In general, what has been the acceptance rate after being invited to audition in vocal performance (after making it through the prescreen)? Sharing something like “My S auditioned at 6 and was accepted to 4” would be helpful. Thank you in advance!
This is not a criticism but a piece of advice. There are so so many variables here that this might be an experiment in frustration for you. The variables include the school, the instrument, the audition, the teacher, the competitive level for that actual year, the mood of the panel, the phase of the moon, signs of the zodiac, what you had for lunch, the weather, apples, oranges, the name of your pet, the interview — in short EVERYTHING. Rather than comparing an ever changing set of variables that may or may not have any bearing on your student you are much much better off just breathing deeply and hoping for the best. I know that as the date comes closer we all want to think that we can play the odds but it’s an exercise in futility. Besides on CC you are going to get a skewed sampling. Most responses are going to be from the folks who had “good” results and not responses from folks who had “bad” results. Good luck!!
@musicamusica We did not expect to have so many schools to visit and I was trying to gauge whether it would be prudent for her to decline a few auditions, or if acceptance rates are so low that she would need to audition at 8+ schools to get into one. I suppose it is the economist in me considering the additive cost of travel and lodging, since few are within driving distance. But if you can suggest the right thing to have for lunch that would guarantee admission to the school of her dreams, I’m listening. 
For my D it’s always been red meat. Get’s you in the mood for the kill. :)>- And you almost always have time to cancel a few auditions once you get your financial offers are in! I remember that for both grad and undergrad she took a few off the plate by the time February rolled around.
As said above, acceptance rates are dangerous…mainly because they will probably be wrong. But here area a few strategies we used:
My D had to cull in undergrad and grad. It seems like you may be bring bad luck onto yourself by not auditioning everywhere. But there can also be bad luck in going to too many places and getting worn out.
So you could check each school and your travel schedule to be sure you have some rest prior to the important schools.
Then for the lower interest schools see if any of them would accept an electronic audition. My D contacted one school to say she could not audition due to the travel costs. The school did offer an electronic audition and she did get accepted.
You could also leave lower interest schools until later in the process. Some schools do rolling admissions. Check and see. If a higher interest school does rolling admission, you can try to audition there earlier and see if you get an acceptance. Then you could cancel the lower interest school.
Of course you may not know the financial information until later…so that could be an issue in dropping the final auditions but…maybe not.
I hope this helps.
I wonder if you can ask each school how many they are auditioning and how many spots they are looking to fill. Then build your list from there…? Has anyone ever tried asking that? I think knowing you have an 80 percent chance at one school -vs- a 20 percent chance at another may be enough to help you decide whether or not to make any cuts.
My D only had one prescreen - Miami / Frost - and she just got her invite to audition. That was the first question that popped into my head…how many are auditioning for how many spots? I also wonder how many applicants were accepted / declined by prescreen. How far are they narrowing down their choices based on those videos? I remember reading an old thread where a parent said their son didn’t even perform any prepared pieces at the live audition! Obviously, they had already made their decision! But I don’t know if that’s at all “normal”.
As far as chances in terms of how many auditions net how many acceptances…I’d think that would be really hard to predict.
I do kind of like the idea of prescreens. D is going in blind to all these auditions without knowing if she has any chance at all at these other schools. However, I am saying that now…in hindsight. I admit I was frustrated by the process while she was preparing for it / doing it and wasn’t very satisfied with the recordings.
And “Oh no!” My D doesn’t eat much meat these days. We will blame any rejections on that! lol
I do wish the admission statistics were more readily available. I tried asking about admission rates at one school this summer and it seemed like a lot of smoke and hand waving around a very wishy washy answer. Which may be how it goes, but that makes it hard to plan days off from work/school and $ for auditions!
The basic answer is you really won’t know, even historical data doesn’t tell you much because so much of auditions are situational, each year is different, and things like how many openings there are, the kind of instrumentalist/singer you are, it all weighs in. I agree with what someone else wrote, if there are programs that are the bottom of the heap, even assuming they have a higher chance of admission there, if a student otherwise thinks of it as a ‘safety’ or whatnot, maybe it would be better focusing on a lesser number of auditions that the student would rather go for, teachers and programs that attract her. That may be easier to do, then trying to figure out yields and such.
Your D is going into vocal performance. .Do you have any idea what the annual audition season in the US looks like? It’s very expensive and pretty difficult to schedule around a day job. Since Opera houses no longer hire full time performers audition travel is a yearly thing. So she had better get used to trying to narrow options down from the start and stats from previous years are no help whatsoever.
That’s great she passed the Frost prescreen - it’s a very competitive program and an excellent sign! In retrospect, my S might have eliminated one or two auditions, but that’s hindsight and they were still good experiences (and within driving distance). Also, my S did not have a single audition where he was not asked to play at least part of a prepared piece.
