Thanks @music2023, @sjdorio, and @propinquity4444. I am very happy to have JMU as an in-state option and I know my son will get a great education (and he loves the bass prof).
It was always my son’s #2 choice and he got in fairly early so maybe that’s why it feels anti-climactic. If I need more excitement, well, I suspect he will be doing this again in 2022/23!
Thank you everyone for the kind words! As always I am grateful for your support! xoxo Deb
Haven’t been on here for a while as I’ve been riding the wild run of “lasts” with the rest of you. Just had S school’s jazz and a capella choir concert and it hit hard. Wife and I have been a blubbery mess for all of the last concerts and awards nights. S took home another state-wide “Best Actor” award and it’s been great to see many of his incredible classmates recognized with prestigious music and theater awards too. Really going to miss the talented kids at his school, although thrilled that S will be close to home next year. S still burning with dream of being a performer despite the wild last minute (and very happy) change in his college plans so we may get to enjoy watching him on stage for at least another four years. Congratulations everyone! Enjoy the last summer before college with your kiddos!
How’s everyone doing? Can’t believe my daughter is graduating Sunday! Just thought I’d check in to offer congrats to all the graduates and the amazing parents here! I would love to hear your impressions of the college orientation programs (we don’t attend until Aug. 14 & 15 when we drop her off for move-in.) Are your kids excited, apprehensive, any cold feet or second guessing? My daughter is so excited to attend Loyola New Orleans and, while she is happy to be in summer mode, she can’t wait to start college! She met her roommate at the accepted student overnight so she is set on the dorm arrangement and has joined some social media groups to get to know her classmates. I’m really sad to realize we are at this point (and she will be attending a college 19 hours away by car!) but her enthusiasm and eagerness for the next chapter is helping me through it and I’m really happy she found a perfect college home! Sending hugs to you all-can’t wait to hear updates on your kids now and hopefully throughout the next few years!
Hi all – hope everyone is doing well! My son graduated last Wednesday. He is very happy to leave that chapter behind and cannot wait to get to USC. He went to orientation a week and a half ago and loved it. It was a good mixture of information, logistics (he registered for his classes and has his first semester schedule already), and fun. I do not love that he will be on the other side of the country from us, but it’s hard not to be thrilled for him given how excited he is. He just started a 2 week jazz program at Skidmore this weekend and we will be heading out to LA 5 weeks after he returns from that. I cannot believe how fast this time is going!
Congratulations @lkbux64 son, @AmyIzzy daughter and all the graduates! After all the hurry up and wait, it now seems like things are moving so fast. Here’s to a wonderful summer and very exciting fall!
Congrats to all the recent grads! Much excitement afoot.
My son has finished orientation at UNT. It was a three days, two nights affair, not specific to the music program. We were all surprised at how much he enjoyed it. He does not like loud, rah rah events and crowds and this is a large university. A college student friend had hypothesized that orientation is great if you find friends in the people you are with and miserable otherwise, but does not have much bearing either way on your future university experience. This proved true so far for My son. He enjoyed the people in his group (no other music majors at all) and therefore had a good time. He also met with music advisors and successfully registered for classes (including hour lessons with professors on both cello and voice). Much may change after placement exams in the week before classes start as he will likely test out of class piano and maybe some theory and they don’t have his AP or dual enrollment credits recorded yet. He found out who his voice teacher is (he would not ask before he accepted his admission even with much suggesting that he should) and seems happy to know who it is. Based on reading about this professor, it’s likely a good fit, I hope. 
he successfully advocated for himself in the advising and course registration process which I was happy to hear about.
He’s run into two snags—
One—he found a roommate, they requested each other in the housing system, and then were assigned different roommates! It took a week of emailing and anxiety but the problem was resolved. They had requested the same dorm but the roommate had not requested the music LLC. All fixed now, correct roommate in the correct dorm and both in the LLC.
