This is the million-dollar question for those who want to pursue acting in college, is it better to go to a program for Acting or a program for Musical Theatre (MT)? 

Well, once again, it’s all really subjective. It takes a lot of analyzing yourself and where you envision your career going before you make that decision. For example: 

If your main focus is improving your acting skills and you can see yourself working in screen acting after college, you should definitely check out Acting programs. Most of what they focus on is different acting techniques (like Meisner and Stanislavski), movement and mask work (like dance but not), and voice training (different than singing, uses the Alexander technique often). These programs mainly focus on developing your style, and they take space that would have been used for MT classes like singing and do a lot of scenic/play study instead. I went down the acting route for most of my schools because, in MT, a lot of the focus is pushed from acting to dance and singing, which I felt were things that came second to me compared to improving my acting skills. Also, in my opinion, these programs are significantly easier to get into because everyone and their mother wants to do MT. As well as all that, acting programs tend to offer more courses in screen acting, most MT schools don’t, so that’s absolutely an asset if you want to do TV and films.  

If you would consider yourself a triple threat and see yourself moving to New York after graduating to star in a Broadway show, you should most likely check out Musical Theatre programs. MTs main goals are to showcase all that you can do, and they’re great for cramming a lot of training in three different areas into 4 years. They cover things like vocal training (through both class and often outside vocal instruction that they pay for), different styles of dance (which include jazz, tap, and ballet, among others depending on what the school focuses on), and acting work as well. MT schools do tend to be harder to get into and require much more for prescreens and in-person auditions, but in my opinion, they’re worth every hour you put into the audition. There are also a lot of MT schools that offer priceless rarities: equity hours. When you graduate from some of these MT programs, it’s almost certain that you’ll get your equity card within your first few years of being out in the workforce, which gives you a significant leg up in the working world. Some acting schools do this, but it’s much more rare. 

There are also some schools, like the one I committed to and several that I applied to, that do both. For example, Syracuse University has what they call the “actor-singer track,” which is what they describe as a musical theatre concentration from within the Acting BFA. There are also schools like Otterbein and UNCSA (go pickles!!) that’s an acting-based Acting BFA, but they also require singing classes, dance, and composition for non-MT students, which helps create a well-rounded actor who can still sing or dance in a future audition, if ever asked by any casting agents. These programs are also really good for people, like me, who grew up in musical theatre and still want it in their life, but not all day every day.

Hopefully this is a good starting point for you to help figure out what you value, and remember, you don't have to apply to all one or all the other. See what different programs have to offer, and don't solely commit yourself to MT or Acting, look at the program objectively and see how their classes will benefit you!