On the list posted above, a few options stood out to me. Southern Connecticut State University could be a good option for your son, which would give your daughter a lot of schools within a reasonable radius, including schools in Connecticut, Mass., RI, and NY (off the top of my head: Conn College, Wesleyan, UConn, the five-college consortium in Amherst/Northampton, Brown Providence College, URI, Sarah Lawrence …). Illinois State University is another great option. Normal, IL is about 2.5 hours from both St. Louis and Chicago, and maybe 45-60 minutes from U of Illinois. And it’s not as in-the-middle-of-cornfields as it sounds; I used to live there, and together with twin city Bloomington (location of Illinois Wesleyan), it’s part of a metro area of about 170,000 people. And Eastern Michigan University is a stone’s throw from U of M (just a town over from Ann Arbor). One thing all of these schools have in common besides having music therapy programs: they all have regionally respected teacher education programs and excellent relationships with a lot of school districts. So if your son decides that he wants to explore different ways of working with both kids and music, music education is an option.
Yes, I think Temple could be a great fit for her, I’d just like to offer her more options.
Boston University does not really have a campus. It is sort of strung along the streets on the south side of the Charles River (with MIT and Harvard approximately on the other side of the river).
Harvard would of course be a high reach. It does have “Harvard Yard”, and is right in Harvard Square which is a very interesting area. No merit aid at all.
I wonder about Northeastern and/or Boston College. I think that they have a bit more of a campus.
Wellesley College would be a reach, and is a bit further out. It does have a very attractive campus. I do not know if it has merit aid, but sort of doubt it.
I think that Simmons University is worth a good look. It used to be called Simmons College, but changed its name a few years ago. It has a nice campus and would be I think no worse than a low match for a high stats student. They do have merit aid. It is also close to the some of the medical facilities in Boston. It is probably as close as I can think of as a safety or match for an out of state student interested in premed.
There are a lot of schools in the area with selectivity below Penn or Swarthmore (reach for anybody): Drexel, Bryn Mawr, Villanova, Haverford, St. Josephs etc.
What about all the LACs on the mainline…Haverford, Villanova, etc. These would all be fine for your daughter unless she thinks they are too small.
This says it better than I did!
“ There are a lot of schools in the area with selectivity below Penn or Swarthmore (reach for anybody): Drexel, Bryn Mawr, Villanova, Haverford, St. Josephs etc.”
What an interesting challenge. Looking at the list above and combing with some match schools for your daughter:
Augsburgh in Minneapolis and St. Olaf (within an hour and good premed school, I’d expect her to get merit)
Cleveland State University and Case Western (my daughter received 36K)
Duquesne and University of Pittsburgh (apply EARLY for hope of merit)
Nazareth College - University of Rochester (chance of merit)
Colorado State University of University of Denver (your daughter would get good merit here and they have strong premed programs my daughter received around 30K)
Best of luck to them!
Nobody’s mentioned U. of Louisville, yet, but it’s in a large city. Your daughter would get very good merit, and depending on what state you are from, your son might get some, too.
What instrument(s) does your son play? NC Central in Durham, NC has an exceptional jazz program. If he plays sax, or even if he doesn’t, he might be interested to know Branford Marsalis is an artist-in-residence there. Jazz Studies | North Carolina Central University
It’s not Music Therapy, though.
He plays a variety but plans to audition on voice.
He would love to study with Marsalis but he’s pretty clear on the music therapy idea.
Bass by any chance? If so @2plustrio might have some suggestions…
Tenor, but he’s young (15) so that could change.
Western ct state U is the ct state college with a very strong jazz program. He would get in, prob get some merit money. For her, barnard, columbia, nyu, fordham. Temple for both or Temple plus Penn or drexel are an option, but the neighborhood around Temple has gotten so dangerous that I wouldnt send anyone there. Berklee takes kids with extraordinary music achievenent but mediocre grades, but if they wanted him, it would be rack rate. Tufts, harvard, NEU, BC, BU all for her. Has he considered music ed, to be a mid or high school band teacher?
He’s pretty set on music therapy. I could imagine him as a general music teacher at an elementary school, particularly one that has a large special ed population, but not in high school. He is very much looking forward to getting out of high school himself!
My D25 attended a music student for a day at TCNJ this week and during the parent Q&A one parent was a music ed alumni c/o 2014 who adopted an older child. Hearing her talk about her experience was great and she mentioned how she thought she would be a hs band teacher going to all the games and comps but when it came to actual available jobs it was 40 elementary jobs to 2 hs jobs. If your son wants to go into music ed and gets special ed certified he would have lots of options for employment. Just something for him to consider.
Michigan in general has many schools close together. I don’t know enough about music therapy etc but with anything from Oakland College, Wayne State, Michigan State, University of Michigan, Western Michigan University, Grand Valley, Kalamazoo, and more it shouldn’t be too hard to get them close enough. But if they think they will be seeing each other a lot they should be forewarned. They most likely won’t. Hopefully they will be busy enough on the own campuses… Lol…
Wayne State has a great BS/MD program that is a full ride undergrad and full tuition med school award.
I think East Carolina University is big enough for both of them but it’s not urban, more suburban. It’s got a good health sciences school. Your daughter would probably get honors possibly some money although NC publics are stingy about that. They do have Music Therapy and it’s a big enough school that if he changed his mind it would offer lots of options.
Same with Appalachian State University. It’s maybe 1 notch more selective than ECU so might be a bit harder admit for your son. Good size state school, small mountain town. Lot of other options for majors.
The Queens/UNC-Charlotte combo is interesting too.
I’m curious why people keep commenting on the possibility of him changing majors. If I had to predict, I think she’s much more likely to change her mind than he is. I understand that there are lots of kids who start premed and end up on a different path.
It’s just pretty common for a high school sophomore switch what they want to major in as they get exposed to more things in college, often switching multiple times.
That said I think my D22 will stick with her major, but she might possibly add a minor.
West Chester University has a music therapy program and your D could look at Bryn Mawr, Haverford, Penn, etc. Bachelor of Music in Music Therapy - WCU of PA