Any Advice Appreciated

<p>Hi all,</p>

<p>I haven't posted here consistently in a while so I'm going to reintroduce myself. I'm a rising sophomore piano performance major at Lawrence, hopefully with a pedagogy emphasis and a BA in Spanish as well. I know it's really early, but my dad has already started asking me about what I want to do for grad school and I don't disagree with him that thinking about it ahead of time is a good idea. Obviously, Juilliard, Eastman, and all the other big name schools pop up immediately as grad school ideas but not that many Lawrence piano majors seem to go on to those schools. I'm open to any ideas that could help me improve myself enough to get into the best school I can four years from now (the double degree program takes 5 years to complete).</p>

<p>Here's what you should know about me in order to best answer the question: I managed a 2.9 GPA for my first year (not great but let's just say that third trimester was when I figured out time management and I'd be far worse off without the improvement I saw then). My strength is by far my solo performing; I've improved drastically in that sense over the past year and a half (I've stayed on campus over the summer to continue lessons with my professor). I'm not so good at accompanying, which I guess probably doesn't come into play for college admissions, with the exception of the 1 unit grades I'll get for it over the next two years. I'm an alright theory student and quite frankly I think I usually understand it better than my grades would reflect. It took me a while to figure out part writing but now I definitely understand it. I'm just fine when it comes to sight singing but I really, really struggle with aural skills. I'm also not all that great at keyboard skills class, but I passed the entire sequence already and I understand how to improve myself in that regard so I'm not as worried about it. I'm taking the piano pedagogy sequence next year in order to determine if I want to go through with the pedagogy emphasis and I'll take the music history sequence my junior, senior and fifth years. Since I haven't studied either of those topics at all yet, if anyone could give me an idea of what I'm in for that would be very helpful.</p>

<p>All in all, I think what I'm asking is for any guidance I can get as a rising sophomore double degree student who definitely wants to go to grad school for music in terms of how to improve myself in aural skills and what exactly is needed academically in order to get into the top grad schools.</p>