@tripletmama --eeek. Just when you think this process should become easier through familiarity, fate intervenes. Let’s hope your D rebounds soon!
@tripletmama so sorry to hear of your D getting sick. It’s wonderful @SpartanDrew and D can step in to help. This community is wonderful. Hoping she is well soon and doesn’t have to miss another week of school. It’s terrible being sick and even worse when you can’t be in your own bed.
Oh no, @tripletmama - poor D. What would we do without this awesome community! Thanks to @SpartanDrew’s D for jumping in and helping out. Hope she feels better soon! (and gives back the dreaded bass)
We are home from Montreal. The travel gods must have felt truly sorry for putting us through hell getting there - we not only arrived early (!) but both S and I got upgraded…1st class! Sweet.
S’s audition went great. He had a really good lesson the day before with the head of the department and was quite confident going into the audition yesterday. Sorry we never had a chance to run into @PAPDAD while we were there. We did eat quite well (anyone heading up there, PM me for some awesome restaurant recommendations) and managed to not freeze.
Right after S finished up, while I was chatting with the proctor/ambassador/second year student, the head walked by, figured I was S’s mom and mentioned to me that S was a ‘talented young man’. S was thrilled to hear that. It probably also helped that the proctor (who had spent a bunch of time with S) was impressed by S’ repertoire and even mentioned it to the head.
So we are officially done. Or as I like to say “The Audition Chronicles: The Final Chapter” is now complete. We now wait and wait and wait…
@Lendlees great news — sounds like S nailed it!! Exciting. It’s a wonderful place.
@tripletmama and @SpartanDrew — please update when you can. Hope D is feeling better!
Just got a note from @DrummerDad18 with some great pics of D and his D! Sounds like his D nailed her audition as I knew she would. My D texted me saying how cool they are and how happy she was to meet them. To all of you winding down your auditions CONGRATULATIONS!!! I remember that feeling well! Now the wait…March Madness the April Angst. Hopefully you all get the perfect offers right off the bat and decisions will be made unlike us who were right up until May 1 before we pulled the trigger. That was a crazy time…
Just wrapped our last audition today at The New School. Process was easy and smooth. Since we picked our own time slot, the whole thing is 45 Minutes end to end. You get there 30 minutes early, and they give you a practice room and then move you over when it’s time.
Audition is by the book as described on their site. No surprises. D said it went great.
And we had a nice long chat with @SpartanDrew very lovely and talented D. She gave my D a great overview of the scene, answered some questions and offered to give us a detailed tour when we come back (many buildings are closed on Sunday). It’s clear she loves where she is and it’s nice to see that this lengthy process is worth it when you end up with a happy kid at the school that fits them just right.
Nice short easy visit (we live right outside NYC) and now my wife and D are raiding a cool vintage clothing store that is around the corner from the school. Then we head up town for celebratory margaritas and begin the waiting game with the rest of you! Thanks again to all of you who have helped make this process easier and less mysterious.
akapiratequeen——— Thank you for your post. I have read some other posts about this topic in CC. But this makes sense the most. I would add one thing…For those “Jazz Brains”, playing in the right setting / peers is very important. It may be more important than big name private instructors who give a 45 or 50-minute lesson per week. Being a big fish in decent ensembles (in small pond) may slow their growth in prime time of jazz musicians / jazz brains that to be developed in general. More “soloist-type” or “child-prodigy-type” instrumentalists may decide on school based on private instructors and / or performance opportunities. And some instrumentalists / voices may develope in later in their age by nature. A big name school wouldn’t matter much for many musicians except gaining a confidence unless families can pay $70K x 4 years.
sbjdorlo——— I would ask schools if they have information, such as 4-year graduation rate / “going to grad school right after BM” rate / grad school lists, etc. I am very curious. My son didn’t apply to any of our state universities because any good state universities for jazz studies would require a major dorm cost to us. And as we are very aware, our state universities have 26% of 4-year graduation rate due to all (or most) being very impacted. My son who isn’t motivated beside of music would end up spending more than 4 years or wouldn’t complete his BM. Getting BM in 4 years is a big factor for us, not only financially, as a musician to start his real professional career early in his age.
@Lendless - what a way to end your audition journey!!! Sounds like it could not have gone better! Anxious to hear the outcome. Is it his top choice (putting offers to one side?). I understand if you don’t want to say - given that this is a public forum.
@UniversityMomOf2 - I cannot believe the amazing support that you all, and previous year parents give. I feel very blessed to have found this forum.
So - I booked my daughter into an inexpensive-ish hotel a block away from the New School. She has been sleeping on a mattress on her brother’s dorm floor and he apparently isn’t taking very good care of her. She is at the hotel now and sleeping. I re-scheduled her audition for the next available time slot which isn’t until next Saturday at 12:30pm - hoping that something opens up sooner this week. @SpartanDrew has pointed out this is the end of the audition trail and many start to drop out so hopefully that happens.
I’m trying to find the silver lining in this. I hope that after she feels better and while she waits to audition that she can get to know the neighborhood and the school better. Ask to sit in on classes, go to @SpartanDrew’s daughter’s concert, stalk Linda Oh and get a practice lesson. Things that she didn’t have time for with the fly in - fly out scenario. Heck - she might even get some homework done 
(yeah, I know, wishful thinking).
Crossing fingers that an audition slot opens up on Wed. Thanks for all your kind thoughts and support. And congrats to all of you who are done today! =D>
@JeJeJe, that makes a lot of sense, particularly with jazz and with your kiddo being a freshman.
My son’s a transfer student with a very unconventional background. He’s old enough that he should be graduating this year but he’s got probably 3 more years of mostly music classes since he has apx. 55-60 GE credits done.