Two—son has come to reality regarding how hard it’s actually going to be to be in the required choirs for a choral music ed major and also in an orchestra. There’s a minefield of scheduling conflicts to navigate. Auditions are in the first week, so things will be clearer then.
He stayed in a brand new dorm (Joe Greene Hall) for orientation. It wasn’t his style at all (it’s huge and sterile—but no one lives there yet either) but we also finally got to tour Bruce Hall, where he will be living. He and I both loved it. The practice rooms in the basement are really cool. Laundry is free. Seems friendly and social in a good way.
He also loved the food in the dining hall. My other two kids had no affection for the campus dining halls, and my son is inclined to not eat as much as he should, so this is welcome news!
No big plans for the summer. He’s working with his voice teacher, practicing cello on his own, and has restarted piano lessons to brush up and prep for placement/proficiency test. I’m just enjoying the music till he leaves in a few weeks.
Ha-ha, my son is always the contrarian, but he did not have a good time at his orientation for several reasons. He’s a diabetic and his blood sugar kept dropping and dropping the day before, then went high during the night because he over-corrected, then low, and well, you get the picture. So he got no sleep and was exhausted during the process.
He left early and didn’t even get to have private advising so we went over everything last night and this morning and he’s registered for all his classes except private lessons which they’ll add sometime soon (thankfully, those are paid for with his scholarship).
Even though he’s at a state university, because he’s coming in as a junior level transfer student, he’s taking all music classes first semester:
Private lessons
Chamber music
Beginning music theory (2 classes worth 3 units)
Orchestra
Cello Choir
Production
Film music
Instrumental workshop
All those classes and only 12 units! Sure feels like he’s at a conservatory. It’s going to be intense, to say the least!
@sbjdorlo I’m sorry to hear about your son and his diabetes. My husband has type 1 diabetes, so I understand. I’m glad you were able to get his classes scheduled afterwards! I love the Film Music class! If it makes you feel any better, my son was in the process of breaking up with his girlfriend during his orientation trip, so his heart was not fully into appreciating everything.
Ugh, @CaraCoMO, I’m sorry for your son. Not good timing at all. I hope he’ll be ok…
How long has your dh had T1? My son’s had it 10 years.
Yes, I think the film music class will be really fun! He can use it as a music elective but also as a required upper division GE, which is nice.
@Parentof2014grad —
I had forgotten that your son is doing cello and voice as is my daughter! Like your S, she is set up for hour-long lessons in both, which is an extra cost but gives her the music focus I had worried she would miss out on not being at a conservatory. I think those will make all the difference for her!
She is a little disappointed that she cannot be in the top orchestra and the top choral ensemble in later years, but I think she can switch off maybe, although it’s wonderful she’ll have one of each available to her this year.
My D is also working towards testing out of piano, though that is taking a back seat to practicing voice and cello—we’ll see how it goes.
She’s working a part-time job and taking 8 general education credits online (so she can take more music during the year).
And she has a local chamber music festival coming up, where she will be coached and perform with her high school quartet opening for one of the series’ concerts of French music featuring visiting musicians from throughout the Midwest—one of whom is her future cello prof! I can’t wait to hear him and her in a couple weeks.
Summer is slipping by but it is great to contemplate all D will learn in the next few years given her opportunities with the fantastic faculty at Luther. I can’t wait to see how she’ll grow.
Quick question about audition timing for all of you parents who were on this journey last year: I have to schedule some 1-day and 2-day work commitments for myself in advance for fiscal year 2020 (Sep 2019-Aug 2020) but I’m trying to be as available as possible to accompany my D on her college auditions this school year.
Here are my questions:
Do these auditions happen absolutely any day of the week, or are they typically on long weekends involving a Monday or Friday?
What month can I expect them to start (November? December? January?) and when will they likely wrap up – March?
How flexible are schools? If they propose the second week of February, let’s say, could you propose the third week as an alternative?
