Student Blog: Too Risky? Do it Anyway.

I powered through the entire college audition process at 16 years old. Risky, I know. Who told me this was a bad idea? Almost everyone I talked to, and people of all ages. Everywhere I turned, I heard, “You’re too young!” “Good luck trying to get in anywhere,” or, my personal favorite, “Tryhard.” If you are going to try to achieve something in this world, you might as well put your whole self into it, work hard, and do the best you can. Looking back now, I realize how miniscule those comments might seem, but at the time, I often let the negativity from others bring me down. I lacked confidence. I was insecure. As a high-school junior who was dying to get out of North Carolina, taking this risk of graduating and applying for college early was one of the scariest yet most rewarding decisions I have ever made.

Auditioning for BFA programs is a challenging process. Parents, students, teachers, and anyone who has experienced it will agree. First, you have to apply to the school academically, losing sleep over personal and supplemental essays and answering the question, “Why should we choose you?” Then, you have to film multiple pre-screens of contrasting monologues and songs because every school has different, specific requirements. You might even have to film an extra “wild card” video to show your personality as if the five other videos you sent in weren’t enough. After waiting a month or so to hear back if you passed the pre-screen, you have to then schedule in-person auditions with each individual school. After that, is the waiting game of rejection, acceptance, and decision-making. I applaud anyone who has gone through this time-consuming process.

Was I totally crazy to go through this at 16? Maybe a little. For as long as I can remember, I have always been the kind of person who loved to learn. I took senior classes as a freshman and somehow survived it, stayed a few years ahead in math because it was the one thing that kept me grounded during the pandemic, and poured myself into leading a Model UN club. I even took classes at UNC-Chapel Hill during junior year, not because I was trying to prove myself to anyone, but because I just felt stuck and restless in my hometown. Staying busy was simply how I stayed motivated and moving forward, which is why I wanted so badly to be fully immersed in learning at a collegiate level.

I could not have gone through the year of applying and auditioning without my strong support system. I had teachers who guided me and parents who encouraged me. These people were there with me through every rejection and every acceptance. They reminded me to give it my all while applying, alongside staying present and enjoying my last year of high school as much as I could. I performed my final Nutcracker, I poured my heart into playing Elle Woods with a fierce blonde wig, and I taught dance to young children, creating fun choreography and skits to take my mind off of how crushed I was from schools that rejected me. You hear a no, and you just have to accept it and keep going. Continuing to practice my craft and work on myself helped me stay inspired and smiling through this difficult year.

That makes the year sound easy though, when it absolutely was not. Like all seniors, I was anxious, and this anxiety bled into other areas of my life. During the peak of audition season, I developed a constant back pain. I took trips to Physical Therapy right before performances and auditions. I had to sit out of my ballet and jazz classes, wishfully watching my peers do the only thing I wanted to do when I felt stressed: dance it out. After I recovered from this time off, my back became a mental block for me. It took me a while to dance as fearlessly as I used to, and I had to rebuild my confidence. Likewise, I had some horrid audition experiences. In one audition that I still can't seem to block out of my mind, I ended up standing outside on the chilly streets of New York City with a coconut water and no coat just to cool down from a heat exhaustion I was experiencing. Musical theater performers go through injuries and audition nightmares all the time, so you could say this was a right of passage for me. Without this tough year, I would not have learned how to properly take care of and fuel my body.

I would not be the person I am today if I had not taken the risk to graduate early. I learned to trust my gut and commit to what I wanted even when it was uncomfortable. When you are passionate about something, you do everything in your willpower to make it happen. I proved to myself that I can handle the unknown and keep moving forward even through life’s uncertainties. For me, the largest growth came from taking a risk.