sbjdorlo——— Your son’s $6900 scholarship from CSU-Fullerton is just amazing! I’ve never heard such amount of scholarships given to music major students (I know only jazz students) from any CSU. It means, they really, really want your son.
Of course, financial part matters a lot, but those musicians have their own gut feeling, what / how to study, who to study with and what to become after 4 years. My son has a very short college list to start with so won’t have many choices in April but if he gets accepted to one or both of his top two choices (leave scholarship matters off side), it would be his lifetime achievement. Even he doesn’t get accepted, we know that he has done his best for his whole entire high school years (plus a 2 years in middle school), so I am ready to celebrate.
All musicians, moms and dads here have done amazing jobs to come this far. We just need to end this audition season with our own satisfactory.
Tripletmama——— My son has been practicing coffee making at home for last two years so he can get a job as a barista anywhere he ends up living / studying. He is still busy traveling for college audition / recordings & performing but as soon as he gets his last audition done, he will find a job at a local cafe since his paid gigs wouldn’t come every weekend. He just needs to start making his non-music resume…
@JeJeJe Just a thought… my sone makes 40/hour teaching guitar and musicianship to kids 8-16. He has 3 regulars so he basically makes 120-160/week. I think that’s something every aspiring musician should look to do (and maybe supplement it with a 15/hr barista gig)? Not sure how much money your kid makes playing gigs, but my son’s band manages 500-600 for the evening, split 5 ways (and expenses for moving equipment around).
@tripletmama I have a question about the dates for SFCM (March 15) and Berklee (March 31), what are these dates for? Are these dates for Acceptance or for financial aid? Our son was awarded 22K for merit for Berklee (he auditioned back in Nov.), we filled out the CSS in early January and we have heard nothing about financial aid yet, and it was never clear to us when we should hear about FA for Berklee. This forum has been so helpful!
@JeJeJe and @dsinha - glad to hear that I’m not the only one that is going to insist that my musician start to make $$. We made an incredible sacrifice for her to live and study in LA - and we are about at the end of our rope. Of course, if it results in large scholarships - it may have been justified - but right now, just feeling a huge pinch. My husband just about fell off his chair when I told him about the bass rental. Does it really matter if the bass is carved or not? I have no idea. She is at MSM for the next few hours practicing to get used to it (she said it’s about an inch to an inch and a half different than the fingerings on her bass at home).
The good news is that she lives in LA so plenty of gig and demo opportunities - she just needs to graduate from high school in June. I want her to cut back on her playing after Sunday and contribute toward her living in LA until she graduates.
The end is in sight indeed! Sunday is our last audition alongside @tripletmama’s D at The New School. Looking forward to meeting her as well as @SpartanDrew’s D. My D will be at MSM all day tomorrow for her weekly Pre-College Jazz classes, so if your girl is around and practicing, tell her to say hi.
And yes @dsinha that’s the way to do it. My D’s band gets about the same rate here for their Yacht Rock tribute band. There are plenty of bars, restaurants who are willing to pay up to hear Steely Dan, Hall & Oates and other 70s classics done by teenagers who actually love playing them. They’ve gotten some great private gigs from those shows as well and those can pay even more. So that’s my advice for musical kids for sure. Way better than delivering pizza.
dsinha——— My son’s case, jazz gigs are about $100-$200 / gig / musician but it comes 0-1 per month, then religous gigs (Classical) are about $300-$350 / musician but 2-3 times a year. He has to promote himself to get private students! Or he just picked up a wrong instrument when he was 9 years old…
@JeJeJe, I love what you said about your son; it really is a lifetime achievement and I can feel the pride over his hard work.
I admit I was pretty shocked at the amount my son was offered by Fullerton. My son didn’t think his audition went well, so maybe doubly surprised.
@akapiratequeen, that’s a good way to summarize what to look for: fit, chemistry, and money. Since this is my son’s second go around at college, we are trying to let him choose wherever he wants to go without regard to money (even though we have fairly low EFC around 8K), but it would be really nice if no one had to take out loans; we don’t want him borrowing so it will be up to us to figure out how to come up with the money.
Our son has sporadically earned money teaching and playing cello since age 13. Currently, he only has one student ($40/hour) since he’s been focused on just trying to get back into school, auditions, and continued mental health care, but I think he’ll ramp up the search for students and gigs once this is all settled.
CaraCoMO——— I have answers for you. Admission decisions from SFCM will come around mid-March (for your son who auditioned in 1st audition week) then, within a week, scholarship / financial offer will come. Please don’t be discouraged by not receiving an email. Especially in music major, there are so many unsure deals until May 1st.
Berklee is very frustrating…I learned from current Berklee students’ parent that Berklee is very inconsistent for merit awards. They basically don’t have a real “financial aid” pool. Scholarships and Grant will come from the one large pool (which Berklee says that they have $30-$40 or $50M to give away but I think that it isn’t a lot money to offer to total 1000+ freshmen plus musicians who decide not to take an offer) and they name whatever in students’ financial portal. So, Berklee maybe considering your son’s $22K including financial aids / grant. Did your son contact Berklee after he received his EA acceptance? Did they get back to him with an Offical Appeal Form? If not, he / you should contact Berklee Students Financial Service Dept and ask about FA before Berklee decide scholarship amounts to large amount of regular decision students (3/31).
