<p>Has anyone sent in an arts supplement with chamber music pieces? How about combined solo and chamber music? Then again, ten minutes gets used up very fast. DS's recent performance of the Brahms piano quintet first movement is over 10 minutes. I suppose it should be just solo pieces so that they can better judge your technical and musical skills. Then you can list all of your chamber music experience. Any comments on that? Some schools like MIT have a big chamber music program, so you would think they might care about that sort of experience. </p>
<p>At the Yale tour and meeting, we saw a film called "Why Choose Yale?" I don't think so. They choose you, and "holistic" is the key term schools use over and over. ("Authentic", "Genuine", and "Consistent") At a separate meeting in their department of music, a professor led us to believe that he had trouble pushing the acceptance of a YoungArts finalist. Then again, he didn't know the academic strength of the student, just the music level. My impression is that "holistic" means holistic to the sensabilities of the admissions office. Admissions might get a ranking from the music department, but they decide what it's worth. (I knew that I should have pushed hockey over the piano for my son.) As an aside, I really didn't like how the student tour guide talked about how one could avoid taking serious math classes (not her words, exactly), but I won't go off in that direction. We got the same message at Tufts and Harvard. Do admissions officers know what AIME is? At least Yale and MIT ask for the score in their apps.</p>
<p>With so many good students applying to colleges, the holistic fudge factor has grown way out of proportion. It seems that a music supplement could help a lot or not at all. I don't think it would ever hurt. Even if you fall into a top Academic/EC bucket, it still could be 50-50, and it's not the math or the music faculty making the judgments. On one hand, schools want you to show them how much you love them, but on the other hand, they tell you to "get real", statistically, and how you have to figure out how to be happy at any of the colleges you apply to. One admissions person at the MIT admissions blog tells students to enjoy the random walk. Right.</p>