<p>Thanks Snowflake, im confident in my abilities but its still an unnerving experience, not looking forward to waiting until March 31st either! Any amount of scholarship or aid funds they offer I’ll be thankful for but im shooting for the presidential</p>
<p>honestly i wouldn’t consider that at all, the amount of talent…is just unreal. not saying you aren’t worthy of it but consider 7 kids out of everyone who applies? both early and regular action? i have had an extensive musical career since the age of 6 and i didn’t get any scholarship money, and i had an excellent audition. just don’t get your hopes up, just worry about doing a good audition and getting in at least.</p>
<p>Not exactly getting my hopes up just saying I’m going to give 150% and hopefully get in, with scholarship money if possible. But congrats on getting accepted, what did you audition on?</p>
<p>take a guess…guitar! </p>
<p>that’s (one) of my gripes about berklee, too many guitarists! that’s why i’d be interested in film composing, or another major that is smaller and I can have my own voice. it’s tough applying to 6 schools and 5 of them have programs with as little as 1 or 2 guitarists being accepted a year, then berklee which has hundreds.</p>
<p>My son applied to Berklee for the “Regular Action” deadline and auditioned in January, but we already received his acceptance email and unfortunately, his scholarship denial. He is in the same boat as many…can’t go without a scholarship. But my question is…if the admission decisions for “regular action” aren’t supposed to be made until March 31, why were we notified on January 31? And why do they issue the great acceptance news only to be followed up with the bad news 12 hours later. Couldn’t they have let him celebrate his accomplishment a little before they shot him back down to Earth?</p>
<p>Just a reminder about Berklee- just because they say that they have a huge number of guitarists you have to remember that many of those “guitarists” are actually MP&E majors, music therapy, music business etc. Guitar is just their principle instrument. You need to get in to Berklee on a performance instrument first in order to be in any of the above programs-(MP&E can’t even declare until 3rd semester I think) everyone at Berklee has to have an instrument so a lot of students who are studying other things are also “guitarists, pianists and vocalists”. That tends to create an unrealistic picture of the size of the studios.</p>
<p>Hi Everyone:
As I posted earlier my S gained early acceptance to Berklee for piano performance and composition. Within 14 hours, he was notified that he would not get a scholarship. I am wondering how parents and students are coping with the notion of taking on a ridiculous amount of debt. We have a small business and one of our employees is 28 and struggling with the weight of a $20K student loan six years after his graduation. Is Berklee or any college really worth taking on $200+K of debt?</p>
<p>true, but regardless there are still a ton of guitarists, and getting into berklee is based solely on your audition with your primary instrument so there are 1500 amazing guitarists there, not just mediocre ones. same goes with any instrument. </p>
<p>and to mastaud, your son probably applied really close to the early action deadline, and i have heard they were lenient with deadlines so they couldve mixed it up. also he auditioned in the early action period so if he’s auditioned, applied and has everything in then they don’t need to wait until march 31st. also it makes sense to send an email so soon, i would have rather not been waiting each day for the mail on pins and needles to see if i got anything.</p>
<p>and kcreative, it would he unlikely, and very sad, if you had to pay the whole tuition on your own. they do indeed have a lot of financial aid besides scholarships. between federal aid and berklee aid you can at least get a good chunk of it out of the picture. my particular family situation puts me in a good position to get money. but i really can’t say if it’s actually worth going into debt, it’s different if you’re going to become a doctor, lawyer etc. and people say this all the time but those are solidified jobs and have openings etc. the music business is entirely different and you’ll never know if you get a job at all if, and when, you graduate. also this is just the first year, or even first semester. there are more options to get scholarships once you’re in, some are depending on the major you want or your overall success at berklee etc. all hope is not gone 
i am in the same boat</p>
<p>Is Berklee or any college really worth taking on $200+K of debt? </p>
<p>Most definitely not. Maybe Med school. Maybe. But undergrad? Never. The debt will ruin your life. You will never recover. You cannot get out of the debt, even if you declare bankruptcy. Do you know anyone who can afford to pay $2300/month in loans upon graduation from college??? For 10 years???</p>
