If your state doesn’t have a music therapy major, look to see if it’s a consortium/alliance that does (like WUE in the west or the Academic Common Market in the southeast). That would then grant in-state tuition for the music major.
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Shenandoah U/Conservatory has music therapy and good jazz and is within about an hour and a half from many DC area schools. Slightly farther than desired but may be worth a look. They can be generous with merit, even for B students.
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He seems to be a strong musician, and he would love excellent instruction and to perform with other strong musicians. But he also really really loves teaching and working with kids with disabilities, and is really clear on the degree he wants.
I have no idea how to know what is a safety or match for music. There are lots of programs at schools like Duquesne or Loyola NO or Slippery Rock where I feel confident he could get in to the university but I have no idea if he’d pass their audition.
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She is a strong student, and of course as mom I think any school would be lucky to have her. But I also think starting the college search with Penn, Swarthmore, etc . . . Feels like too much pressure.
What is in between Temple and Penn as far as midsized to large schools? Drexel? Villanova? St Joe’s? (Throwing out 3 schools I have heard of but don’t know a ton about).
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Two schools in Nashville: Belmont (for son); Vanderbilt (for daughter). Or maybe Belmont for both.
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Rowan University in NJ has music therapy, music education, special education and is a likely academic admit. Of course nobody can say if your son will be admitted to the music program because it’s audition dependent but certainly he would to the school of education. Rowan is about a half hour from Philadelphia with the multitude of schools in the region.
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If an audition is required, there is no such thing as a safety school. The student’s audition will be compared to others doing auditions on the same instrument. The strength of that applicant pool varies widely from year to year.
In terms of acceptance, the audition bar is a bit lower for music education and music therapy students. Not as high as for performance majors.
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That’s fair. I just didn’t want to duplicate since you said you understood your own state options.
In Ohio, Case Western would work well for your daughter and Cleveland State or Baldwin Wallace for your son. If you are chasing merit for your daughter, the latter two could be of interest or her, too.
The University of Michigan and Eastern Michigan University are maybe 20 minutes from each other. If you are OOS, Michigan may be more than you want to spend, but she could apply to Michigan State, too, to see how much merit she is awarded. It’s about an hour or so from the other two.
What may make the most sense if they continue on this path is to first identify the best music therapy schools for him; next, see if there is a nearby target/reach school for your daughter; third, also identify the nearby safety most likely to give her the best merit offer.
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WUE for the western region means 1.5 times in-state tuition.
Technically, I believe the terms are “no more than 150% of resident tuition.” I’ve definitely seen some that are less than the 1.5 multiplier.
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Would they want to go to school together?
In NC Appalachian State, East Carolina, and Queens University in Charlotte have Music Therapy programs. AppState and ECU are both kind of off by themselves. Queens is in Charlotte where UNC-Charlotte also is.
Maybe Cornell and Ithaca College?
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I think they would like the idea of being together.
They require pretty different levels of challenge.
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I think the sister needs to have colleges that are realistic for admission. Some of the recommendations are challenging ones even for top students (Penn, Cornell, Michigan, for example).
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Tallahassee, FL
Florida State: This would probably be a reach for your son and much less of one for your D. It offers a music therapy major and has a strong music program. Big school and Tallahassee is a good-sized city.
Florida A&M: This HBCU would be a safety for your D and probably a likely for your son (it’s a 35% admit rate, but the testing stats seem quite approachable). There’s also a strong music culture here, but there’s also a relationship between FAMU and Florida State whereby FAMU students can take up to half of their classes at FSU. I think it would be worth investigating to see if he could have his major be at FSU (at least for the classes not offered by FAMU) while being a FAMU student. The schools are less than a mile apart (perhaps 0.4 mi, according to Google Maps).
Scranton, PA
Marywood: Offers a music therapy major and the school has a very good reputation for supporting students. Its values seem as though they may align well with your son’s interests. This would be a likely for your son.
U. of Scranton: This Jesuit school is mid-sized and has a very strong reputation for the health sciences. Additionally, the location near the Poconos would certainly offer lots of interesting things to study with ecology/environmental science. At the same time, the Scranton-Wilkes-Barre metro has more than half a million residents, so it’s not like being in the middle of nowhere. These schools are 2.3 miles apart.
Rochester, NY
Nazareth: Music therapy for your son
U. of Rochester: Probably a toss-up for your D, but probably with a lean towards acceptance
NYC Metro:
Music therapy programs available at Molloy (NY, already mentioned) but also at Montclair State (NJ)
I’ll keep my thinking cap on.
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I know someone who majored in music therapy at UW-Eau Claire. It’s probably realistic to have a car there, and it’s a 1.5 hour drive from the Twin Cities (Macalester and others that might be good for your daughter). It’s a 2 hour drive from Carleton which is an excellent premed school. Mac gives pretty substantial merit aid for high grades, don’t know about Carleton. Mac is nicely urban for a LAC. I’ll bet there’s other music therapy in the twin cities as well.
This was one of my first thoughts, but on closer examination, Ithaca doesn’t have Music Therapy; they have Music Ed but that’s quite different. Besides, there’s no merit to be had at Cornell.
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Colorado State University might be a place where they can both find the right level of challenge. For your son, they have both a highly regarded music therapy program and a jazz studies program in addition to an add-on program for executive function coaching (Opportunities for Postsecondary Success - Center for Community Partnerships)
For your daughter, they have a wonderful honors program. My son had similar stats and qualified for their top merit award as well as an additional scholarship for being in the honors program. Depending on her major, she’d also be eligible for departmental merit.
It’s a big enough school that they would both have their separate lives yet be in the same place. Fort Collins is the perfect college town. University of Colorado, University of Denver, Colorado School of Mines and University of Wyoming are all just about an hour away. Colorado College is 2 hours.
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It looks like there are 75 colleges with bachelor’s degree programs in music therapy:
https://nces.ed.gov/collegenavigator/?s=all&p=51.2305&l=93
Some, like Arizona State University, may be suitable for both students. However, while admission to the school is likely to be a safety for both students, admission to the music therapy major requires an interview and audition, so that major would not be considered an admission safety.
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I think she’ll want to apply to a variety, but I’d rather start with identifying safeties and matches. I know a number of families who have started their college search by looking at Harvard or similar, and I think it just feels like adding pressure to a kid who already puts enough pressure on herself.
So, maybe she’ll apply to Penn, but I’d rather her first tours were somewhere else. Luckily Philly has a ton of schools, so she can probably find a safety, a match and a reach there to apply to.
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