

APPLICATION & SELECTION PROCESS
Eligibility Requirements
Applicants must be an Oklahoma resident. In general, applicants for OSAI 2021 must be at least 15 years old by September 1, 2021. (I.e., it is okay if you are 14 during OSAI, but you must turn 15 by September 1, 2021 to apply.)
- The vast majority of current 9th-12th graders can apply.
- The earliest most students are eligible to attend OSAI is the summer after their freshman year of high school.
- Graduating seniors up to age 19 are also eligible.
- Current freshman who will not be 15 by September 1, 2021 may still be eligible to audition. Please call our office at 405.605.7500 for more information.
How to Apply
Selection Process/Judging Procedures
All applicants, whether accepted, not accepted, or selected as an alternate, will be notified via email in mid-April.
Auditions are judged by professional artists, educators, and members of the Oklahoma Arts Institute Artistic Advisory Panel. At least three judges score each discipline/instrument, and students are selected solely based on those judges’ scores.
All auditions are judged on a statewide basis. Selection is made at the conclusion of statewide auditions based on audition scores, NOT on applicants’ hometowns, or other demographic information.
Auditions for all disciplines are as blind as possible, meaning that judges will not have applicants' names, ages, hometowns, etc. Judges for acting and dance must see the applicants in order to score them, but they will have no other identifying information about the applicants. Chorus and orchestra applicants will upload video auditions, but OAI will extract the audio from those files before sending them to judges, so they will not see applicants when scoring them. Film & video auditions are partially blind, in that the interviewer has information about the applicant, but the judges who score their work do not. Interviewers are not judges. Photography auditions are also partially blind, in that the interviewer will collect certain information about each applicant's photography background and will assign them each a technical knowledge score. The judges who score the photography portfolio submissions will not have access to applicant names, ages, hometowns, etc.
Please keep in mind that OSAI is extremely competitive. Each year, approximately 1,000 students audition for about 270 spots. If you are not accepted this year, please try again next year. Many of our alumni were not accepted the first time they auditioned. Thank you for auditioning and good luck!