@mperrine NEC is a really fun audition. The whole city rallies around the young musicians, the taxi drivers, the hotel staff… they really make a big show of support. You’ll enjoy it. FYI: They will only give you a “warm-up room,” so if your daughter wants a longer practice session, make friends with the hotel staff and ask for a meeting room.
@Pikachu’s Mom
My D gave up great offers (8 schools) to stay close to home and it was a very last minute decision that included a May 1 deposit that was later forfeited and a June audition and decision. It caused some distress for our entire family to say the least, BUT nearly 3 years later I can say…
- I have no doubt it would have been much more difficult on all of us to have sent her somewhere across the country that made her miserable just to end up bringing her back home.
- it has worked out great, she is tremendously happy and has no regrets.
- I have no reason to believe she couldn’t get into a great school for her master’s if that what she wanted.
- I got to see her perform about 50 times last year.
- We saved a ton of money!
Let your D lead the way. It’s her journey.
Good luck!
So - I go visit airfields in North Dakota and Utah and miss all the fun here! :)) (college tours for aviation daughter).
@akapiratequeen - I seriously did a happy dance here for you in CA. Everything else will be icing on the cake! Congrats!!!
@lkbux64 - LOVE Emory! Spent the month of Sept. on their campus. Such smart kids and if your son gets sick, great hospital. 
@new2music - would love to hear about the grad school process - and welcome back!
And good luck to everyone at Peabody and Vandy.
Our daughter is driving from LA to SF right now for her SFCM - Roots/Jazz audition this weekend. My hubby and her sister met her halfway to bring her here. Not sure why she had to leave on a Thursday and not Friday - except that academic school is last on her list right now. She will have to do some serious catch up to graduate! The two “stray” cats that she claimed to have found on the side of the road will be happy to see her (named Mingus and Miles). Turns out that was all a fib to bring kittens home that are now ours to take care of.
This will be the only audition that my hubby and I get to go to (they have a parents meeting and we live just over the Golden Gate Bridge). It’s a relatively new program - and I suspect that our daughter will be pleasantly surprised.since she doesn’t know much about it. I like their audition format (they set up ensembles and let the musicians call tunes) which normally would be her sweet spot but she has been playing the same 3 tunes over and over again for the last month for her other auditions so needs to revisit her jazz rep. Hopefully that won’t be too difficult and overwhelming in two days.
I’m looking forward to being part of the process for one audition at least. So - she has 2 down and 2 more to go. Halfway through! Jealous of those that are done! But not looking forward to the wait. NEC emailed to say to expect results the end of March (as I recall).
It’s been a bit different since our other daughter already has all her acceptances and is now in decision-making mode. Not sure which is more stressful - but it has definitely been a challenge with two going on at the same time.
First official acceptance (other than state flagship) at University of Michigan today! Yay! However, financial aid/scholarship info comes later, so we are still waiting! Boo!
Congrats @PercussionMama! What great news! And welcome back @tripletmama ! Good luck to your D!
@dbandmom Thank you for sharing this. It is helpful to hear different experiences.
@PercussionMama Congrats on Michigan! S had a lesson with a faculty member in December and the professor went out of his way to emphasize that merit money may come out as late as mid-April and not to feel too pressured by other schools to commit. Fingers crossed you’re in the running for some big $.
@mperrine Good luck at NEC and safe travels. W tells me that massive amounts of rain are expected Friday night and that flash flood warnings are being posted. Be safe!
Thank you @dbandmom! After posting the comment earlier this week, I felt better and also trust that my D will find her way. I actually cherish whenever she has strong opinions because she is a marvel to me and makes me see the world in new ways—that’s what is so great about kids…
@CaraCoMO—
Thank you for your comment and your story about your and your son’s takes on the perfect college environment. He sounds like he knows his mind! I know my D has found great teachers (at several schools) and that has been hugely important to her in the past, so I know she’ll have the resources she needs to focus on her musical development, wherever she chooses to go.
I have a question about studio placement and hope I can get some answers from veteran parents. I just found out that my son didn’t put studio preference for his Michigan application but he did put studio preference for Austin. Since he was accepted by both schools and the professor at Austin asked him to meet with him in his office after the audition. We didn’t go to the live audition at Michigan because of the weather. He received official acceptance letters from both of the schools and only Austin indicated that he would be in the professor’s studio. I’ve been waiting for a similar letter from Michigan for quite a while and then emailed the professor that I’ve been in contact with since last year and found out.
My question is, would the amount of scholarship money be any difference for different studios? I emailed both of the professors last year and one of them emailed me back so I’ve been in contact with him since then. He’s professor and the other teacher is assistant.
Congrats @PercussionMama! And good luck to all the auditioning kids this weekend! The season is definitely winding down, but the nail biting is ramping up!
Tripletmama———Your daughter’s 120 repertoire should be great for a SFCM group jam sesssion audition format. However, you may want to inform her that my son needed to play vocalist’s repertoire (not his 8 listed repertoire in his application) in vacalist’s key (means not standard key). Good luck!!!
Congrats @PercussionMama! So wonderful! I love signing on to CC and seeing “our” kids’ successes!
Everyone, Don’t forget to message @“Mezzo’s Mama” with all your great admits! I rely on last year’s acceptance thread to know when to expect decisions, and so far it’s been spot on.
