Expert: Peter Messaline - 7/13/2006

Question
do you have to have to go to acting school to qualify for an audition?

Answer
In a word, no.
However, every audition has different rules, set by the company doing the audition. They aren't normally worried about where you trained, or if you trained, being more concerned about whether you can do the job!
That said, getting a drama school qualification is useful at the beginning of your career to encourage people to take a chance on you. An agent will be more interested in someone who has devoted years of study to being an actor, as opposed to an equally good-looking and pleasant person just in off the street. A casting director or theatre director will similarly assume that your training will have removed some of the worst problems with inexperienced actors.
Theatre school is the best place to start building the contacts that will help your career. It's also likely that you will do more acting in those years than any other time in your career.