Performing Arts 2025

[doesanybodyhaveamap]

Starting a thread re: performing arts applicants for 2025. If one already exists, happy to be redirected!!

Anyone pressed 'send' on their applications yet? Curious as to timelines for initial responses and to submit self tapes....

Buckling in for a long and nervous journey!

Does anyone know about/ have experience of the Musical Theatre and Film Acting course at University of Chichester? My daughter has been offered a place there, but didn’t seem very impressed with it at audition…

DD is doing MT (Music) there and absolutely loving it. She's found them very caring and wanting to listen to the students when things get stressful or go wrong.
I don't know much about the film one, but they have a range of different MT courses. There was a little bit of swapping around at the end of the first year between MT (and triple threat) courses, but most of them seem to like the one they're on. Dd didn't apply for the (music) one, but was offered it, and says that it was the best one for her she now realises, and she says others have said similarly-that they gave a different course on offer, but they seemed to generally get it right.

Ah that’s good to hear. My son has been offered a place on MT triple threat there and he really liked it.
He had an audition day at Associated Studios this week, waiting to hear back.
Still waiting to hear from self tapes from GSA and Urdang.
Had a rejection from Italia conti

@Redbookworm
He's done well to get Triple Threat - tough to get in on. That's on the Bognor campus, but if you've any questions I can try and get dd to answer them. By try I mean that she's not too good at answering messages when she's enjoying herself and I've hardly heard from her all term. 😂

Thank you

Thanks. My daughter was told that the teaching would be mostly (approx 14 hours per week) on acting and just 2 hours on MT , and she didn’t like the sound of that. But I think she also thought it was just too small, which I understand. The campus IS tiny and the town small (though lovely). I think she is looking for more of a big city vibe…

It is small, which some people find an advantage and some people hate. It suits dd, but it wouldn't suit everyone.

Dd loves that they know each other and there is a family feel. They can pop in to see the tutors - dd did last term when she felt her singing teacher wasn't quite right for her, and they discussed it and she was given a couple to have a trial lesson and then she chose who she wanted.

I'm surprised it's that little teaching, but I'll ask dd what she knows about it. I'd have thought there would be more than that just on dance and vocals
She has far more than that.
For her course in the first year they had lessons on (I think at least an hour each):
Ballet
Jazz
Tap
Acting through song
Singing 1-2-1
Group singing

As well as theory lessons like history of musicals and vocal health. This year I think she still has all the practicals above and then the options she's chosen on top.
In the 2nd year they can choose the performance route or the backstage (director/stage manager etc) route.
Or thinking about it, maybe they meant just the theory rather than the practical? So they'd get the above as well, but then only 2 hours of MT theory as opposed to acting.
A lot of the practical lessons they do across all the MT options I thought. Will ask her.

Hello, good luck to all the DC in this process this year. Such an incredibly helpful thread. My DD set on this route ( currently in year 12) I'm so very confused about the funding and the various UCAS / non UCAS things. Are there any blogs or guides that anyone could recommend that explain in basic terms? Also confused by funding/ top ups and whether foundation courses qualify for funding or not.

This is copied and pasted from a thread I wrote in 2022

With regards to fees & funding, there are several different types of courses/institutions.
I will attempt to summarise.

Degree awarded by a drama school/conservatoire with its own awarding powers eg RADA, LAMDA, LIPA -
These are funded in the same way as a normal university degree. You take out a loan for the fees and are eligible for a maintenance loan dependent upon family income.

Degree awarded by a university but franchised out to a drama school or where the drama school is part of the university eg GSA, Bird Degree
Funded in the same way as above.

Degree conceived and taught by a drama school but accredited by a university eg Arts Ed, Mountview.
They have their own fee structure which are often a lot more but you can only take out a loan for a maximum £6k leaving a substantial shortfall. Maintenance loans can be applied for.

Level 6 Trinity Diploma taught by a drama school eg Laine, Bird Diploma - Not a full degree but you can do a one year academic top up by distance learning. Fees are often higher than a degree. You audition for a place and then you auditon again to be given a Dance & Drama Award. This is not a loan and is paid direct to the drama school for fees. Low income families will get all fees paid, higher income families will have to top up on a sliding scale.
There are no maintenance loans available.
You cannot be awarded both student loan finance AND a DaDa.

Foundation Courses
in the past foundation courses were unfunded & you had to pay the fees privately but now some drama schools have started to offer accredited foundation years that are a CertHE or HND. You need to check with each school individually.

It is confusing! I had no idea when we started out but three years in …

Basically you apply for the college’s you want on UCAS as per normal. You get 5 choices. However the Conservatoires are separate in UCAS so you can apply for another 6 of these.

The college/uni will say if Conservatoire or not and I think when you put the course number into UCAS it will come up.

However some drama schools/colleges are independent of UCAS such as Arts Ed, Mountview, Laine and a couple of others, you apply to these direct. This also means that a student loan won’t cover the total fees.

