BA or BFA: Which is Best for You?

You have a passion for musical theater. Or, perhaps you love to paint, dance, or perform with your musical instrument. You can’t imagine not pursuing a major in your chosen creative area in college. But as you explore colleges, you notice that some offer BA degrees and others BFA (or BM) degrees in your intended major. What’s the difference, and how do you decide between the two?

Generally speaking, all students will complete between 30 and 40 classes during college, regardless of their major or degree. The main difference between a BA and a BFA program is how those classes will be divided between courses in the arts/performing arts and courses in other areas of study.

Students working towards a Bachelor of Art (BA) will usually complete 10 to 12 courses in their major (i.e., studio art, music, dance, theater, etc.). They’ll take the remaining courses towards their degree in a broad range of other subjects. For students studying for a Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA) degree, that schedule will be reversed. Depending on the school, BFA students may take 18 to 20 courses in their creative area, filling out the rest of their schedule with courses in other subjects. (Some music conservatories offer a Bachelor of Music (BM) degree, which is similar to a BFA in terms of the number of courses required for the major.)

Which degree path is right for you? That depends on your interests and goals.

Students studying in a BA program have more flexibility to study other subjects that interest them. A BA degree also makes it possible to double major in a second subject area and still graduate in four years. For example, a student may decide to study both studio art and business, or music and neuroscience. This flexibility keeps the doors open in terms of after-college career options as well. Therefore, the BA degree is often the most comfortable fit for students who have a wide range of academic interests who aren’t sure they want to focus most of their attention on their creative interest during college.

On the flip side, students who are positive that they want to devote most of their time during college to developing their creative talents – perhaps with the goal of a career in the field – may find a BFA degree program the best fit. The greater number of courses in the student’s area of study often means deeper and more intensive training. For this reason, many consider a BFA to be a preprofessional degree, preparing students for a specific career.

One other difference between BA and BFA programs is that BFA programs often have more stringent admissions requirements and some programs are quite competitive. Students applying to BFA programs should expect to prepare and submit portfolios or attend auditions as part of the admissions process. Although there are some exceptions, most BA programs do not require auditions or portfolios at the time of admission.

Rigor of Curriculum

Looking to attend a highly selective university? You’ll need to make good choices when selecting your classes, beginning as early as eighth grade. Middle school students may have the option of taking their first year of a foreign language and/or a more advanced Math class such as Algebra 1. When a student submits a college application, the admission reader also receives detailed information about academic options available at that student’s high school. The reader will expect to see that the applicant has taken the most challenging classes available, and has done well in those tough classes.

Further proficiency may be demonstrated with a strong performance on the SAT Subject Tests, AP Tests or the IB tests. Colleges will carefully examine overall academic rigor and performance, as well as grade trends over the course of high school – they don’t like to see downtrends, ever, so if you struggle in a tough class, always seek help.

In order to be competitive and well balanced, students should take 4 years of English, 4 years of one foreign language, 2-3 years of History/Social Sciences, 4 years of Mathematics and 4 years of laboratory sciences to an advanced level. Note that the majority of successful applicants to an Ivy League college will present with 4 classes in each core subject. Elective classes can also reveal the range of an applicants’ interests. Taking advanced classes in your areas of academic interest also reveals more about you, but you may want to be cautious about taking on more advanced coursework in weaker subjects that are not an imperative for your likely area of college studies. Selective colleges highly value students with special talents, strong personal qualities, long-term involvement in some important extracurricular activities and evidence of resourcefulness and resilience. Colleges want students who will take advantage of the many opportunities they’ll find on campus, come prepared to develop new knowledge, and show academic curiosity both in and out of the classroom.

It is a given that students should take advantage of AP courses, Honors classes and the most advanced options offered at their school, but there are other ways of completing more advanced coursework that will be interesting to an admissions review committee. Taking college classes, perhaps through dual enrollment, demonstrates the applicant’s ability to manage college-level coursework and shows careful time management. Other students may choose to take summer classes on a college campus. MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses) are other ways of taking on additional coursework in areas of interest.

You can’t design your school’s curriculum but you can control how you complete your four years of high school, so plan well for the most rigorous program you can comfortably handle while still having a balanced life.

Necessary Legal and Financial Documents

There are a few legal and financial issues that should be addressed before your son or daughter goes off to college. If your child has turned or will turn 18 during the next year, s/he is legally an adult, and you, the parent, lose the legal authority to make decisions on their behalf. That means that you have no legal right to see college grades, to manage their finances (although you remain responsible for tuition costs), or to make medical decisions or speak with their doctors. So, before s/he goes off to college, consider having your child sign some documents that will keep them safer and you informed.

• FERPA release: with your child’s permission, you can speak with the college about his/her performance. Colleges often have their own FERPA release forms, which may be available online.

• HIPAA Authorization: allows you to access your child’s health records and speak to his/her doctors about medical issues and care.

• Advance Care Directive for Health Care: allows you to act on your adult child’s behalf in the event that s/he is incapacitated and unable to make decisions.

• Durable Power of Attorney: allows you to act on your adult child’s behalf regarding legal or financial matters. This is especially helpful if your student is studying abroad as you will be able to sign their tax returns and residential leases.

