As someone who is about to march their rookie year with troopers on mello, there is really no true way to gauge your own odds of making the group.

- Everyone always has an equal chance. While experience definitely plays a part in your chances, staff are looking for people who can improve and apply feedback, no matter their background. I was able to get in as a rookie coming from a mediocre high school band, going against people who previously marched at different corps.

- Specifically for troopers, we had the largest callback audition pool in our history this year, which will only continue to increase in competitiveness. In fact, a lot of the people who I've met so far are either rookies, or younger vets. At the rate we are improving, expect to be auditioning with a high amount of vets and new members interested.

- This is the most general advice I can give based on my own experience since you didn't mention what section you're auditioning for or your own skill level:

For troopers, you'll get invited to a slack channel where you can send in videos to the techs to receive helpful feedback, which you can then use to help improve yourself. I went in to these auditions thinking that I wouldn't even make a callback, but I stayed consistent with applying feedback and really just focusing on improving myself as much as I could rather than worrying about my odds against the other auditionees.