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!!

yes MT and MT/Dance. She's really pleased, one left now then final decisions. For her, she ideally wanted a smaller cohort. There are advantages to larger and smaller, but any bigger than 100 and she'd feel lost (I know classes are max 24/25 regardless, but with streaming you can end up in different groups all the time).

Wow well done to everyone’s DC so far! It’s such a nerve wracking time for them and us!
Can anyone help my over thinking brain with what to put in an email to hold a place? DD was lucky enough to get a place at Emil Dale but still has to hear from Urdang and Conti self tapes. She should accept or decline by the 24th but wants to hang on. Is it just as simple as asking for an extension via email?

I know this is a bit late to be helpful but just to say if your child is sick we would do our best to reschedule them to a later audition so we would encourage them (not you!) to call or email. Of course every school has their own policy but I would have thought the majority would feel the same.

If they have a sprain/break and can’t dance for a while we may see them anyway and recall to a later dance audition or look at tapes of previous shows etc if we like them.

my daughter accepted her place and we paid the retainer. She has two recalls and mv first audition but we felt we needed to pay to hold the place. You can pull out before 1st Jan but you won’t get retainer fee back.

Thanks @HanD31 I did think of that but £300 is a lot for me to lose if she gets in to and prefers her other options

24th of Feb? She can ask them to hold it for longer, but IC and Urdang recalls and final outcomes could be months away. I'm not sure they would hold a place for that long. She can only ask!

My daughter heard she’d got through to the 3rd stage about 2-3 days after the recall.

I have just come across this thread and wish I knew about it the past 2 years! Thankfully, my daughter is in her 1st year BA but I will share her rollercoaster journey! I fear this will be a long post!!

For context, she is autistic so always had me as the person with authority to contact everywhere, as she explained on her applications that she struggles to make phone calls herself. We always called rather than emailed – all were always lovely and we got very quick responses to queries.

Her 1st year applying was during her UAL Level 3 Extended Diploma MT course, so she was already pursuing full time PA. However, she had only been having formal dance training for 2 years since leaving school – she had come up through Stagecoach from the age of 7 and then had moved onto an excellent theatre group. She also had up to Level 6 LAMDA exams under her belt – but never any dance exams. She applied very early and got the following:
Urdang – rejected
GSA – recalled then rejected
The Hammond – BA MT Offer
Emil Dale - rejected
Italia Conti – recalled then waitlisted for BA Acting (MT)
Performers, Royal Welsh and Trinity Laban – withdrew as Conti 1st choice; Hammond 2nd

Then she started having doubts. She was having friendship issues (very common when ASD) and the girls on her course who she was struggling with also got offered The Hammond. So she went into a spiral of overthinking and no longer wanted to go to The Hammond, in spite of us accepting and finding her halls to live in. So she decided she wanted to do a Foundation course at Pendleton College instead. I called them to explain and they said she could go for an audition, even though the UCAS deadline had long gone (this was April/May time). On the off chance, I rang Italia Conti and asked them what the chance was of her getting off the waitlist and would she be considered for the Cert HE course in MT instead, as she really wanted to try and develop her dance more. That very afternoon, they rang her and offered her a place on the Cert course. She was over the moon as she had dreamed of Conti since she was 14.

Then came the overthinking. And she kept mee-mawing saying she didn’t know if she wanted to pursue it any more and was really doubting herself. In the end, she decided to give it a go as it was only a year! The night before she went, she was breaking her heart on me (and mine) saying she didn’t want to go, but she did. And I was so proud of her. But the first term was tough and she nearly dropped out a few times but wouldn’t seek the support she was entitled to because she didn’t want to ‘look weird!’ (her words) I managed to ring their student support and they dropped into her class and she finally accepted the support she so needed and she finally settled.

So this took us to the 2nd year of applying. She desperately wanted to stay at Conti by this point, and her results were as follows:
Arts1 – BA MT offer
The Brighton Academy – BA MT offer (singer/dancer pathway to her shock)
Rose Bruford – rejected (Acting curveball on a whim!)
Central – rejected
Emil Dale – rejected
GSA – recalled then rejected
Performers – withdrew
Italia Conti – rejected (even though waitlisted previous year)
Bird – last minute audition – applied 2 days before final audition date – waitlisted for BA MT

So she accepted TBA and I paid the holding deposit and found her halls to live in. Then the final curveball. She performed in her Conti Cert show in June and left Guildford and moved home the following day. Then the week after the show, she got an email from The Head of MT inviting her to a Teams recall for the Acting MT degree that she had been waitlisted for the year before. So she did the recall the following week, then was rejected again! This time the email said should another place become available, then it would be hers – and she was offered a place the following week. This was in July and she was shaking and crying with joy!

She is very happy now on the Italia Conti Acting (MT) course. She’s an over thinker so does worry sometimes that she only has 2 dance lessons a week, but her singing is very strong and her acting is coming on hugely on this course. The degree sits very much within their Acting school so I think it offers her a more versatile career afterwards.

Please feel free to ask me any questions. It was surely a rollercoaster!

We're still waiting for Royal Welsh too. Deadline was end of Jan for DD.

I wonder if there is a problem with Acceptd. My DD applied for the PG MT at Royal Academy of Music on 14 January and we haven't heard any thing since apart from acknowledgement of receipt at the time of submission!!