I don’t expect us to have more than 5-6 audition trips to take, but obviously they will be high stakes trips for D and she will need a parent traveling with her in most, if not all, cases. But these particular work commitments for me are really hard to reschedule (but very necessary to pay for the audition travel!) so I need to avoid conflicts upfront if I can. Even just knowing that Tuesdays-Thursdays might be “safe” for work because auditions tend to bump up against a weekend would be good to know. I need to submit dates today – so any advice is much appreciated!
@khill87 i am also applying to music programs this winter. some of the schools already have posted their audition dates. it may be helpful if you checked each school and then put the dates on a spreadsheet/calendar. jan/feb are the busiest months and most auditions from what i cantle are on weekends.
Thank you! I did not realize some of the dates were already up! Her short list isn’t final yet, but even just knowing they are clustered in Jan/Feb and mostly weekends is very helpful.
@khill87 we made a spreadsheet/calendar of audition weekends (and our other activities) for the schools my son was considering. Almost all the available audition dates were on Saturdays and went from the third weekend in January to the first weekend in March. He had one last audition on a Friday in mid-March over spring break. Even if school’s don’t have this year’s schedule posted yet, there’s a reasonable chance it will be the same weekends as last year. I recall a few posters having an early audition in November. Some school’s will let you set up an audition at another time, one on.my son’s list would do that but there was an additional fee involved.
All of S19’s auditions were Fridays or weekends if that helps! Which schools are on her list?
@khill87 Great questions and awesome that you are being proactive about the crazy audition season ahead. I highly recommend a few early action auditions, preferably with safety schools because that can really offer a confidence boost before some of the tougher ones. Most schools offer at least 3 audition date options which are usually listed on the website ahead of application due dates. There were a few that involved prescreens and asked for a preferred audition date on the application. They will usually honor your first choice. However, don’t expect much advanced notice for travel from some schools. University of Miami Frost notified candidates about prescreen acceptance in early January and some students requested audition dates around January 19th! So it was a scramble for travel accommodations. You may want to book a hotel early for certain auditions (that offer free cancellation) for your preferred date and hope for low airfare prices. If you have a major conflict (top 2 schools offering only the same audition weekend) chances are one of those will be accommodating so it will all work out. There were a few cases of students traveling from one coast to another within a 5 day time frame-so hopefully you can avoid that stress! To give you an idea of approximate audition dates, last year’s Pre-Screen thread might help because you can see actual dates that students auditioned. Looking at the 2018 Pre-Screen thread really helped me form a tentative schedule last year. We did 8 auditions and one portfolio audition and everything was spaced out nicely as follows:
October-1 audition (medium safety) & 1 portfolio (solid safety)
November-2 auditions (solid safeties)
December- 1 audition (reach school)
January- 1 audition (reach school)
February -1 audition (reach school)
March-2 auditions (medium safeties)
My daughter got into all colleges except Miami Frost (and with great scholarships) so the process of spacing out auditions worked well for us.
I agree that one parent should be there for each audition for peace of mind. My husband and I split some duty and we both went to a few together.
Good luck!
Here is the prescreen thread you might find helpful:
http://talk.qa.collegeconfidential.com/music-major/2108045-2019-pre-screen-thread.html#latest
One thing to keep in mind is you might want an extra day at any given location. We flew in a day early for McGill so kid could take a lesson and really decide if he wanted to be in Montreal. Our first set of auditions were the second weekend in January (one Friday, one Saturday). Depending on where you live that can be a factor as well - we are west coast and all of kid’s auditions were Midwest and East…so we needed a full travel day.
I found that at the schools my son auditioned at, there was no flexibility. There were specific days allocated to jazz auditions and that was it. We tried to move one audition up a day (at U Michigan) and were told there was no room on that day, so we stuck with what he was offered, which was less than 24 hours prior to his audition in UCLA the next morning.
On a separate note, the calendar tells me that my son moves into his dorm 6 weeks from today. I am starting to panic. As in heart palpitations and sweaty palms. Ugh.
Mine too! Wow! Proud, excited for him, and sad all at once.