Usually a course is £9,500 or thereabouts which is paid by student loan, but the non UCAS ones can be more. For example, Mountview is £16,500 and the student loan is around £6.000 for this no more, so you have to pay the rest, you can apply for a DaDa to help if you’re eligible.

Foundations are usually funded. My dd is at GSA on a foundation using her student loan, which will fund four years of study.

Don’t quote me on the figures, but I’m sure others will know more!

That’s right- but it is really confusing. You do really have to carefully check each school.

I think Mountview pulled out of DADA last year. They offer their own scholarships though

Thanks so much @Comefromaway @Paddlinglikehell @DramaSchoolInsider - incredibly helpful and good news about the foundation courses. I need to better wrap my head around all of this.

At ArtsEd the level 6 diploma and the degree are the same course it just depends in the funding, if you do the diploma to get the dada funding you pay a small registration fee for the degree award (City St George’s uni). Depends on whether you are awarded the dada, family income and award of a scholarship on how much you actually pay of the advertised fees.

Oh glad to have found this thread!
Is it only for undergraduate? My DD has applied to the LAMDA 2 year Acting MFA (which is the one she really wants!) also to RADA Theatre Lab (which she thinks is for more seasoned professionals, but you never know) and Central and a couple of others. Any tips gratefully received

She got in to Central last year but had a change of heart on course, she's had a year out doing lots of theatre stuff

I have no idea how competitive it is at Masters level vs BA, does anyone know? @DramaSchoolInsider?

MA is less competitive than BA generally, but it is still competitive!

Has anyone else’s DC auditioned for Leeds Conservatoire this year and if so, how long did it take to hear back? My daughter auditioned for Acting on Feb 28th and hasn’t heard anything…is that normal?

So… we auditioned on 11th Jan and didn’t hear back. DC emailed. We phoned. Then I emailed. Then I phoned switchboard and spoke to a very lovely and understanding lady who said we were right to follow up ans she’d send a message via their internal system. DC had no answer to any of these attempts. Finally last week I commented on an instagram post and we got an email the next day to say they are being held in reserve. I suspect it’s the same for your DC if you haven’t heard anything but their admin seems to be a bit inefficient.

@doesanybodyhaveamapThanks. As per my previous posts, I have found Leeds to be absolutely hopeless when it comes to admin, followed closely by Italia Conti, whose online submission system for self tapes has had us pulling our hair out. My daughter tried two different devices, three different browsers and had two parents assisting and we simply couldn’t get it to work.

Interesting things going on at Rose Bruford, the American Theatre Arts, European Theatre Arts and a couple of other subject graduates, have been told they are not graduating on the same day as the Acting, Musicians and Stage production courses.

There is a petition objecting to this and say there’s been a ‘long history of being under valued and disrespected as artists and students’ and exclusion from the actual graduation day with everyone confirms that.

There’s a lot on Instagram about students on these courses being treated like second class citizens.

I’m not sure of the exact ins and outs, but they are obviously upset.

Hi, i was just wondering if anyone has any feedback on Laine please. My daughter is 16 and has been offered a place on the Diploma course and has been offered DADA funding. We are just waiting on funding from some others. But Laine has always been top of her list! TIA

Oh that sounds upsetting if that’s not the way it’s usually done. Is it a space issue? Most places couldn’t fit every course in together but perhaps it’s the way it’s been split that rankles.

I’m not sure. DD is on their socials and I think in touch with one of the students, she has an offer and is undecided whether to accept, so she’s been following things and she saw this today.

it concerns me more, if they feel their course isn’t valued. She had an offer for GSA too so a bit torn between them.

It’s great that you already know about Dada funding! My DD’s offer from Laine says we won’t know her position on the Dada list until 14th April, so that might help her decide whether it’s the one for her! 🫣
I do have some concerns after hearing lots of relatively bad experiences regarding unfriendliness and body-shaming there, however I do know a current degree student who absolutely loves it, so it can’t be all bad. 🤷🏻‍♀️
My daughter is torn between Laine and Bird, although still hasn’t heard from Mountview so that could change things again. She’s declined all her other offers while she battles those two out in her mind.

Thanks for coming back to me and good luck to your daughter with her final decisions. It's so hard, especially coming from a non dance background any advice is much appreciated and with my daughter being 16, just trying to find out as much as we can to help her.

I have a very excited DD today after being invited for a recall for Mountview! Interesting, as she thought the first audition went really badly with a slightly odd pianist. 🤷🏻‍♀️
I’m not sure whether we should go though - Audition experience is always useful so part of me thinks we should go anyway, but it’s a bit of a trek and she’s already struggling to choose between her Bird and Laine offers (she’s turned down Wilkes and LSC) so adding another choice feels counterproductive. Even though she’s pursuing MT, she LOVES dance and is good at it, so I’m not sure Mountview will push her enough in that aspect, though undoubtedly great for acting and singing. 🙃