<p>PS compmom: Just wondering, why do you especially recommend Eastman? Just wanted to know! I originally had Eastman on my list, but took it off due to it not being in an area I’d really love to live. Also, because I already have so many high-level schools on my list, I wasn’t sure if I could handle another ;)</p>
<p>kmcmom13: Thanks for your advice about traveling around to colleges near Interlochen! Definitely something to think about and hopefully plan 
Congrats to your son at UMichigan!</p>
<p>One question to anyone who knows: I mentioned above that I have always composed by hand…do conservatories/universities mind hand-written scores, prefer them, prefer computer printed scores, etc? Assuming that the hand-written ones are neat and correct.</p>
<p>I think that the advise everyone has been giving you is dead on correct.</p>
<p>I do want to mention that since you feel more confortable with flute performance than composition, you may want to go the flute performance route, then if later, you feel a need to switch to comp, you can likely do that. Depending on the school, a course or two in comp may be on the curriculum anyway, or you might have the opportunity to take 'em as music electives. At most of the schools we looked into, there really isn’t a huge difference in the curriculums between different music majors. It’s just something to consider.</p>
<p>And I would think (but I don’t know because we aren’t that far along yet) that as long as you did a few comp courses as an undergraduate school, and made good grades and whatnot, that you could major in comp in grad school without haven being a comp major in undergrad school.</p>
<p>As far as double majoring in two different music areas, some schools may allow that, the one my son chose won’t. It may be possible that any extra time or effort to do a double major might would be better spent in grad school. I would think that a Bachelors plus a Masters would be more valuable than two Bachelors or a duel major Bachelors.</p>
<p>By the way, something that never gets mentioned is attitude. I would think that if a potential student didn’t exhibit a great attitude at the audition, that alone might eleminate them. Your seem to have a very positive attitude, based on your posts, regardless of what decision you make, make sure you let that great attitude show through at your audition.</p>
<p>One of the schools my son auditioned at, his reach school, was academically out of his league. The same day he auditioned there, he had a major receital the same day (evening) for his pre-college music program (350+ people in the audiance). He’s not normally a very smiley person, but somehow he channelled his nervisness into a big huge smile at the receital - after the receital lots of people were commenting on it. He ended up getting accepted to the reach college, with a big scholarship. I have always wondered if maybe he had the big smile going on during his audition at that college (also) and if it possibly helped him to get accepted with the big scholarship.</p>
<p>from University of Michigan’s School of Music FAQ:</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>To answer your question: I just noticed that Eastman was not on there, and it is often in a list of conservatories of the caliber you have chosen. I have had no contact whatsoever with the school! It was probably smart to drop it if the location isn’t good: you have a lot of schools. There are others that various people have added, such as UMichigan and Indiana…</p>
<p>Between Brevard and Interlochen and your brother, you should be all set with music to submit! And with theory etc. you should be more than fine.</p>
<p>Things may have changed, but 3 years ago NEC did NOT require that you play an instrument if applying or studying as a composer. You do have to either play in an ensemble or sing in a chorus while there as a composition student.</p>
<p>I think it is great that you handwrite your music and, as long as it is neat, I would think that any school would be happy to have it. Do musicians find your manuscripts easy to use? That is the main thing…It is a pain in the neck to make parts when the music is handwritten, so that is the main reason for putting it on Finale or Sibelius…</p>
<p>Since you like to work on your own (my daughter does, too) and haven’t enjoyed working with a teacher, perhaps you would get more out of a program of study and lessons in flute. Then, you can write music on the side with or without lessons.</p>
<p>It is harder to do that with the flute, but I guess you could also study composition and then take flute lessons on the side, practice on the side, and so on. But it seems to make more sense the other way, perhaps because composing is not always daily and can be sporadic, but flute cannot be sporadic.</p>
<p>While it is true that you may write compositions for classes at times, those pieces may not feel like your “real work,” which you may even end up keeping entirely separate from your school work.</p>
<p>Are you doing flute or composition at Brevard?</p>