Maybe we should add a “financial package” thread for all the future nail biting parents…I honestly don’t know how past year’s crew made it to the end of April from here. Talk about hurry up and wait! Here at Chez Pirate, S seems to be ignoring the whole thing, but I’ve gone straight from relief and happiness at his big admit to just wanting it to be OVER. I know hitting “accept” is not prudent or wise at this point — he won’t even hear from the other four places he auditioned until mid- to late March, with financial packages even later — and after all that work, he needs to see all the results to make his best decision. But it’s driving me nuts!
@pdxtigermom - With the caveat that even “veteran” parents have been though this process once, maybe twice, from the outside, I’ll take a crack at a common-sense answer to your question. This is pure speculation that comports with my limited experience.
It must be that how many overall discounts (scholarships) can be awarded in aggregate to the entire pool of admitted students (while still keeping the lights on) is coordinated centrally across an entire music school. If you accept that premise (I don’t really see how it could be otherwise), then your question becomes “do certain professors have more political pull within the institution than others to get discounts for the students they want in their studios?”
My common sense says, sure that’s possible, maybe even probable, but if I were in charge of that process in my music school I’d prefer to have those questions decided by committee, or by administrators, in the interest of maintaining collegial harmony across my entire faculty. In any event, even a “veteran” parent can’t really answer that question definitively, you’d need a veteran music faculty person or college administrator, and it likely varies institution to institution.
I think the best way to demystify the financial aspect for a parent is to imagine the shoe is on the other foot and you’re in charge of a music school, and you need to keep it both full of qualified students and financially solvent, rather than viewing it through a highly charged lens of “what dollar value are they putting on my precious brilliant offspring?”
Well, that was more of an answer than you bargained for, huh?
Signed, parent of two precious brilliant offspring.
@NYCMusicDad and @pdxtigermom: A close relative is a professor at a music school (to be kept anonymous here), so I know the answer for that school at least. Others may be similar, but there’s no telling.
This school starts the audition season with a pool of scholarship money to be awarded for each division, based on where they know there are holes to fill. “Division” in this case might be an instrument, or it might be a department like Jazz or Music Ed or something new they are starting to build.
After all auditions are complete (this school doesn’t offer ED), each department head puts together a list in order of priority for who they want. They then meet with the head of music admissions/financial aid and negotiate the offers. So Professor X might want to offer four kids the highest scholarship level, but admissions might limit that to one or two. Again, this is based on a centralized pool but is somewhat flexible. Money that is left on the table, if any, is used to address appeals in mid to late April.
Extrapolating from this process, while an eminent studio head might have strong feelings about who s/he wants to admit, it’s unlikely that they will be able to get more money – except, maybe, for a once-in-a-lifetime genius that the professor is ready to go to the mats for. But I’m just guessing here.
@pdxtigermom I do not think a lack of current studio placement at Michigan will affect scholarships that may still be awarded. He did not apply to Michigan, but in general my S18’s music scholarships all came well before he figured out studio placement. Some schools will not even assign studio placement until August, whereas others will let you know soon as professors reach out to your child. The important thing is to respond promptly as professors contact y’all, and if there is a particular professor your child wants to study with or she may not attend that school, then she needs to reach out and see if that studio is a possibility.
Congrats to you all as auditions wind down. There is now a long period of angst as you await decisions, both admits and financial. Now is the time for your child to put the long audition process behind them, reconnect with their family, friends and even textbooks, and enjoy the close of their senior year of HS. Here’s hoping for an avalanche of good news over the next 2 months for all!
One has to wonder why some
schools notify within one week of the last audition day on that instrument, and some
take longer, even 6-7 weeks. Do some of the tippy top programs talk to each other, like, would some teachers wait for the Curtis decisions before making their pick? Do some
teachers try to get a firm commitment from some
students before making their pick? I would love to get ahold of an invisibility cloak and sit in on some of these meetings!
Congratulations to all those with good news this week! It’s nice to hear of acceptances, especially to favorites!
My son has heard from a couple of schools also-two voice acceptances in two days. No word yet on cello, which isn’t a surprise. Both schools have one more audition date upcoming, and he hasn’t yet auditioned on cello at one of them. Scholarship info comes later, according to both schools.
Son seemed almost too busy with other things, including fighting off a cold, to be all that excited. If he’s going to get sick, now is the closest thing to a good time, as he has a bit of a lull. But he’s starting to struggle to keep up with everything.
@Pikachu’s Mom, I think we’ve all wondered how our kids will do with the choices they are making now. There’s so many paths and we want them to find joy. I stayed home for college. Literally home, and commuted. Part of the reason was a boyfriend, who has now been my husband for more than 25 years. We moved across the country twice in our first four years of marriage. Our daughters both went far away to colleges, and made their first travels abroad much sooner than we did, but there’s no right or wrong way to do things in that regard, just different. Hopefully, your daughter will make good decisions for her, and also make the best of those decisions, with your love and support to carry her along.
Best wishes to all those auditioning this weekend, and to all of us waiting and waiting and waiting to hear.
Thanks all for the answers. Now I’m in peace. I never really asked my son why he did differently on the two schools. Maybe he heard me and his teacher talked about the professor at Austin-they were classmates and studied with same professor when in college. He’s not mature as he should be and he concerns more about whether or not the schools allow him to also study computer science.
I imagine that the professor had a large studio with a lot of good players whilst the assistant professor had a relatively smaller studio. The professor had higher expectations for his students and the assistant professor was such a nice person and would not give her students a hard time if they didn’t meet her expectations. My son would have a much easier life as a dual-degree student. Of course those are all in my imagination.