As far as Berklee goes, it has been strange. He auditioned in Nov. in Chicago, but he did not apply EA. They told him at the audition that if they had enough early auditions they would let them know early, along with Early Decision applicants. We had not yet filled out the CSS. I can’t remember if we got the acceptance along with the scholarship info before or after we were sent a request to fill out the CSS by January 15th, which we did. Then we didn’t hear anything else. My husband finally called, and they told him we could apply for loans to cover the difference. I’m not sure my husband used all of the right terminology asking questions though. He’s not originally from the US. If you think all of this is hard for people sort of familiar with the system, imagine trying to figure it out if it’s not the system you grew up with, etc. I guess we need to call again. I"m just annoyed they would ask us to fill out a CSS if they had already made their decisions without it.
@CaraCoMo - Yes, I would definitely call Berklee back if he auditioned in Nov. $22k is a good award so it would be useful to know if there is anything else coming for the package. They ask for the CSS so I would assume that they possibly have more than the standard Pell (up to $5k) or sub/unsubsidized federal loans (up to $5.5k).
Does he want to go there? No matter what - any school wants to know if they are your first choice - it really does help! Berklee does not negotiate on packages, however.
Our daughter also sent in recommendations from anyone she could think of. Her admissions officer said that might help. The admissions committee next meeting is on March 10.
@xviiclassofxix
It seems all in-person auditions for CU Boulder must be finished by February 20, so I would think you’d surely hear by the end of March.
Best of luck!
I have another question, but maybe I should ask in the main group.
Does reputation of undergrad school matter for grad school? My son didn’t apply to any big name schools since he has pretty severe anxieties and didn’t want that kind of stress. I’m just wondering if it matters where he goes if he’s planning on getting a master’s with the goal of teaching.
D received email from SUNY Purchase she got into Vocal Performance on Monday. I guess the way she handled the accompanist during her audition was ok. This school then sends acceptances to academic department for admissions but we are not worried about that since she is at top of her school academically. Now waiting on other 4 schools. Going to be a tough decision but so nice to have at least one offer in hand.
I answered xviiclassofxix’s question on another thread, but thought I would post again hear since CU’s process could be confusing. On CU Boulder Music admission timing, at the audition, the Dean said all Music school admission decisions would be out by end of February, with Music scholarship decisions out by end of March. I called the always helpful CU Music admissions director Thursday since I thought it would be this week by mail, and we are about to leave town for a bit. In my call Thursday, the Music admission director made a point of looking up my D “to see where she was in the review process” – so someone else’s timing may vary, but we are right up against the Dean’s deadline that seemed program-wide. She said that my D should expect an email telling her to check her portal Friday for an update. That update will say whether D passed her audition to the point of being admitted to the College of Music, but it would not have any program specific detail and could only mean she was accepted at the BA level. Whether D passed the audition to the point of being admitted to BM or BME level programs and other details would come in a letter being mailed Friday. My daughter was admitted to CU EA and auditioned on the first weekend, but I do not know if that effects her news timing; I would think they make program wide decisions at one time and the Dean’s audition day timing note seemed program-wide. D got a portal update late Friday night that she was accepted to the College of Music, but CU won’t go into the “accepted” column on our board until D gets good news in the explanatory letter since D is BME or bust. I’m glad I had called because I thought the BA level kids stayed in the CU College of Arts and Sciences (where Music applicants already accepted at the CU university level are parked until their auditions are reviewed) and they just took music classes, meaning I would have erroneously taken the “you’ve been accepted to the CU College of Music” as a BME notification. It seems unnecessarily confusing, but I think the College of Music wants to stick with tradition on the hard copy mail out, and I’m guessing CU’s dual admit process means the transfer from College of A&S to College of Music triggers a portal note they they can’t delay.
@MeritHopeful This is great info. It continues to baffle me how different these procedures are from school to school. How would anyone see “accepted” and not assume they’d been accepted to the program they applied for? :::shaking head:::
At any rate, congrats to your D on the first admit and here’s hoping for the second notice very soon!
Well, we made it to Montreal, but not without incident. We were driving up from Potsdam (where S had a great accepted student’s day-more later), and we were stopped at the border. When we told the person that we were going to McGill for an audition, he informed me that McGill does not audition non-citizens. He asked to see a letter from S’s mother since S was (one week) under 18. He then said he would not let us in unless we could prove that we had an audition. There was no cell service. Fortunately, my computer was open to the page with the McGill audition info. He examined it talked to his boss, then called my wife. All in all, it took 1/2 hour or more until they decided to let us in. There was only one person working, so by the time we got through, there were about 30 people (who must have hated me) behind me waiting to get in. In sum, getting into the country took far longer and was more difficult than the audition. Thank heavens this is the last one.
@PAPDAD - I think the gods were conspiring to not let any of us in! Phew glad you and your kid made it! Crazy! And so stressful!
I walked over with S and promptly got the vibe he wanted me to leave so I’m back at our hotel and will wander over later after his audition. There look to be only 3 in-person percussionists so shouldn’t be too long today. No events for parents except a tour which we’ve already done. They have a lovely nice sign up at the music school building wishing students good luck which is a nice touch.
Canadian border agents have been in a labor dispute for a couple of years and are known to deliberately give people a hard time. It is one of their negotiating tactics with the government.