My larger point is that actor training has change a lot. Rutgers and, I think, DePaul are the only two programs I can think of that cut actors. I also don’t think they “kick you out to show you how the business works.” They kick you out because they don’t want to teach you anymore. Now, a person can still get kicked out of any school, but by and large it should NOT be a recurring thing, in my opinion.

Also, Rutgers is not a top ten school. I think if I had to rank it it would be: Juilliard, NYU, UCSD, Yale, Old Globe/USD, Brown/Trinity Rep, ACT, Harvard/ART, UC-Irvine, and Delaware. Rutgers hasn’t had artistic influence in some time.

The top in the country (places like NYU, UCSD, and Yale) do not cut students from their MFA conservatories. I’d be wary of applying to any school if there was a cut system in place. Of course, you can be kicked out of any program if you’re not doing the work or if you’re not producing, but on the whole that should be few and far between. Even Juilliard, which was famous for the second year slaughter, has ceased cutting students and, instead, has limited their class sizes.

I am an actor currently applying to 15 different Graduate MFA Programs for Fall of 2012 and Rutgers is on my list. There are many schools who have this attrition stamped on their program – some programs which are no longer on my list because I agree with you Dennis, I don’t want my money to be wasted. But also, my first choice school (which I have fallen COMPLETELY in love with) makes it known that it has a right to dismiss any student after the first semster OR first year due to any concerns from the faculty, so I am indeed VERY torn.

What I am trying to get at, is that, well, it comes from a teacher who has a Studio in LA and who studied with Ron Van Lieu at Yale back in the late 80s. He told me and a small class of 6 other actors one fall day last year, to “KEEP GOING”. And ofcourse we were like: “ummm, yeah, obviously…” But he stopped whatever scene rehearsal he was working on in front of the class and turned to us and repeated those two words: “Keep Going.” This time he broke into tears. A young man, who just had a great rehearsal of his scene in front of my teacher, felt like it didn’t measure up. It’s different, yes, because no one told him it didn’t measure up, he did, but still. NO ONE CAN TAKE THAT AWAY, and CERTAINLY you as an actor cannot. AS ACTORS WE HAVE NO RIGHT TO JUDGE WHETHER OUR WORK IS “GOOD” OR NOT. This is a business where odds are literally stacked up against us.

An MFA Degree is not the only way to guarantee success in Show Business. I have very supportive parents who are insisting I get that credential, so I am going to get my MFA. But I have a couple friends on Broadway who dropped out of College. MFA Actors do have an easier job getting into the rooms of some of these big Casting Directors & Agents yes, but I believe from the depths of my gut, that if you LOVE what you do, and you put in the time, AND KEEP GOING you will succeed. Hands down. One friend of mine from LA, she is hitting it big in the commercial scene right now, but it took her three years of booking NOTHING, and now she is all of a suddent starting to get work. And praisingly, her agent stuck with her for those three years.

My teacher said, if there is one thing that he wanted to read on his grave stone was his name, then a comma, and then “who kept going”. I don’t know if I am ready for a graduate program training. I studied with The Moscow Art Theater School in Russia for a year, and I still don’t know if I am ready. But I know I want to keep going regardless if these administrations don’t think I am ready, or make a decision one day, and then a year later change their mind.

Sorry if this rambles. I wanted to share my thoughts with this forum, but also you Dennis. No one can take that hunger away (unless you let them), and that willingness to keep going. I think God rewards these types of people.

And, yes, everybody in the industry has an opinion. In this case, I trust the opinion of the people I talked to as agents who are mostly unbiased (they just want good actors who will work, and if a school is producing good actors, they’re producing good actors … they also mentioned Brown, UT Austin and U of Delaware as schools other than Yale, Juilliard, and NYU that are producing good actors right now, incidentally). Of course, everybody has their own opinions about what a “good actor” is, but these guys have a great track record of signing clients who are talented, win awards, and get a lot of high-quality work. I wish I could say their names so people could verify this information, but I think it would be inappropriate to name names.

Also, for anybody reading this who is considering applying to Rutgers, they have only dismissed one person in the last three years (I’m not sure about before that). Maybe this is a change from past years, but that is the state of things right now. I know one person who left of their own volition, but it had less to do with the program and more to do with the realization that he/she didn’t really want to be an actor (this person was extremely talented, and the program head was very sad to see him/her go).

Dennis, I am sorry that your experience was what it was, and I will give you the benefit of the doubt since I was not here at that time and I don’t know anybody in your class. But I can say that this is not the atmosphere at the school now. (“You won’t find joy, play or love,” said an earlier poster. That couldn’t be farther from the truth, in my experience.) It MIGHT be correct to say that Rutgers dismisses more people than the average drama school, but I’m not even sure if that’s true. Make no mistake: Rutgers is an intense program, it’s not for the faint of heart. But the students here are top notch, the faculty here is top notch, and the people who graduate are serious contenders in the industry and serious artists.

I can understand why tenure is necessary after seeing the other side of the coin with some absolutely vicious students at my university.