In the hectic time during the last year of high school, seniors spend a lot of time finalizing their plans after highschool. The post-secondary application process, in particular, is a difficult undertaking. With a multitude of unique essays, activity lists, resumes, financial aid forms, and scholarships, it can be a very stressful time in the lives of senior high school students. Luckily, high school counselors have developed an abundance of post-secondary resources to make this grueling process a bit simpler. 

While these resources are helpful when applying to standard majors such as business or communications, they provide little value to those going through the performing arts process. As a current senior applying as a musical theater major, I know first hand how tedious and time-consuming the performing arts application process is. On top of all of the standard college application tasks, I spent months choosing songs and monologues, working with an audition coach, sending in prescreens, getting headshots, writing creative essays, and taking dance classes just to have a chance at these top programs.

“For musical theater, I had to film two songs and some programs wanted one monologue while others wanted two,” senior Besher Garcia said.

On top of the many differing requirements, filming these self-tapes can take future performing arts majors a very long time.

“I work with my school dance teacher. We probably spent 10 or 15 hours putting [the videos] all together,” Menlo School senior Emmy Ford said.

I spent upwards of 30 hours on my dance, singing, and acting self-tapes so I could send in my best possible work. This process can be mentally draining and technically challenging without professional help to guide you through the process. I was fortunate enough to hire an audition coach to help me through these tasks. However, many that want to pursue performing arts may not have the means to hire professional help. 

“The counselors here know nothing about performing arts applications. Especially because it’s such a [long and] tedious process… there’s not a lot of school resources,” Garcia said. 

When counselors can’t offer much help to students, some look to their teachers for support. 

“If there were students who needed extra support or wanted to sit with me and look at the requirements and kind of talk through the steps needed to submit a video audition, I was able to sit with them. But I didn’t go as far as to pick audition material with students. And I didn’t give any feedback on the actual audition tapes,” drama teacher Talia Cain said.

This lack of resources in high school for those looking to pursue performing arts can seriously impact whether or not students are able to get into top programs. If I didn’t have access to all of my personal resources, I don’t know if I would have followed through with what I truly want to do: musical theater. Having inaccessible resources in high school can greatly hinder the future of performing arts. Education for performance art is really important to foster the next generation of storytellers and change makers.

“I think [performing arts] are a great option for students who want to continue to develop as an artist but also still explore other things. I think there’s not just a one size fits all option for theater education, post high school. I think it is certainly a great option if students are passionate about it,” Cain said.

While these resources may be currently inaccessible, there are many ways to make them more readily available.

“Given that I’m still new to the role, I’d love to find a conference or something for experienced educators to help inform newer educators on how they can support students with this process, ” Cain said.

For now, however, students may have to rely on their friends for mental support throughout the audition journey.

“I’m lucky to have friends who are also going through [college auditions], so that was helpful,” Garcia said.

All in all, Sequoia needs to start taking new approaches when it comes to preparing students for all types of college applications, especially those which include more than your standard essays and activity lists. Hopefully, the school can take many steps to normalize applications which aren’t currently considered “standard”.