<p>Hi all,</p>
<p>My son's teacher took Cleveland Institute of Music off his list of schools to apply to. She said they don't have money for assistantships. My son's a senior, and will be applying to grad programs for violin performance. Have any of you heard or experienced this in regards to CIM? There's not much time left to finalize his list! Thanks.</p>
<p>I don’t know if this information is helpful, but a friend of my daughter’s got a terrific assistanceship at NYU when he applied to masters programs. He came from a conservatory in the midwest that is not one of the top-5 and was admitted to Juilliard (without financial aid.) At NYU he was admitted to the studio of a professor who is also on staff at Juilliard.</p>
<p>A number of musicians who are connected to my son’s new music ensemble (and who are all terrific players) have done, or are doing their master’s at NYU. Interesting to know about the financial support there.</p>
<p>As has been discussed on CC earlier this year, teaching assistantships in performance majors are not common, particularly at conservatories where only students enrolled as undergraduates take lessons at the school. Costs being what they are, students expect to study with well-known teachers, and that’s reasonable. Some PhD candidates have assistantships in the theory department (and only after passing some rigorous exams).
However, CIM can and does award financial aid, and since most of the teaching faculty hold chairs in the Cleveland Orchestra, there is no shortage wanting to study with them.
If an assistantship is a necessity, looking at a university is a better bet and I know that Eastman has some because students from the University of Rochester are allowed to take lessons at ESM, but study with graduate students.</p>
<p>Thanks, all. When I was a grad student in flute performance at Ithaca College about a hundred years ago, I had an assistantship to teach class flute to music ed majors. It was a great experience. In my online research, I haven’t really found any references to that kind of assistantship. I will mention NYU to him. Good to know about that one. Thanks again.</p>
<p>I think it’s sometimes difficult to piece together what kinds of work opportunities might exist at a given school. For example, at some schools there is the opportunity to play, for pay, in regional orchestras. Juilliard has unlimited, self-funded work-study, and there are also high-paying competitive fellowships for teaching young students in public schools, etc. I would suggest your son not strike any schools from his list at this stage; research into potential opportunities can take time.</p>