Megan Secrest, senior, is currently applying, sending in prescreens, and auditioning for 18 musical theatre college programs.

Since the age of 9, Secrest has known she was born for musical theatre. She said, “It’s the only thing in my life I feel complete when I do.”

A prescreen is a video consisting of two contrasting songs and two monologues, one from a play before 1910 and one after. Some colleges also have an optional dance section.

Secrest has to send prescreens into 10 of the colleges and each is different, with different requirements and cuts. For example, some colleges want one up-tempo song and one ballad, and a one-minute monologue.

The prescreen is sent to the college, then if the college likes what they see, the student is invited to a callback or in-person audition, either at Unifieds, a gathering of colleges to do mass auditions, or on-campus.

Out of all 18 schools, Secrest’s number one choice is Florida State or Elon because she likes the “campus feel and college experience, while still being one of the top programs.”

Secrest said, “The hardest part of the process is all of the applications” because all of the schools require an essay.

Secrest’s first audition is Nov. 3, and she will keep auditioning until mid to late February. She will be travelling almost 17 weekends, excluding Unifieds.

In order to prepare for college auditions, Secrest has participated in Broadway Artists Alliance since age 9 and this past summer did Florida State’s Summer Intensive. She has gone to multiple college program breakdowns at her workshops.

She started with 70-60 schools, then after research narrowed it down to 18 schools where she could actually see herself living in the environment, rather just liking the program.

So far, Secrest said, “The hardest part has been filling out the Common Application.”