<p>So, first lets consider these widely held CC recommendations:</p>
<ul>
<li>in person auditions are better than regional/recorded auditions</li>
<li>no audition school is a safety school, therefore apply to plenty</li>
</ul>
<p>Now, lets consider this:</p>
<p>How did you seasoned families afford so many trips? 2 of my Ds schools are local, one is a 6 hour drive, the rest would require flights. And by "the rest" I mean everywhere from California to Colorado to Florida and Massachusetts.</p>
<p>By the time we pay for all of these trips will may not have any money left for college! I am beginning to think regionals may be unavoidable.</p>
<p>p.s. If youd like to make a donation to our travel fund, PM me and Ill give you the banking info! ;-)</p>
<p>We are also having to face the expense issue. S is auditioning for 2 early rolling admissions (one local, one east coast) and sending in 4 prescreens. If he is accepted to either early admission, then we will limit him to only auditioning at 2 more (given that he passes at least 2 prescreens). So we’re anticipating at most, 3 trips. Using all our frequent flier miles and hotel points.</p>
<p>How many are you doing? Realistically, 7 is about the max to schedule for in person. And that is with some early rolling admissions. Because of cost there were several that DD did not visit until auditions. Sample lessons ahead were not an option. We saved for the return trips to the top three for lessons and final looks and used a lot of frequent flier miles and hotel points, too. One was a gamble. Because it was cross country I booked it before the pre-screen results were known in order to get it with my miles. </p>
<p>In person is not always required. One of DD’s classmates was accepted to Rice with money on pre-screen alone. She was from Canada and could not do the travel. There are others here on CC who were accepted with money on regional auditions. Again, it varies by school.</p>
<p>FYI, my son was accepted to Oberlin with merit money based on a regional audition. We did not see the point of paying for travel until after he was admitted.</p>
<p>If money is tight here are some suggestions…
There is nothing wrong with limiting the distance your child can be from home. As the parent of two older children I can tell you that it is very difficult to have your child so far away that you need to take a plane to get to them. Things come up, such as illness and it is nice to be able to check in on them. I know that I am a bit spoiled when I give this advice as I live in the Boston Metro area. But still there are good schools throughout the country and keep in mind that your child can always transfer once they are older and there is always graduate school.</p>
<p>2) Staying in Boston and NYC is EXPENSIVE. So be creative. Boston has a youth hostel that is very affordable if your student is comfortable traveling alone. Look into hotels that are a bit farther out but that offer access to the city via commuter rail. Some hotels will accept frequent flyer miles. We once paid for a hotel entirely with frequent flyer miles. Look for deals from Living Social and other coupon places for cities you plan on visiting. Also ask the conservatory if they have any deals with local hotels. Check out budget travel guides as well.</p>
<p>We prioritized visits. I asked S which schools he knew he would apply to/audition for regardless of an early visit and which he wanted to see/touch/smell before committing to an audition. He chose to audition at NEC with no prior visit (which saved us a trip to Boston) but we/he visited Lawrence and Oberlin twice each plus the on-site audition. </p>
<p>Part of it is S’s personality, I knew that visiting the school, having a lesson to check out his prospective studio teacher, would go a long way towards making that transition more do-able for him. So it seemed like a good investment in the process.</p>
<p>Also that some schools require on-site auditions within certain geographic boundaries or for certain instruments or programs. We prioritized travel to those schools once we knew S wanted to apply there.</p>
<p>We drove to as many visits as we could. We booked cheap flights when possible (Southwest ftw…), we stayed in hotels that the schools had rate-deal arrangements with (this saved us quite a bit in Boston). Also some schools (Oberlin, at least the College) will sometimes have special visit days or events which are aimed at kids from various regions and which can make it more feasible to send a kid alone at a “package rate”–I think S did the Oberlin “Chicago Fly-in Day” for like $130, airfare and meals included. Check on the school’s admissions website for these kinds of events.</p>
<p>One piece of good advice I got here when we were beginning was to book hotels through hotels dot com - you get a free night after ten nights, and they have a reasonable choice of hotels. We were able to add a mini vacation to a summer festival pickup trip after all those auditions and sample lessons!</p>
<p>My son did a regional for Eastman and got a nice scholarship as well. However, he had visited the school earlier and had a lesson with the teacher he was interested in.</p>
<p>FYI for Eastman Jazz applicants can not do a regional audition!!!</p>
<p>I was so lucky and soooo grateful. My son’s friend who he has known since he was 5 was also applying to Eastman and their auditions were scheduled for the same day. My son’s friend’s father drove to Eastman (a 6 hour drive) and back in the dark and the rain the next day. They couldn’t fit my son’s double Bass in their car so my son had to borrow a Bass, which was a challenge and definitely impacted his playing when he had to play his classical piece or bow.</p>
<p>oh one more thing…we had a rather disastrous experience with the cab service that takes kids from Cleveland Airport to Oberlin. They forgot top pick up my son and he missed his flight. Fortunately it was spring, our son was a senior and no longer stressed about time and it was a Friday. Our son stayed over friday night and experienced college weekend partying and fun. The airline only charged me $50 to change our son’s flight and the cab service didn’t charge us anything. They were very apologetic. So it was a wash. But just keep this in mind. If you plan on using that cab service make sure to call-talk-remind and double check with them so that they do not do this too you.</p>
<p>We drove to 6 auditions, used frequent flier points for one and paid full airfare for one. Regionals were not an option for my son, a percussionist. He was able to do two auditions in one weekend (a Friday audition from 8 am - 2 pm, a 3 hour drive, and a Saturday 8 am audition). Since we were only three hours from the second school, we were very fortunate that one school did Friday auditions while the other did Saturday. This only involved one night in a hotel.</p>
<p>We met one family who only did Priceline for their hotels. One family flew to auditions and took a train home. Another flew to one audition and rented a car for the 8 hour drive home. While it wasn’t a lot cheaper than a round-trip flight, the audition was late enough in the day that they couldn’t find a return flight home that night. They would have had to have stayed another night in a hotel. The rental car option was cheaper than round trip + two nights in a hotel.</p>
<p>As I mentioned on another thread, one school didn’t fit into my son’s audition schedule. When he contacted them, the professor said he’d be willing to see my son on a non-audition day. That was very kind. </p>
<p>My son met a lot of people during the audition process, and some were very successful with recorded auditions. I probably wouldn’t recommend this for your child’s top choices, but it’s an option for the others I suppose. </p>
<p>One more thing, and this sounds strange, but my son had to give up his private lessons once audition season was over. We just couldn’t afford them for awhile. He’s back to an occasional summer lesson before going off to college, but we were in the same boat as many others. Application fees, hotels, airfare, meals on the road, gas money, private lessons, and music all add up. Good luck!</p>
<p>My son had 8 auditions all over the country. We drove whenever possible and flew by the cheapest flights we could find. We sometimes had to leave home at 4 am to catch the 6:30 am flight since it was only 1/3 of later flight costs. We tried to give him an overnight stay in the hotels before the auditions since he felt he didn’t play well if he had to fly in the mornings of his auditions. He had arranged to have lessons with the teachers of his top choice schools only. These lessons gave him very good idea of which teachers he liked and could work with. We spent a lot of money for his auditions but in the end that also gave him many options to choose from.</p>
before committing to an audition. He chose to audition at NEC with no prior visit (which saved us a trip to Boston) but we/he visited Lawrence and Oberlin twice each plus the on-site audition. </p>