<p>Can @Faline2 or anyone else comment on how hard it is to get a Blair School professor to be your private teacher ( violin). i know at Rice, it is hard to get Shepherd School professors to teach non-music majors. In some threads I heard about a Vandy Van. When I visited Vandy last summer I didn't see any and I am concerned about the distance between Neuroscience buildings and Blair School. I am hoping/praying someone who is doing a pre-med track and music minor in performance responds too. </p>
<p>yetanotherid, as you weigh your final offers in April, understanding the permutations you have at Vandy to pursue your instrument is of course something you want to comprehend. Our Vandy son was admitted to Rice but without a merit offer, and their merit offers are not as generous as the Chancellor’s Scholar offer. (Rice is a great university…love their residential colleges) Vandy son could have held a seat in the symphony that music conducting majors at Rice Conservatory use for a teaching tool for themselves, but could not have earned a chair in the best symphony.<br>
Our Duke son came to Vandy after his admittance (no merit) and emailed ahead to get an appointment with the academic dean at Blair. He learned in a ten minute face-to-face that he would have to move into the dorms at Vandy and then audition for the Symphony, and that they would not allow him to audition before he made his decision to attend since he was not majoring or minoring in music. There most certainly were non music majors or minors in the Vandy Symphony but they were very confident of their skill levels. He would have been a dicey selection for a chair in the conservatory quality symphony. This was the tipping factor for him to Duke-accepting the reality of his talent mismatch with Blair. </p>
<p>I only bring this up because your personal happiness quotient includes further instruction and pursuit of your instrument. Just use your best briefest writing skills to get these answers directly from Vandy.</p>
<p>I would email the Blair academic dean’s office with your questions. It seems to me that a music minor at Blair will have all the rights and requirements and privileges of instruction. But do you need to audition at Blair before being accepted as a music minor? I don’t know the answer to this question. Sounds like you would pass any such audition so it is a non-issue whether they require it or not after you move in Commons. I do know that there were many premeds in the Duke Symphony who played for the love of music, some who stopped taking lessons for the first time in their lives and some who continued to shine as first or second chairs and took lessons. I have always heard that med schools are “great” with music majors and minors as applicants as long as you nailed your premed cluster of courses. </p>
<p>Secondly, you can email the office of academic honors and scholarships. They expect to not “yield” a certain number of Chancellor’s and CVs annually but they are there to answer questions or to help connect you with a current student with similar academic pathways. A sentence of great appreciation for the privilege of a Chancellor’s, and a request for perhaps an email contact from a student who is minoring in performance with med school is a reasonable request. Students who are admitted to Vanderbilt have multiple offers in April, and you may need to do follow up queries to make your final decision. You also have the option of coming to campus anytime or for accepted students day, and to meet a student with similar academic goals. You have only to request and arrange. There are likely Blair upperclassmen who are able to answer many many questions including the issue of the Vandy Van to get to your premed and core courses. (not a big deal…you likely don’t even have to be taking courses at Blair every semester for a minor). Duke has a van that shuttles all day long between two campuses much further apart --and we (parents) thought that was terrible we visited. It was a total non issue for students. Vandy is not a tiny liberal arts college. It is a mid sized major research institution with amazing small classes and an expansive yet cozy campus in a relatively safe part of a city. Blair is a wonderful part of life in Nashville itself and very close to the medical complexes that add so much to the university. </p>
<p>Thanks @Faline2 . Yes, I plan to send to a thank you note with few questions about 3rd party scholarships and also to get connected to a music performance minor on med track. I do plan to visit Vandy for MOSAIC. Vandy seems to be bubbling to the top my list based on lots of my criteria. To be a music performance minor I do need to audition after 1st semester ( take private lessons on my own and on my own dime), once I pass the auditions and have become part of the Music Performance program then the private lessons are discounted by 50%. The audition pieces listed are already in my repertoire. After digging further in CC I haven’t found anyone saying it is hard to find private teachers at Vandy ( not the case with Rice where 1st preference is for Music Majors. There is even an account of the Rice professor finding out that his student for double majoring and walked her to the registrars office making her quit the other major ). </p>
<p>Since your son got Chancellor’s scholarship too, is there something specific I need to commit to as far as time commitment. I plan to continue my EC volunteer activities on my own. I was wondering if there is some extra I have to do. Asking that question because that would be adding to additional time commitment required for being a music performance minor. Trying to gauge the time impact while I continue to do well in my academics. All comments/feedback welcome. </p>
<p>The merit recipients are free to define their own lives at Vanderbilt which is a great privilege. There are few if any strings attached. The Chancellor’s recipients are very diverse in how they use their time and their stipends for a special summer trip or research project. There used to be a web page describing their stipend experiences which are quite varied. They get together socially a few times a year, usually organized by the upperclassmen who are Chancellor’s scholars. The CVs are allowed to register for small honor seminars for only CV scholars. After first term freshman year, other Vandy students can put in an application for the seminars and a few are admitted. CVs can take the seminars to meet all sorts of general elective requirements. They are discussion based with many fabulous professors and all ages/classes are in the seminars. You can also take the seminars for an honors diploma by completing a subscribed number of them. Our son applied and was admitted to the seminars midway in freshman year…and he completed the entire course. Students who are caught up in things like foreign languages, economics, premed course, lab work and research may not want to take on all the seminars because they are busy with their own pursuits in other departments like music. All Vandy students can earn honors distinctions within their majors without these honors seminars. But the seminars make Vandy more like a liberal arts college experience for students so inclined. You do not have to worry that the acceptance of the Chancellor’s will drain your time in any way. You have only to contribute to Vanderbilt in ways you see fit as you go along and to use imagination in coming up with your stipend plan. The Honors office has to approve your proposal and is there to help.
Because your tuition is covered, I would encourage you to plan at least one semester abroad. You only have to come up with the plane fare and a little money in your pocket. In some cases, a semester abroad is less expensive re room and board than Vandy. Premeds have a lot of planning to do in order to pull this off but it can be done.</p>
<p>Hi yetanotherid,
I’m not sure whether you would have access to full-time Blair faculty (definitely worth inquiring) – the few non-major violinists I know of do not, although one former performance major who switched to minor asked and was permitted to remain with her teacher – but even so, there’s a pretty impressive and lengthy list of adjunct faculty that would certainly be available to you as a minor. </p>
<p>Non-blair students definitely have the opportunity to pick up a major or minor in music. I believe an audition is involved, and the private lessons come with an extra fee. As SAtringPop mentioned, access to specific/full-time faculty members is not guaranteed. </p>