;( I asked a similar question a couple of years back and was shot down with how irrelevant/pointless the question was. But a kind person pointed out just what you are concerned about-- knowing more about the rough chances could help many decide how to navigate and where to cut the $$ corners.
Of course the real answer is IT DEPENDS. It changes every year, and conservatories loath to give these numbers.
The best is to decide which are dream schools, as in “I really want to go there” and audition there regardless of the stats, and then choose a couple of safeties and a couple of “would be ok even if I don’t know the odds.” That’s what we did. Similar (surprisingly) to the process all other college applicants go through, but a shorter list because of the travel expenses of auditioning in person.
@musicamusica We are aware of the costs down the road, and that is one of the reasons we are trying to be fiscally conscious at this point. I will not expect to have to travel with her when she is participating in auditions once she is over 18, so the day job comment is not relevant. For now, we multiply airfares by two. I appreciate the suggestions to try to do a video audition at schools of lesser interest. She had not considered that and those who have raised our awareness to that option at some places have been very helpful!
@songbirdmama I am sorry you misunderstood my comment. I was speaking to a skill set that needs to be learned. This audition season will help her learn to make choices and be discretionary in the future when she is organizing her own audition schedules. That just as you are being frugal now and trying to accomodate your schedule (in future your D’s schedule that may or may not include a day job) she is learns that choices need to be made and financial limitations will affect those choices.
The audition numbers are available sometimes. Here it is for IU from their website under FAQs:
How many applications do you receive a year? What is the acceptance rate?
On average, we receive 1,600 undergraduate applications of which approximately a quarter are admitted and 1,200 graduate applications of which approximately one third are admitted.
For undergrad VP, during a welcome session a prof gave these statistics: 250+ apps/120 pre-screens/30 spots offered/for a class of 20.
Of course there are schools like Curtis that are “known/rumored” to audition more and accept less. Knowing a school offers 10 spots over 30 spots maybe tells you something…or not.
I think the best thing you can do is have a variety of schools that you are truly interested in. If you have 8 schools on your list, your child probably has 1 or 2 that they feel lukewarm about (and unfortunately 1 that my be just expensive to get to - happened to my D last year). This is where having a budget isn’t a bad thing…it makes you focus and use those “critical thinking skills” to make decisions about the best places to audition. And maybe reach out and talk to some schools. I would have very open discussions with you D about this and work it out together the first time. She will continue to have to make these decisions going forward.
And, remember you can get an acceptance at a more highly ranked school (with a rumored low acceptance rate) and turned down at a " regional gem" without the name recognition (with a known higher acceptance rate - just bc they have too many sopranos) that you thought would be easy…I’ve seen it before…so this is why parents that have been through this are apt to say don’t pay too much attn. to the stats.
Our experience has been that professors seem very uncomfortable with the “how many spots will you have?” question. When talking with administrators and admissions, they either refused or danced around the same type of questions. So, we just stopped asking. We do ask how many students a professor can have in his/her studio and most have answered in the 15-16 range. I’m an engineer, so my natural inclination is to do the math… which works out to 3-4 students per year. My son plays jazz saxophone and most schools only have one professor (or there may only be one professor he wants to study with) which calculates to 1-2 altos and 1-2 tenors per year.
The numbers seemed daunting and they may be the worst-case scenario but if you’re trying to get into a specific professor’s studio, that may be the reality. In choosing schools to apply to, my son chose them based on specific faculty that he wanted to study with. The one exception was his safety, which he felt relatively confident about getting into and had enough studio space so that wasn’t a limiting factor.
Haha ScreenName48105 your comment shows EXACTLY why you shouldn’t look at the numbers!!
If you are this far into the process, you really need to work on blind faith and just go for it. It WILL work out.
LOL… no kidding!
Yep! As the parent of a junior saxophonist, I am already freaking out about those numbers as we begin to winnow down the list of schools to apply to. I hope it all works out for your son and the other seniors here.
If in the example above Indiana is on the radar. And by some chance the applicant was one of the last picks accepted into a studio, Indiana becomes in play. If Indiana is the “top” school the applicant gets into is it the best choice? Consider the size of the program and the possibility of consistently getting beaten out for parts by highly talented graduate students and upperclassman. Will the last player on the bench at Indiana have the same experience as the first draft pick?
If all things stayed “constant” (including the talent level of all players and the point of view of the committee - and the assumption that that point of view would be held by the casting committees for 4 years) then the answer to your question is simple. The last player picked will fair the worst.
Nothing remains constant however. So it goes back to teacher, teacher, teacher. And a program and environment were your kid feels they can grow. At IU (and other schools) opportunities to grow in music will be plentiful to all students. And students can grow significantly in the 4 years. But frustration and competition will also be present at all schools - some due to grad students at some programs. So something to consider in picking schools.
And finally the difference in talent levels is in most cases minimal. It’s not high school any more. If you get in a program you are talented. So again the assumption that there is a clear, constant ranking from top to bottom is not true in my experience.