<p>Many colleges will be happy to see handwritten scores, and, in fact, Oberlin requires it - but I do recommend teaching yourself Sibelius or Finale unless you’re planning to spend a lot of money hiring other students to input your music for you and create the parts. It’s also very useful for playback - especially if you use Finale and Garritan instruments.</p>
<p>And, no, I’m not a composer - just a mother of one. My son just finished his second year at Bard College Conservatory.</p>
<p>Just a question about Brevard. Is this the same Brevard that is in the NC mountains? I’ve seem that name come up several times on CC for music. It is fairly near where I live, is it “famous” for music or something? When we were researching colleges we rulled it out fairly quickly as our brief internet seach didn’t reveal any info that indicated that it was a good match for my son. </p>
<p>But now that I have seen it mentioned so many times on CC, I am wondering if we shouldn’t have ruled it out so soon. Is it like a “famous” college for music, or is it just the pre-college programs that get mentioned so often?</p>
<p>There’s a good summer program at Brevard.</p>
<p>imagep: There is a Brevard College I believe, but I think that most people (including myself) are referring to the Brevard Music Festival that occurs for about 7 weeks during the summer in NC. Great performers go there in the summer: Yo-Yo Ma, JoAnn Falletta, Peter Serkin, Michael Feinstein, etc. :)</p>
<p>In response to your earlier comment: I know a few schools that will let me double-major, but really need to figure it out for the rest of them, and if they frown on auditioning in two areas. If you don’t mind my asking, what school doesn’t allow your son to double major? Congrats on his success story with his reach school-that’s pretty amazing. I completely agree that an attitude/perception changes everything!</p>
<p>SpiritManager: Good to know! I will start learning the programs next year, and best wishes to your son at Bard!</p>
<p>compmom: I love your comments about majoring in flute/composition lessons vs majoring in composition/flute lessons…definitely a lot of truth in that. And I am studying flute at Brevard, but plan on taking composition lessons as well :)</p>
<p>mtpaper: Thanks for the UMich excerpt!</p>
<p>If you choose to hand write the score, it can be scanned into Finale theoretically, but it better be written pretty neatly. </p>
<p>I agree with others, I would hold off on the AP’s, going into music performance I suspect they aren’t going to help you much, and the time you would spend on those classes probably won’t gain you much. At a music conservatory, they probably would do little for you and I am led to believe that even taking AP music theory doesn’t do much in terms of admissions and might not even get you placed out of theory 1 at many schools. You probably won’t even get many credits for the AP classes you take, since in a conservatory environment you generally don’t take a lot of classes those would prepare you for (for example, if you take AP Calc AB or AP Biology or chem, it probably won’t help much, and unless schools have changed they often seem to be loathe to apply AP’s towards core requirements, like English lit or history or whatever). If you go to a place where you dual major, taking AP classes could help place you out of certain academic courses, but I wonder even in that case if it would be worth it, if you are seriously considering performance. I am pretty certain with a conservatory taking AP classes like that won’t help you gain admittance and won 't get you much of anything else, have heard that from admissions people themselves, but if you really want to know, again, as I suggested in another post, ask the admissions people if they thought taking the AP classes would be worth anything (I was at one admissions forum like that, and a woman became indignant when she asked how many credits her son could get for taking all these AP’s at the conservatory in question, and the admissions person said zero). You may want to hold back on the AP’s and concentrate on the audition, your senior year is going to be a tightrope as it is with practicing and auditions, and it seems to me you would be better to focus on the audition, which is the most important piece of getting into a BM program, by far, blow the audition and you could be a 2400 SAT with a gpa of 4 who won the intel science talent search, get into MIT on full scholarship, and have the music school tell you “next”:)</p>
<p>mhnmusique, the University of South Carolina will not allow more than one music disipline major, but they will otherwise allow duel majors, like music and chemistry or history and english. </p>
<p>The reason we asked at the college is because I noticed that if my son utilized his few music electives that he would only have to take something like 6 extra classes (one extra semester) to get not only the music ed degree, but also a music performance degree, then from there I looked at the difference between a performance degree and a comp degree, and all the other BM degrees and discovered that there is really a heck of a lot of overlap between all music degrees. Essentially, if the school would have allowed “double dipping” classes (where one class fulfills the curriculum critera for multiple degrees), it would only take an extra year to get a BM in all 6 music disiplines that the college offers. But the answer was “no multiple music majors”. </p>