The last three forms are available online and can be downloaded for free. If your student will be attending school out of state, make sure to use the appropriate HIPPA Authorization as requirements can vary from state to state. All three of these documents need to be notarized. Each of these forms can be revoked at any time, but having them in place while your child is away at college may provide the whole family with extra peace of mind.

This is also a good time to address money management issues.

• Set up a bank account that will allow you to easily transfer money to your child’s account. An online bank account may be the most useful, especially if the bank has special student accounts available that will give parents access to bank information. Find out which banks have ATMs close to campus—college kids usually don’t write many checks. Be sure to check on fees for using an ATM that’s not part of your bank’s network.

• Make plans to protect student property. College kids tend to have a lot of valuable electronics and computer equipment. Renter’s insurance can protect your investment if these items were to disappear. Your homeowner’s policy might also cover dorm room possessions—check with your agent.

• Health insurance: check out options provided by the college and compare these policies with your existing family medical coverage.

• Car insurance: check with your agent. If your child will not have a car at college, you may be eligible for a discount on your auto rate.

Waitlist Purgatory

The dreaded waitlist. You weren’t rejected, but you weren’t accepted either. The waitlist means the college likes you well enough, they just don’t love you enough to accept you at this time. They want to keep you hanging on until they find out if they’re loved back by the students they did choose to accept. Now the ball is in your court—let’s consider your options:

1. Hopefully you received an acceptance from another college that you like even better. Easy decision – inform the college that waitlisted you that you’re no longer interested and have made other plans.

2. You were waitlisted by your first choice school, and you’d sell your youngest sibling to go there. Easy decision – you make a deposit at one of the colleges where you were accepted and let your dream school know that you’d very much love to remain on their waitlist. Follow this up in any way they will allow—some colleges permit you to submit updates, others don’t. Check the rules and follow them.

3. You can’t decide. Tough decision – you want to be done with this “college stuff” and know where you’re going next fall. But you’d really love to go to one or more of the colleges where you were waitlisted. You still need to make a deposit at one college where you were already accepted before May 1. You can choose to remain on one or more colleges’ waitlists.

Choosing to remove yourself or stay on a waitlist seems to be more of a psychological decision than a statistical decision. The waitlist conversion to acceptance numbers, particularly at the most selective colleges and universities, aren’t very encouraging. Last year Northwestern University only accepted 2.2% of students from the waitlist, while Boston University enrolled only 7 students of over 4,000 on their waitlist. Conversely, UC Berkeley accepted 27%. Unfortunately, the past year’s statistics do not predict those of the current year.

Being accepted from a waitlist is tied entirely to the yield – the number of students who choose to attend. As an example, if a college had a yield rate of 50 percent last year and it increased to 65 percent this year, they won’t be taking anyone off the waitlist; instead, they’ll be hunting for beds for freshmen. On the other hand, when the yield shrinks, the waitlist opens up; it’s just too variable to be predictable. Waitlists are not generally ranked. Colleges use them to fill needed spots in their class— to make sure they have enough classics majors or journalists or oboe players, as well as full-pay students.

Students and families need to evaluate the impact of waitlist stress on the student at this point in the process. Some carefree students just want to find out and approach the decision in a matter-of-fact easy-going manner: “If I get in, great, if I don’t, that’s fine, too.”

But too many other students have already had their hearts broken once, or even twice, if they were first deferred and then waitlisted. Unfortunately, many students take college rejections and waitlists too personally and beat themselves up over it, sadly thinking they have disappointed their parents, or that this rejection defines who they are. It doesn’t. For many of these students, closure is a good thing. Decide between the colleges that offered you a place and get excited about the new adventures that lie ahead.

Dare to be Different

If I could give every family only one piece of advice about college admission and the college application process it would be this: Dare to be different.

Be different from the beginning – don’t wait like so many other people until the summer after junior year or, even worse, the fall of senior year to begin this process. Starting early will alleviate much of the stress that you might be witnessing in senior friends who are crunching to create lists, visit schools, write essays and complete applications.

Be different in how you prepare your college list – don’t assume a college is a great fit until you’ve done your due diligence. Stretch yourself to consider colleges beyond the “usual suspects.” Colleges read all the applications from each high school together. That means they are comparing students from the same high school with the same measuring stick. The understanding is that you’ve all had the same opportunity to take the same classes over your high school career. If hundreds of students are applying to a college from your high school and the rigor of your coursework and your test scores don’t measure up to the competition, it’s obviously going to be more challenging to be accepted. However, if you are one of a handful of students applying to a certain college, your credentials will still be compared, but your leadership or special talents may carry more weight.

Be different in the activities you choose – don’t join the Spanish Club if the only reason you want to be there is to celebrate Cinco de Mayo. Follow your interests, not your friends. Find something, almost anything, that matters to you - something you care about. It could be tutoring, the environment, Boy Scouts, dance, writing a blog, starting your own business, etc., but participate for the right reasons. Your activities should tell a story about who you are and what you care about. Make them meaningful.

Be different in what you choose to write about – your essay is your best opportunity to set yourself apart in the application. It is the one area where you maintain total control. It can be a powerful tool, so use it wisely. Don’t write what you think college admission officers want to read; write what you want them to know about you. Brainstorming your essay topic is a soul-searching process. Stay away from cliché topics that anyone could write and identify something that is uniquely you