California public school kid

Thank you for taking the time AustenNut. I think we are kind of thinking along similar lines. The one difference from a few months ago is that he is going to apply EA as BMus-Piano-Perf applicant (piano auditions will have an oversized impact on admission decision).

The repertoire requirements for pre-screening/audition are a subset of this bucket he is working on:

  1. Baroque - a Bach Well Tempered Clavier Prelude and Fugue
  2. Classical - a Beethoven Sonata all movements
  3. Virtuosic etude - one of Chopinā€™s Op 10 etudes
  4. Romantic era major piece - one of Chopinā€™s Scherzos
  5. Contemporary/modern - one of Kapustinā€™s short piece

The list is now based on schools which donā€™t mind their music kids double majoring.
EA Target - Indiana, Wisconsin, Texas, Illinois and UNC

Regular:
UC bucket target - Irvine and SB have good music performance major and donā€™t mind double major. Not sure about Davis and SD for his stats.
Target non-UC bucket - UWash (music + non-CS), Purdue (not music), UMD (music + non-CS)
Reach buckets - CMU, Michigan, Vanderbilt, Northwestern, UCSC, Rice, NYU (all have good music programs and encourage double major)
Safety - TBD (Minn, Utah etc. not thinking about this for now but we will start to expand once we have some feedback based on the pre-screen videos).

Kudos to the kids that have 3.97 unweighted and high SAT - that is near impossible in the ultracompetitive Bay Area public school my son goes to with 8-10 APā€™s that many kids do.

Like some of you have said, this whole exercise is like flying blind - we just put the best foot forward with a healthy mix of schools and hope for the best. All of your inputs are quite helpful in getting grounded and have the right mindset.

Did you post yet in the music forum and read the information there about double majoring and BA/BM programs? There are people there who have an enormous amount of information and are very helpful

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Utah may be a safety for general admission, but audition-based programs are competitive. D18 did a BFA (in ballet) and BS Hons and graduated in four years (it was fairly easy to do 20+ credits per semester, so long as the double major isnā€™t a lab science/engineering), and she loved it there. You have to apply before Dec 1 to get merit money (WUE is relatively easy to get, other merit requires close to 4.0UW).

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I have - the experienced folks say that BM-Piano is inherently challenging and hard, and hence double majoring is not a wise move. But that decision is for another day.

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He can apply to all the reaches/targets he wants but perhaps limit the list to 10. With his stats, IU would be a solid safety/target with Kelley and Jacobs as great options that would be hard to beat. My guess is he will end up there in a year if he is already spending time there.!

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Iā€™m not convinced this is applicable to audition-based programs (eg for ballet Indiana is a super reach). D18 applied to 13 and was admitted to 6 (of which only 2-3 were desirable), despite having very strong academics (4.0UW/35 ACT/9 APs with 8 5s).

If you are determined to double major as she was, it makes sense to pick somewhere that isnā€™t extremely tough on academic grading, so taking a lot of classes doesnā€™t mess up your GPA (she graduated with a 3.93 GPA). Also, her merit offers (which were great - she ended up with a full ride) were almost all based on academics with very little from artistic talent, and that seems to be common.

I wish you and him a great deal of luck. My S21 is a BFA performance major at a conservatory and I have no idea how he could have added on another major. S24 is a flutist and has already decided that if he is going to double major it would be at an LAC with music performance as the second major. It is an incredible amount of work and dedication. Good luck with the prescreens! Has your son thought of sending them in for YoungArts?

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Thank you for the reminder about YoungArts. Will certainly take part.
I donā€™t know yet about double major - all we can do now is to apply to schools that donā€™t frown upon that. My son has been juggling his 2 hrs/day piano practice with his high academic load so far (10 AP and several honors) and his other soccer data analytics projects but he has struggled a bit on the AP STEM classes.
I agree - the kids that are dedicated to their music deserve all the kudos and support.
@Twoin18 agree that Indiana is a super reach for BM but I think he may be ok for their BSOF program.
@sfogooner Yes, he will be happy with Jacobs and Kelly/Luddy combo. He enjoyed his 2 weeks there this summer.

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Have you considered Johns Hopkins/Peabody? The advantage here is a well designed path for double majors. Although the main Homewood campus is three miles from the Peabody Institute, there is a shuttle which makes it possible to take classes from both campuses.

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@Bsb22 we did consider it but based on other pianists that my son knows that didnā€™t get in, he thinks his chances arenā€™t high. Just based on his repertoire, competitions/performance etc.

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