<p>That wasn’t a disapointment though as a BM plus a Masters might be more valuable than multiple Bachelors degrees anyway - especially if the grad degree could be completed in about the same amount of time as the extra undergrad degrees.</p>
<p>Something else that I have mentioned in other threads is that some schools have some sort of a performance certificate. It’s not a degree, I don’t think that it quite holds the same status as a real performance degree, it’s basically just a piece of paper that states that the college feels you are as good of a performer as people who recieve performance degrees. It does require extra coursework, mostly in applied performance classes (private instrument lessons), and you do have to audition to be accepted into the program, just like a performance major but it may may a solution to your issue. You could major in comp, and enroll in the peformance certificate program for flute performance.</p>
<p>If you look on CIM’s web site for any of their majors, you’ll see the stats for the number of students in each department and the number of anticipated openings. Their composition department is small and well thought of , but the flute faculty is first-rate. It’s important to find a teacher with whom you want to study and then, if composition is a real possibility for you, check out the orchestral and instrumental facilities so you know what you have to work with. APs can be of real help at some schools since they allow you to use them instead of the required gen eds, but I’d talk to the folks at Interlochen first, as they know the ropes really well and will guide you in the proper direction.</p>
<p>I have a question for musicprnt, or rather about what he said, if it’s okay. </p>
<p>How would one go about wording an email to the admission office to ask for anticipated open spots for students? I wouldn’t want to sound pushy or anything. Would you ask for openings by major or by instrument? Any help feedback would be great. =)</p>
<p>This is just my opinion so take it with a grain of salt. First off, be specific. Every instrument is different, and that’s what matters.</p>
<p>I would say something along the lines of </p>
<p>“XXX program is proving to feel like a real fit for me (if that’s true). I am curious as to how many anticipated spots will be open next year for X instrument so that I can get a better sense of the competitiveness of the admit. Please also share any advice you can to help me strengthen my competitiveness as an applicant. Thank you in advance for your assistance…”</p>
<p>In other words, just ask. I’m a parent, but at every pre-tour, a few years ago, I just asked, and every single department head answered graciously. Other parents on the tour seemed glad that someone asked 
(PS – ask the department head, not admissions, btw. You’ll get the most direct answer that way.)</p>
<p>I think the key is to NOT ask what the “odds” of getting in are, because that implies some kind of assessment; simply to ask for just the facts of how many spots will be available. I also asked “on average, how many applicants do you traditionally audition for x.” </p>
<p>When my son discovered that there were only 4 spots for the area for which he applied, it was an eye-opener for him and helped him shape his backup plans, which were an important aspect of his college planning. It also made his admit very very sweet for him ;)</p>
<p>kmcmom13: Thank you very much for your help in the wording! =) I will for sure contact the department head. Just one question on top of that, do I contact the department head for Music Ed or for Percussion? Thanks for continuing to help me. =)</p>
<p>We actually had two of the schools my son applied for to tell us at the auditions, without asking, how many students they planned to enroll in his studio (3 at one school 10 at the other).</p>
<p>I think kmcmom’s wording is perfectly fine, and I agree, asking the odds of getting admitted is the wrong way to go, but it is perfectly fine to ask how many slots they anticipate having for the year you are applying. </p>
<p>Personally I would start with admissions, unless the people I have spoken to so far are outliers, the ones I have come into contact with are pretty sharp and in the know. Trying to track down the head of a program may be difficult, they are usually busy between teaching and performing and so forth, so it may be difficult to get a response. Make sure to ask if that number represents for undergraduate students, or does it represent for both grad and undergrad (each program is probably different in this regard). I will note it may be different between trying to get into a school of music in a larger university or in a stand alone conservatory, if the admissions people at a large university handle all incoming students, then they may not be as familiar with an individual program, but at a conservatory my experience is the admissions people seem to know their stuff. Most of them also seem eager to help IMO, so if you ask questions they can answer, you will probably do fine.</p>