don't think it's lack of motivation, or dedication to a subject,it is also a case of how well each teacher delivers the curriculum to the students too, as you say, and some very able pupils arn't taught to achieve 'A' grades, where they were actually more than capable of getting an A grade had they had a good teacher ! It's very easy to get lost in it all and by GCSE exams it's all too late to undo.

It's often knowing how to revise too, and being taught exam techniques, and what gets the marks ! I taught my dd, who revises better, and retains more information by using visual revision methods, along with revision cards..I taught her what is called the 'Method of Loci' whereby she would put all of her Biology revision cards on the wall in the kitchen, colour coding with marker pens each area of revision category within Biology (often using symbols too as mental triggers eg. like a picture of a plant next to her revision notes for photosynthesis), all her English revision cards in the front room, and Geography in the bedroom, and this way she was able to recall information in her exams by mentally walking around the house to recall the information on the cards ! it does work !! as the brain acts like a filing cabinet, and the clearer your information is labelled within these files, the easier it is to find/ and therefore easier for your memory to recall ! And by the time you get to A levels and a reduced number of subjects, you can fine tune that filing system even more, and dedicate each room in your house to revision notes for just Geography for example, rather than have using just one room for each whole subject ! (although some of my files are certainly rather shredded! )

As you've said paulears many children are much more suited to courses where they are learning visually, and hands-on and those students often do not perform well in written exams, and for many it's a question of ...thank goodness for coursework !!! I think MAGGIEMAE saying. her dc may ...'not be up to A Levels' is just a parent summing up the whole situation their dc find themselves in - and it's not meant to be derrogatory, as a full explanation would probably be exhaustive. A friend of mine would also say that her ds was 'not up to A Level's, simply because he just could not recall information in exams, despite being very bright in classwork through the term, he just had an awful memory, so he quit A Levels and now is looking at design courses, more suitable to his interests, and a subject school didn't offer.

With the pension age increasing , I think now many of us will be guiding our ds's dd's to cut some of the 'standard' education route and aim to get on a career path of some sort earlier than they would have done too perhaps !