My son will be a bigger fish, it appears, but his main goal seems to be to be challenged and become a better cellist as well as have the opportunity to play the hardest cello pieces, if possible.
If we can minimize debt, that would be good. Frankly, if my kid can actually manage to make it back to a 4 year school and graduate, that would be an absolutely monumental achievement for him. Mental health issues make small accomplishments seem huge.
@tripletmama, You are an inspiration. I follow your posts with zeal. When is your book coming out? How you made space for each of them to follow their passions… most parents can’t even manage that with one kid!
In very anti-climatic fashion, S is done with his auditions. He has decided to drop his last audition scheduled for Tuesday. So, his New School audition that took place a week ago today was his last. Good look to everyone and fingers crossed that good news starts to come in soon!
S got his in-state flagship acceptance to his chosen major. He’s happy about that. He also got accepted to the LAC of a college he didn’t pass pre-screens at ?. He got a fabulous financial package from a schoo, he’s never seen. I said he needs to visit like it or not. He also decided a top 3 school with excellent financials is no longer an option. Won’t give a reason why ?. My how thngs change overnight.
sbjdorlo——— Thank you for sharing your son’s situation. Please believe me, I do know many music students who is (has been) struggling mentally. Much more common issues for musicians because studying music is very, very hard and they are studying for lifetime! I ask my son every time after he had a college / town tour and a live audition, if he can visualize that he would grow musically and to a good healthy-minded citizen in the particular environment. A price tag of schools is the second concern even though it is very scary at this moment.
@JeJeJe I really like how you put that - can you visualize yourself growing both as a musician and as a citizen. I will put that question to my D when are deciding about schools.
Also wanted to commend all the folks that helped out @tripletmama D. Really an incredible saga and, frankly quite inspirational. I hope she starts to feel better soon. There are worse places to be than NYC for a week on your expense account! LOL.
Congratulations on completing the grand tour of auditions @DrummerDad18 . Best of luck to your talented D! I’m sure she will end up somewhere great.
Really great to read these stories as we think about to the journey for D next year! Question: How hard of a time do schools give you for all of these audition-related absences? D’s public school allows two excused absences for college visits in any academic year, and only five parent-excused absences per semester, but it sounds like your kids are missing much more in some cases. Has there been push-back? (In our state, kids lose their drivers’ licenses when they get to 10 unexcused absences in a school year).
khill87——— My son goes to a very traditional and pretty academic-orientated public high school which doesn’t have many of music path students (maybe just 1 or 2 music path student per 300 seniors). Also, he is an “inter-district” student. It means that he has more strict rules on attendance than “district residency” students. His school doesn’t allow long-term “Independent study” agreements which I am sure many public school districts allow some students to do school work without attending school. He was allowed maximum two calendar weeks, means 10 days for “independent study” per a semester and his school / teachers actually preferred to agree on 10 consecutive “Independent study” days than my son to be absent in a few days there and a few days in next week or another. He had a history of being absent in 11th grade Spring semester for music activities. Schools / teachers weren’t very helpful or we didn’t communicate well so he ended up working really hard to catch up all missing days of work until very last day of school (he wasn’t given all extensions so he ended up receiving an undesireable grade). So, we basically agreed with him not to take any “extra” academic classes this year for less homework.
Before your daughter’s senior year starts, you / your daughter should make a master calendar of all music events, school events, academic events and possible college audition weeks (assuming your daughter has her “almost” final college list) then start working with a school counselor. If your daughter is allowed to do a semester-long “Independent study”, that would be the simplest solution so you can schedule many live auditions / traveling between January to March. My son purposely chose very limited numbers of targeted schools but make sure to be ready for every single audition by arriving at a college location at least two full-days before his audition. He also applied and auditioned at one school with Early Action in Fall semester to get it done.
We are finally done with all the auditions. We had total of 7 auditions, only 2 schools were from our State and rest of 5 were out of State. My S’s last audition was at JSoM of IU. The school was huge but there were enough student ambassadors who were very friendly and helpful. We had no problem finding a practice room before the audition. There were total of 3 cello faculties at the audition in a very formal settings and they were video taping the audition because one faculty was absent due to his concert. The audition took 10 minutes. My S wasn’t satisfied with this audition because he thought he made small mistakes due to lack of concentration. He was definitely getting tired from long trips and multiple auditions towards the end. Nonetheless, I am happy to finish our race without having any major troubles and therefore, we are very thankful. He has been admitted to one of State U (academically first and then to music department) and academically to IU and Mercer U in January with Scholarships but have not heard back from music schools yet. Hope to hear, if not all, some good news soon. Congratulations to everybody who have finished their race and wish all the best results to all families and students. Others who still have couple more auditions to go through, I will pray for them to finish their last missions healthy and strong.
We are now officially finished.
The McGill audition was the most strait forward yet. We arrived at 1 and were led to the practice room. At 2:30 she was escorted in (15 minutes late). She played parts of all 4 of her pieces and did what S described as a very hard sight reading (if S finds sight reading hard it must be REALLY hard). That was it. No talks of concerts.
No problems getting back in to US. It took about 10 seconds. It did snow/sleet and rain for the whole 11 hour trip.
On the Ithaca front, things are going from bad to worse. As you may recall, they told us last Monday that the director of admissions would call us to explain who you could fail a 2 question (why do you want to be a music educator/what kind of music do you like) interview. He never called. I called and reminded them-they never called. I sent an email-they never responded. He school counselor called-they never responded. Not good.
On the other hand, S had a great time at his accepted student’s day at Crane. He attended 6 classes, had 2 lessons and went to a concert. He really enjoyed the classes and really felt welcome. They do a great job and the music dean has been a dream to work with.
Congrats to everyone who is finished.
Congrats @PAPDAD S! Crane sounds great. When do you hear from McGill?