<p>Loan Balance: $200,000.00
Adjusted Loan Balance: $200,000.00
Loan Interest Rate: 6.80%
Loan Fees: 0.00%
Loan Term: 10 years
Minimum Payment: $50.00
Enrollment Status: In Repayment
Degree Program: Bachelor’s Degree
Total Years in College: 4 years
Average Debt per Year: $50,000.00</p>
<p>Monthly Loan Payment: $2,301.61
Number of Payments: 120</p>
<p>Cumulative Payments: $276,192.62
Total Interest Paid: $76,192.62</p>
<p>It is estimated that you will need an annual salary of at least $276,193.20 to be able to afford to repay this loan. This estimate assumes that 10% of your gross monthly income will be devoted to repaying your student loans. This corresponds to a debt-to-income ratio of 0.7. If you use 15% of your gross monthly income to repay the loan, you will need an annual salary of only $184,128.80, but you may experience some financial difficulty.This corresponds to a debt-to-income ratio of 1.1.</p>
<p>as much as that’s good and dandy…</p>
<p>i’m not exactly knowledgeable on the subject</p>
<p>but </p>
<p>no one in their right mind would take out a 200k student loan, i seriously that kind of money would be lent as well. one year at a time makes sense but you can’t predict what your financial status will be 3 years fro now, by then you may hopefully be able to pay more than before. </p>
<p>and again, the only people that would be left to pay the whole amount by themselves are mondo rich and wouldn’t worry about getting a loan anyways.</p>
<p>sopranomom92 posted the reality. The numbers don’t lie. </p>
<p>A similar thread from last year <a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/music-major/899510-all-because.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/music-major/899510-all-because.html</a></p>
<p>Well, Sopranomom92. You have summed it up. And that was the point I was trying to make mostly to myself. Subsidized loans and unsubsidized loans have to be paid back eventually. They are loans. Eighteen year old students may not fully grasp the weight of that…yet. The government is offering nominal loans to our family, and we absolutely are not rich. We run a small business that barely survived 2009. It has just been a long thoughtful week. And I think our family (sadly) has come to the conclusion (we’re working on the acceptance) that a dream built on debt is a nightmare waiting to happen. While it’s a painful lesson, I guess in the end we are teaching a lesson about fiscal responsibility to our S that he will carry with him throughout his life. And I think, ultimately, we’re doing him a favor. On to the next audition and possibility.</p>
<p>As a point of reference there’s <a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/music-major/886715-2010-scholarship-thread.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/music-major/886715-2010-scholarship-thread.html</a> with links to prior years’ threads.</p>
<p>It may be useful in seeing some scholarship ranges that were reported over the past few cycles.</p>
<p>There are also some “negotiating” discussions under the “Making the decision” heading here <a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/music-major/901390-2010-collective-experience.html?highlight=2010[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/music-major/901390-2010-collective-experience.html?highlight=2010</a></p>
<p>The common wisdom suggest no more student held loans than the aggregate total of Stafford loans, about $27k for undergrad.</p>
<p>mastaud, if you care to tell us what instrument your son plays and what degree he would have pursued at Berklee, we would like to include him in our acceptances thread even though he will not attend.</p>
<p>D just received an email from Berklee that “due to an unprecedented interest in Berklee College of Music” they are pushing up their financial aid application deadline from March 31 to March 1st.</p>
<p>I recieved the same email yesterday, they only mentioned the fafsa which I completed and submitted in Jan. Is there a separate application for Berklee’s aid or something?</p>
<p>Berklee just requires the fafsa. Looks like it was a blanket email to say please file your fafsa if you haven’t already.</p>
<p>yeah, i sent in the fafsa a couple weeks ago anyways</p>
<p>I don’t know what is going on. My son applied early, auditioned early December, was told on jan. 31 that his application was still “in review” and now we cannot get anyone to return a phone call or respond to an email! If he’s not getting in, at least let the poor kid know. I’m just really, really disgusted.</p>
<p>I believe the Dean of Admissions is a man named Damien Bracken. Perhaps ask for him specifically when you call, to avoid getting a student, etc. That is really disappointing - I’m so sorry your son is going through that.</p>