Hey, my dd sent a MT tape to RWCMD For 23rd Jan. She got a no email via UCAS and Acceptd.
Then on Tuesday she had an email from Acceptd to say her tape had failed to upload, and there had been an error.
Anyone else had this?
She is wondering (hopefully) if they haven't actually watched her tape and the no emails were automatic?

It’s so hard and unfair that performing arts carries such a premium 🥹! Are there teachers you can get advice from. We have been told EDA put scores up for audition this year so it has been harder to get into. Lots in my daughters PA course have not been offered the degree or a place. I guess it depends how your DC felt there and if there was a buzz and it seemed like a good fit for them. Good luck it’s so hard! I wished my DC auditions were less spread but we haven’t had any control. It’s fine on and on like the vintage Duracell ad 😬😂

My son has been offered an MT course at his dream university so is over the moon however he has another audition at the same uni for a slightly different course next week and another audition at a different uni i March. He has an unconditional offer of the course he wants and the university he wants so should he go for the other auditions? He wants to keep them as he likes auditions as he just gets to perform which is what he loves doing. So those whose YP's who have had offers from places they love do they still go to other booked auditions?

Purely up to him. He won't have his other offer withdrawn, although the same place may question which course he prefers. Some people see auditions as a development opportunity. And he may end up preferring somewhere else. It also depends if you've already paid for accommodation, travel, etc. The expense can be a factor.

My DD has accepted her place on UCAS at GSA and put her insurance as Urdang - and declined Leeds and Conti. On that basis she's withdrawn from all other recalls as if she got an offer she wouldn't accept it - it seemed fair not to waste the schools' time and open up the slot for others for whom that may be their dream school. It also saved hotel and transport costs, a day off work for me and dd missing some key dates at school. We won't interfere with self tape submissions as it's easier to just wait and respond to any recall email. Up to the individual really- some like to "collect" offers! I was just relieved to have her sorted for Sept x

Congratulations to your DD on her GSA offer. Fantastic news! Did you post on here as I must have missed it, sorry.

It was a while ago as she did early Jan auditions - still on here rooting for everyone though!

Hi
I have been following all this - such a difficult process!

DS has a recall for GSA for Acting BA - but the audition date is not until May - we are surprised that it is so far away and surely places will all be offered by then?

Has anyone else had such a late date or is this a ploy of some kind. They get an audition fee out of us but he can never be anything more than waiting list. His UCAS application was in before the deadline, then he got his self tapes in on time.

I also wonder about GSA. They have have such few places yet audition in USA also. In addition, i think they like to have a balance of boys and girls ……..

a lot of other places also offer places on a rolling basis but their cohorts are bigger

Congratulations to your DS on his recall.

I really don't think it's a ploy. My DS is on the GSA Acting degree, and one of his friends got a place from the very last Saturday audition of the year. Yes, places are limited, and yes they do give out places as audition season goes on, but I am absolutely sure they keep a few back until the end. If they don't see what they want in those final auditions they can give a place to someone who was earlier put on the waiting list. I expect they have some kind of tracker so they don't give away too many too early.

Your son may well have applied before the deadline, but don't forget that some people will have applied back in October and been recalled very early in 2026. Of course it probably helps slightly to apply and audition early in the season, but nearly all of the schools continue auditioning through to May. I think it's highly unlikely they have all given away all their places and are just going through the motions. Also, some people with multiple offers may wait until May to decline, so there's always a chance they can make an additional offer or two then.

If you think it's a ploy, you can always decline the place, I suppose.

He didn't get given the date until after we had paid the fee.

But yes, you are right, probably not a ploy... just very surprised that it is such a long way off. Perhaps a relatively early easter break affects it.

I tried to get him to get his applications in early but ADHD brain makes him put things off until the very last minute!

Hi I’m not sure why you would think it’s a ploy but just for peace of mind I will tell you apparently there was roughly 2700 people that applied for acting this year. As a gsa foundie we were told that numbers this year for applying for drama school was much higher than years before. (Which explains why it took months from Lipa to get a video link)
to even get a recall is a huge privilege as there’s only 16 people they see each Saturday until they stop auditions which if you work out in 4months they see 256 people . Most people go on reserve list on the acting course and as the previous person mentioned people with offers don’t alway take them. 256 people out of 2700 is a huge break though. We were told that for foundation just under 400 people were auditioned so anything is possible.it’s usually about what makes the cohort and who they feel will fit in well. Best of luck for your son on he’s audition :)

The numbers are so high - well done all for getting auditions and offers

@warwickdramahave I understood correctly they only invite about 10% of applicants for an audition?

Did you decide what to do?
We tried to postpone a decision last year and successfully managed it, but only by a couple of weeks. I rang them (Arts1) and although they said no at first, I explained she probably would be accepting, but as it was her 1st audition, she needed to do a few more first. I also explained how we financially couldn't pay to then not take it up (truth). When she got her offer from TBA, she then emailed and declined (no top up fees versus top up fees was a no brainer)

I did then pay the huge holding deposit of £500 to TBA and ended up losing it after her July offer from Conti. There's only me working due to my husband's disability, so it was a lot of money to lose and then had to pay theirs of £250. But at least I got refunded my £250 at the same time - the deposit we had paid the previous year for her Cert HE there.
It's a tough one. And another way this industry is very much in favour of the wealthier families x