Hi all, I’m grateful to Ann Thurlow for providing this blog with reviews of college visits since I have been much occupied with my fiction writing class. It appears that in a fiction writing class they expect you to write fiction. Who knew? Hope you enjoy this one.
I loved Manhattan in the summer when I lived there in my 20s, and I still do. I refused to consider commuting when circumstances (i.e. marriage) drew me to New Jersey and have never understood how so many people travel in and out of town daily for decades. Monkey Son and I were exhausted from making the trip three days in a single week. Fortunately, each day was rewarding and revealing.
Our first stop was Pace University, sandwiched between City Hall and the Brooklyn Bridge in lower Manhattan. Pace is not a college with a sparkling personality; it is an unapologetic diploma mill with a relentless focus on pre-professional training. Its very location, across from City Hall, within shouting distance of Wall Street, reinforces the university’s businesslike approach to higher education. The university has five undergraduate colleges, but its business, communications, and performing arts programs are its strongest undergraduate magnets. Pace’s Pforzheimer Honors College also offers attractive scholarship packages and preferential course placement for students who might otherwise attend more selective colleges but whose grades and test scores would not earn them admission to Manhattan’s premier universities. Pace’s overall undergraduate acceptance rate is about 80%.
To qualify for the Acting B.F.A. program, the student must first submit a general application to the Dyson College of Arts and Sciences at Pace’s New York City campus. If the student is accepted, he or she will be invited to audition for a place in the far more selective (25 to 30 students per year) conservatory training program. Pace students have access to the Actors Studio and many prominent theater professionals are adjunct faculty members. The College also has a strong track record for placing students in internships locally. Pace also has a strong Musical Theater B.F.A. program.
Housing, unsurprisingly, is cramped and expensive, in a high-rise setting (they refer to it as a “vertical campus.”) The immediate neighborhood is very lively during the day but less so at night. Students can travel easily to Tribeca, Little Italy, the East Village, and Chinatown, for culinary and recreational diversions. Several luxurious private residences stand near Pace’s tower, and our student guide pointed to a Google co-founder’s penthouse during our tour. Pace provides rigorous on-campus security, and One Police Plaza is nearby.
Monkey Mama and Monkey Son barely discussed the visit to Pace over their lunch in Chinatown, but immediately concurred that Pace held no attraction apart from its Acting program and Manhattan location. Monkey Son will probably apply, but has little interest in attending should he not be accepted into the Acting B.F.A. program. After lunch, we moved a little further uptown, to another “vertical campus” to visit one of the few colleges we are considering that does not offer an auditioned acting or performance major.
Bound 4 College 