Choosing audition dates?

Even though it is early in the application journey we have started to plot out a “best case scenario” for traveling to schools that my D is auditioning for since most of the 2016 audition dates have been posted. The question is do most schools allow you to request a specific audition date if you pass your prescreen or do they send you an assigned date with no options. It is so financially challenging knowing that the fares go through the roof traveling to and from Florida in the winter without much advance purchase time.

Depends on the school - they may have a single audition date for your daughter’s instrument.

Time is now to map the 4-8 auditions she plans to hopefully get (after passing pre-screen) and see how those pieces of the puzzle fit on the calendar.

In my experience, many schools do allow some leeway in audition dates. And some do allow you to request a date. There are some that don’t allow either (Curtis comes to mind, I think) but the website should make it pretty clear if they don’t allow changes or a requested date. Many do assign a date but our experience was that you could generally change that date if you called. In some cases, there is a fee to change that date. Most schools seem to realize the stress of the season and dates.

Feel free to check with the schools in advance on their policies. You can contact the music dept and ask by email or phone if it’s not on the website. It’s a lot of money so I feel that parents are within their rights to ask these questions. And remember the faculty is not involved in setting/changing dates. So you won’t “hurt your child’s chances” by checking or changing a date. This is the good news.

The bad news is some of the schools are incredibly slow about passing you through pre-screening and sending the initial date. So…even though you can ask for a later date on Jan. 7 (when they finally contact you!) your choice might be Feb. 2 instead of Jan. 20. It may help on your schedule but it may not save you much money. On this point, schools don’t seem concerned.

So…my advice is to remember auditioning is expensive no matter how hard you try! And maybe contact the schools with a basic email (if it’s not on their websites) to inquire on dates to expect a response on the pre-screening results AND an audition date (they may not be the same date). We did finally call one school in early January about the audition date. My D had passed pre-screening in Dec but never received her date, so I finally called. It was two weeks later! So…gather as much information as you can now and have some extra cash ready for audition.

Get on the phone to the schools and find out. We were lucky 2 schools were in state both under 3 hour drives. We were able to choose both dates. The 3rd was Curtis and they set the date. That was a 7 hr trip for the child and my wife and a hotel stay. 4 schools seems reasonable to me and 8 seems excessive. That’s just me though. Good luck.

As my D filled in all the applications, we lined up all the audition dates to make a minimum number of out-of-state trips (we were also traveling from far away). This was our process: “Northwestern? That’s only an hour away (by plane) from Michigan. We’ll plan to do those two auditions on the same weekend!” And that’s what she requested, and that’s how it happened. She got the date she requested in all cases…and then had to change one date and pay a fee. Only one school assigned a date and time and would not change it. In most cases it was negotiable.

I would suggest booking hotels SOON for your preferred dates and canceling them later if you don’t need the reservations after all. The ones with the audition rates and the ones that are within walking distance to the audition often fill up very quickly. I know, it does feel like you are tempting the audition gods to book the hotels before you hear back from the prescreen…but it’s worth it to have that worry removed when the auditions come through. Good luck!

Good suggestion about booking the hotels now, and then canceling later. Always contact the hotels directly, since many will offer a discounted rate, for stays related to schools. We saved a lot by doing this.
Good luck.

Also check out schools near each other that have back to back audition dates. We found that CIM and Oberlin did as well as Rice and CU Boulder.

Auditioning is expensive but pales by comparison to switching schools second year because you chose the wrong school. Spend it now or spend much more later.

Even when your plans are just roughed in, make reservations for rooms right then and cancel or move the dates later. It doesn’t cost anything and it may save your butt.

And don’t forget that some schools offer regional auditions. There has been a lot of discussion on these boards about whether regional auditions put you at a disadvantage. In our case we did one regional audition and we decided our son would only visit the school if he was accepted. This was one way we tried to save money in the process. (although stupidly the visit to the school in the spring ended up being quite expensive…it might have been cheaper to visit the school in winter for the audition).

Also always try to negotiate rates with hotels. Some hotels have last minute deals as well.

Thanks for the advice. I booked several hotels and they were already almost sold out! Let’s hope I didn’t jinx her auditions : )

Don’t worry about the auditions. I even booked a cross country flight before knowing because I was using reward points and they could be canceled. Then only thing she had to do was request a slight change in the audition time due to the flight times. They were very accommodating in making the change.