<p>I would not be deterred by the GED request by Peabody. I’m sure as a conservatory they deal with many homeschoolers.</p>
<p>UMass Lowell? While you are in Massachusetts it might be worth looking at.</p>
<p>If your son is forced to wait another year, try looking into local community colleges. Some have strong music depts and agreements with 4 yr schools. He would be able to start in the Spring or Fall. SUNY Schenectady has a strong reputation and many of their graduates go on to 4 yr SUNY music programs as well as privates such as Berklee. Schenectady has brand new dorms, too. My son had several friends go there and they are now at their target schools. Several of these friends were Allstate participants in high school but didn’t have the finances for Berklee so they went the community college route first and transferred after 2 years. Another SUNY 2yr with a good music dept is SUNY Onondaga.</p>
<p>Peabody accepts students without high school transcripts or GED on a case by case basis. It would be helpful to have an SAT reading score above a 530, and a certification from a national homeschooling body. If your son took some community college courses this past year while he was out of school, those grades would be helpful. Peabody students take English courses taught by the faculty at Johns Hopkins University, and they want to make sure the students can write well.</p>
<p>You might want to look at U Mass Amherst while you are in Massachusetts. It has a very good jazz program. Also, what about looking at Hartt? You might just be able to squeeze into the last audition date for scholarship consideration. </p>
<p>One of the schools you might want to have a look at is the College of St. Rose in Albany, particularly if your son is interested in production. The music department is up and coming, and has gorgeous brand new facilities. They are very generous with merit money as well. They have rolling admissions and no pre-screen.</p>
<p>I’ll agree with electricbassmom. Hartt and St.Rose would be worth trying, too. St Rose usually has later audition dates but after a point they won’t include music scholarships.</p>
<p>Susquehanna, like Ithaca, has rolling admissions. The music program is well funded and well regarded in the region especially for music education. The school offers lots of merit aid and will probably be willing to work with homeschool credentials, as they offer several legitimate test-optional application options.</p>
<p>I’m pretty sure UArts holds auditions through March or so. I don’t know how you feel about their program but it might be worth a look. It’s also not too late to apply to Temple University, which has jazz studies.</p>
<p>My son mentioned Western Connecticut State University. He says that while it does not have the name recognition of Hartt, it has a decent jazz program. Most of the professors are professional musicians from NYC, due to its proximity. It also has an audio production program. They are still accepting application, and the last audition for scholarship consideration is Feb. 1.</p>
<p>Maybe at this late date, it might be a good idea to get your son in somewhere where he can work on his skills in a college setting, and think about transferring for his sophomore year.</p>
<p>Thanks for all the suggestions. We have been seriously looking at Southern Maine as one of their audition dates is two days before his Berklee audition and would work out great for us.
As far as our local community colleges, that would be great if we didn’t live in podunk Southwest Georgia! lol I don’t think they even read music at our local colleges. And we live about 30 miles from even those, much less any “real” schools. Wish we lived in New England or somewhere that was good for… well, anything other than studying gnats.
Looking at Amherst, but also have a question about Lowell… I couldn’t find anything on their site about jazz. Is it open to any music or is it primarily classical?
All of these are great ideas. We’re looking at all of them and even if he does have to wait another year, these will give us many more options.
As an update, we heard for UNT today and were told flat out that as a homeschooler they ranked him automatically in the 50-74 percentile and thus required an SAT that is above 1180… which is crazy, as their auto admits for public school with my son’s GPA is only 950. So, they require 230 more points for a homeschooler. We are appealing, but (no sour grapes) I really don’t know if I want S at a school that is that hung up on the SAT or that biased against homeschoolers.
Anyway, thank you to everyone. We are pursuing some of these suggestions and keeping ALL of them in case we have to use them next year. But hey, maybe we’ll get lucky and get some scholarship to Berklee. After all, he’s already accepted to there!
And he’s reinstating his Denver app and acceptance from last year. Hopefully he’ll get the same scholarship or better.
Either way, I need to get him OUT of southwest Georgia and especially out of the boondocks where we live.</p>
<p>Just one other thing-- since financial aid is a big factor, do look at schools with large endowments that meet full need. It’s so frustrating, as you know, to get an acceptance you can’t use. My niece was in a similar position last year and received the full aid possible from a number of schools where it ended up being impossible for her to attend because of the aid gap. If she’d applied to colleges with large endowments, the month of April would have been less hairy.</p>
<p>I didn’t realize you lived in Georga (sorry, haven’t followed all of the posts). Georgia has free tuition for undergrads with a 3.0 from high school. I would seriously consider sending your son to an in-state school.</p>
<p>glassharmonica, did she end up finding a good place? I’m never sure which schools are generous and meet need. I know some are supposed to but…
woodwinds, that is fine – you aren’t required to have a running knowledge of where I am! lol (that was supposed to be a joke — typing certainly isn’t nearly as straightforward as talking, is it!)
Anyway, I hate the schools here. I don’t know of one single good jazz or music school in Georgia. Yuck yuck yuck. They do have the Hope scholarship, you are right. But I just don’t have any respect for any schools here. Maybe I’m missing one, but… well, I’ve lived here since 76 and went out of state to school because I had no respect for the music departments or the academia or any of the schools here (I was a violinist). Does that sound mean? I hate it when I sound mean. Now, if he was still interested in aviation… <sigh> If you do know one for jazz, though, please let me know and we really will look into it.
Meanwhile, we looked seriously at Southern Maine and William Patterson last night. We loved the look of both of them and we aren’t too late for any deadlines. S did a little “worksheet” thing on Maine’s website and got a nice (very nice) estimate of academic scholarship from them. Not sure how reliable it is, but we’re going to find out!</sigh></p>
<p>Oh dear, I feel your frustration, Shellybean! My niece ended up at Bard, which she adores, even if it is a long way from home.</p>
<p>In reference to William Paterson, be aware that it’s not in a very pretty area of New Jersey. This turned out to be more important to my son that I thought it would be. He crossed it off the list after we visited it.</p>
<p>Thank you to everyone for all the encouragement and information and suggestions. We heard last night that after my son’s letters, they did another review and he has been admitted. Yay!!!
Of course, like most musicians, his, um, ego (for lack of a better word) has taken a beating! lol So he has somewhat mixed feelings on this. He’d just started to get really excited about Middle TN State after listening to some youtube videos of one of the guitar profs.
Sometimes I want to pull out my hair! lol Anyway, we are off to UNT for auditions in less than a month, and we’re still going to go ahead with William Patterson and Middle TN I think. Patterson we don’t have to travel for the audition, so it’s no stress for us. TN is only 6 hours away or so, so not a problem. Nothing ventured nothing gained!
So thank you to all of you!!!</p>
<p>Great news, Shellybean!</p>
<p>Good news, Shellybean. Maybe it will all work out for the best as it has expanded his horizons and possibilities.</p>
<p>Great news, Shellybean. Congrats to you and your son!</p>
<p>Shellybean,
I suspect the scholarship estimate from USM is accurate. They seem to be able to give promising students very generous scholarships. I am not sure why or how they manage this but it must be in their self interest to attract talented students to their university. I know the Bass teacher there is highly respected by other musicians in our area.</p>
<p>Congrats on the review and getting the acceptance. I am so happy for your son and for you. And so glad you pushed forward with it.</p>