Drama school auditions 2026 entry- Acting/MT

[Mcmumager]

Annual thread for those with dc about to embark on the rollercoaster of audition season. This is my second time round as my ds did it a couple of years ago. These threads are always really supportive and full of great advice as it’s often hard to explain to others how tough and competitive this process is. Good luck everyone!!

Same, none of DS's friends have had a recall for RW, intersting!

I wonder if they are prioritising Welsh candidates? I remember there being some issue with Welsh students getting funding for some English colleges so maybe they have decided to give them priority (or have been told to!!)

@doesanybodyhaveamap that's what we thought too.

Bit of a shock then to find them doing walk in auditions, no pre screen required at Chicago...

@actiongirl1978but those international students are very lucrative by comparison. And RWCMD have been struggling for years…

Yes I'm sure you're right. It was no less gutting though!

For those of you who are not in U6, you should consider unifieds, you can do NYC, Chicago or LA.

There are around 40 US schools, many of whom offer scholarships for Intl students and who do walk ins. Lots of consevatoires, acting schools, American School of Drama (the one which churns out all the Hollywood stars). They are all represented here.

You can do pre screen or walk ins on the day.

I've never seen anything like it. Hundreds of musical theatre kids running around doing audition after audition in one massive hotel.

Anyone know what the collective noun is for musical theatre kids?!

Yes same here! I always feel it for my DD, so much more than she does. I guess it’s just that protective parent instinct? Is this your DS’s first year applying? We are on year 3 of auditions so there have been a LOT of rejections for my DD to deal with.
surprisingly she found out yesterday she had a recall for Royal Welsh, after 2 years of rejections. She is over the moon. Also through to next stage for LAMDA, again first time this has happened. She got a straight rejection from Manchester Theatre though. This drama school journey is definitely a crazy ride for all of us!

Oh wow, congratulations to your DD on the recalls and her perseverance, that's brilliant! Yes, first year for us so he's absolutely prepared to go again next year, just hard to see them getting rejections after putting so much effort into the self tapes, isn't it? Been there before with my daughter who's about to graduate, but that was for MT and she was incredibly independent and driven, whereas I feel my DS has needed a bit more support. Best of luck with Royal Welsh and LAMDA 🙌

A cacophony
A spontaneity
A jazzhand
An exuberance …..

Ah thank you, still a long way to go, but she is just so happy that places have finally seen something in her at least. It really is so hard, the time, effort and then money it costs to apply is unbelievable. Your heart just breaks for them. We use the YouTube analytics for some of the self tape uploads and could see that the view time from Manchester was so low, clearly they hardly even bothered to watch her self tape. That really angered me, you think they’d at least have the decency to watch them all through given all the effort they go through.
You will be a dab hand at all this with a DD studying MT. Your nerves must be shattered though! Massive good luck to your DS with other outcomes, and also good luck to your DD for her upcoming Graduation 😊

@NervesAreShot an exuberance is perfect.

There must be 400 theatre kids in the Hilton in chicago right now. And there is so much exuberant behaviour on show!

I find it incredible that getting into a BA in performing arts is probably more competitive than getting an Oxbridge place- however, I am yet to know an Oxbridge graduate without a solid job or prospects after their degree🙈.
I suppose they will learn many skills that will be useful in the world of work and will carve out a path for themselves like everyone else?

Yep 100 to 1 odds to get on a course and probably similar afterwards to actually forge a career

a question for those with experience- GSA MT only has 22 places and they give rolling offers. Does this mean those with a later audition has less of a chance? I know they all give rolling offers but others have a larger cohort.

They are supposed to give equal consideration to all applications up to 15 Jan so I guess they limit the no
of offers they give out in first auditions in Jan so they can make a few firm offers per audition, reviewing the reserve list with each one so they are offering to the best of those in the running each time. For DD's GSA audition they made no offers after hers and waited until the end of the next audition 2 weeks later where they reviewed them all, made some offers and started a reserve list. But yes if you were spectacular but they had already offered to someone equally spectacular I guess you'd lose out.

Yes and no. They do make some offers as they go along, but they also put people on a waiting list. That waiting list is not because the course is already full, but because they are holding back on making decisions until they can see who else is out there. They aren't just looking for the 22 best performers, but trying to build a cohort that represents a good range of voice types, physiques, ethnicities, dance skills, acting abilties etc. My DS is on the Acting degree (30 places) but knows the MT students well and says quite a lot came off the waiting list last year to be offered a place. And don't forget some people offered a place may also be holding offers from elsewhere and may end up declining their GSA place later in the year, at which point they will try to replace their 'type' with the best possible match from the waiting list.
All that said, DS auditioned early for Acting and got an offer early on. A lot of his coursemates ( who I am sure are equally talented) auditioned later and were put on the waiting list, and then received an offer further down the line - one even in September when he was about to start at another school!

Long time lurker on this thread but time to join in the fun.

Is anyone else waiting for the outcome of the Leeds MT recall that was held on Saturday 17th Jan? My DD attended and she knows of two that were there that received BA offers last week.

DD attended 17th and had an offer for BA MT last Tuesday. If you haven't heard likely waitlist. DD has just declined her offer so that's freed up one space at least!

Hi. Regarding Performers College Essex. Audition done in January 17th. No word yet. I see some announcements of places offers yesterday 2nd feb. Everyone told at interview it would be about 2 weeks. Does this sound like a No or might it go on with no word for longer? Does anyone know the results process or timeline?

UCAS was also updated for
leeds immediately the email was sent.

My child is at RW and I do think in the main the intake is less likely to be straight from school especially on the acting course. My dc is MT and went at 18 but even on MT the majority were older and many had done a foundation first, some are 4 years older than him. In his year there is one student on MT from the US and 3 from the US on the acting side. They have links to schools in the US and I know sometimes do a project where a class from a US drama school comes over and they do a project together which seems lots of fun and I guess brings in much needed money for the college. I also wouldn’t say there is a bias towards Welsh students but I guess more Welsh students are aware of what a great place it is whereas some people will favour being in London.

Im going through this whole process again with my other dc this year so feel your pain and stress and disappointment when it doesn’t go their way. I’m dreaming about blooming audition— its going to be a long few months!

I was reading an article by an actor the other day and he had done a history degree before his acting degree. I assume quite rich.., anyway just shows that going later is very usual. Just look at the pics of the grads each year on the website and you can see they are often older

My DD is at a recall audition (for BA Acting) at Manchester School of Theatre today. It’s not a place that gets talked about much on here and I’m not sure why. Do people not rate it?

Is this part of the university? If so I’ve heard good things about this course.

my dd didn’t apply as she was focused on Rose Bruford for the particular course but perhaps might have it that hadn’t worked out

@Newgirls It’s part of Manchester Met Uni.

Oh fantastic! How did she find it? Manchester is a funny one, in my experience it’s probably the least spoken about FDS school across all forums I’ve been on the past 3 years, however seems to be one of the tougher ones to get into. Those I have seen mention it in the past tend to have been rejections. My DD has been rejected from them at self tape stage the past 2 years and we were disappointed they only seemed to watch a small bit of her self tape this year. It seems to have a good reputation though. I always felt their grads looked slightly older in comparison to some others, however thats only looking at pictures.
Massive good luck to your DD, hope she loves it and they love her!