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<p>Imagine how they would have felt if they had gone through all the trouble of getting there only to find that they could not audition>></p>
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<p>BassDad...we usually agree....but on this one, I don't agree. I was in the same position with my son in Feb 2003 when there was 30 inches of snow in DC. We were THERE and Peabody postponed their auditions for TWO days. We just stayed...and so did the others. It was a safety issue. The roads were impassible, and the folks in DC, Maryland and VA had made it clear that they wanted folks off the roads. We ended up in Maryland for an extra three days. There were folks who were in hotels for three extra days (and some without power, food and heat). But the school simply didn't forge on because it was convenient for the faculty who was there. They thought about the safety of travelers from afar, and the canceled airline flights and the roads that were not able to be driven on. This happened on Sat in Ohio as well. Folks were told to stay off the roads. Oberlin had one of the few events at all that happened in NE Ohio. The state was basically shut down. I am very hopeful that someone out there does make some accommodations for those who put their personal safety first. This was not a small little flurry. It was a huge storm.</p>
<p>I repeat that we did it and it was crazy to be out in a car that day even for a very short distance. We will forever be grateful to the Ford Explorer we rented which got us through. I am not a wuss about snow - I have lived in the NE and done a lot of skiing. I would not have driven through the Ohio storm for ANYTHING except my son's audition or a life-threatening emergency.</p>
<p>Thumper, we will have to agree to disagree on this one. As I stated above, I do not think anyone should have had to drive to those auditions from any distance at all. However, Oberlin is different from Peabody in that a good portion of the faculty at Oberlin lives within walking distance of the school. There are sections of town within three or four blocks of campus where it seems like every third house is owned by an Oberlin faculty member. The town simply is not that large and it is as flat as a pool table. </p>
<p>I still think they should have held the auditions for those who could get there on foot and then made separate accommodations for everyone else. Not everyone was in a position to simply stay put for two days and would have been trying to get the earliest flights out of town. What harm is done by letting them keep their audition appointments so long as both they and the appropriate faculty members could all walk to the conservatory? The real problem was caused when the school told everyone else that the auditions were not going to be rescheduled.</p>
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<p>The real problem was caused when the school told everyone else that the auditions were not going to be rescheduled.>></p>
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<p>Agreed!! This really was the problem. I agree that some way to accommodate everyone due to the weather should be considered. Perhaps this will happen.</p>
<p>I will start with full disclosure, as this may sound like sour grapes:
Son was waitlisted last year at Oberlin.</p>
<p>That said, and prior to knowing his admissions status, of all the auditions, we found Oberlin to be - glaringly - the worst organized and least considerate of parents' and kids' time. This was for Jazz Studies; might be different for others.</p>
<p>Is this Oberlin bashing time? I am sympathetic about the last auditions and hope that a positive way will be found to handle it for prospective students unable to get to Oberlin in the storm.<br>
We found our visit and audition experience last year, when there were only mild snow flurries, to be well organized and positive, with good information sessions, including a very frank and helpful financial aid session, a couple of concerts, and a lot of opportunity to get a sense of the campus as a whole.</p>
<p>Our visit to Oberlin the second week in February was well organized with the exception of holding a reception for too many people in too small a space. There was a panel of students who talked about the program, an informatve Q&A with admissions and financial aid, rooms available for warm-up, and my daughter's audition went on time. We were much more harried at Peabody where anyone and everyone was scrambling for warm-up rooms. I felt like something of a vulture hovering outside of rooms to grab one as the previous person finished! Same problem regarding warm-up rooms at Northwestern.</p>
<p>I hope Oberlin will make accommodations for the people who couldn't make it over the weekend. It sounds like approachingt individual departments/teachers may be helpful? </p>
<p>But I really do need to defend the school in general, based on our experience in mid-Feb, which well organized while a bit overcrowded, friendly, informative; my son got to play entire selections and felt warmly received. Peabody, much as I like the articulate and funny head of admissions--was much worse in terms of providing adequate practice space (the one room my son kept finding available had a vile smell...) My son actually liked how Eastman handled the practice room situation: They opened a couple of large classrooms where kids could warm up at the same time; my son liked the anonymity of his sound being drowned out by a trumpet or whatever.
I guess the experience is different for each school, each weekend, and how each individual reacts.</p>
<p>Don't get me wrong. I love Oberlin - for me, it was my first choice for my son for overall college experience. Unfortunately for us, their violin dept. doesn't match the one at IU where my son was accepted so I don't think he'll be going to Oberlin.</p>
<p>They have been very friendly on the whole. Their admissions process was unusually informative with a separate 1-hour session just for string playing information. It's a wonderful school in many ways. </p>
<p>That said, their process has been notably disorganized with documents sent two and three times repeatedly lost, etc. But I really have a problem with how they handled the snowstorm and I don't mind saying so. They demonstrated their own parochialism in not at least extending auditions into Sunday - if indeed their faculty all live close by, it would have been fairly easy for them to come back on Sunday to hear those who couldn't get there on Saturday. For my family's experience, we had already travelled from the East Coast for this audition by the time we were put to the choice of making the drive. It was a top choice of schools for my son. There was absolutely no way we were going to miss the audition short of an act of God, but Oberlin should have made it possible for us to wait the storm out safely in Cleveland and do the audition on Sunday. I imagine they have done some soul-searching themselves and by now realize this. Probably it means that when there's another big storm they will overreact in the opposite direction if they're anything like the schools my kids have gone to. But criticism on this point is not "Oberlin bashing" - I love the school.</p>
<p>Finding practice rooms is a HUGE problem at some schools. Especially if you are hopping from school to school with no break (because of the insane way these things are scheduled!) and are used to practicing several hours a day, you need more than a warm-up. Observed: two auditionees monopolizing two practice rooms for the better part of two days. They would talk, eat and probably were sleeping in there. They often would congregate in one room and whenever anyone showed up to try to use the other one, they would pop out and "claim" it. No one wants to make a scene so nothing was ever done about it, but those two rooms were out of use. It wasn't known for awhile if the culprits were students or auditioners, but as it turns out, they were auditioning, and not undergraduates.</p>
<p>oh it didn't really bother me at all; if you're persistent you find a room, but a lot of other people just walked away downcast, and i felt bad for them</p>
<p>So sorry to all who did not make it in. DS rescheduled his audition for this Thursday with the prof. Oberlin gave us his home phone number (which we probably already had) and we called him early in the morning before we took off. DS has taken a few lessons with the prof from here and we had some rapport with him. I think he was appreciative that we called to let him know we weren't coming so that he didn't trek over to the university.</p>
<p>When considering the drive up to NE OH, I was not only considering the safety of myself and DS but I couldn't help but envision a snow plow or semi plowing into the back of my van and crunching DSs expensive tuba!!! Shudder.....</p>