First of all, I’m really enjoying reading all the advice, ups and downs, changing paths, and honest feedback about each journey and appreciate some of the experienced CC folks stepping in to offer help. What a great parent community I’ve found! Thanks to all of you!
I needed some time to decompress after our crazy weekend, so apologies for the delay, but here is my lengthy report on Saturday’s Loyola New Orleans audition.
We experienced quite the travel nightmare which put our visit plans in jeopardy. The original plan was an ambitious-and risky-one, but we scheduled a Friday night flight from Buffalo to New Orleans with a brief layover in Charlotte. Planned on late arrival to New Orleans Friday night then Open House and audition at Loyola from 8:30am-2pm with return to Buffalo that evening. Originally wanted to do a nice long, relaxing holiday weekend of Thursday-Monday but had several conflicts so the “short and sweet” (and turns out extra stressful) visit was the only option.
When we got onto the Buffalo flight, things started to go wrong. We were stuck on the plane for nearly 2 hours before we even took off due to a mechanical problem. This caused us to miss our connecting flight and the soonest they could get us to New Orleans was 11am Saturday. The airline put us up in a hotel but we went to bed at 2:30am and had to be up by 7:30am, so we were pretty exhausted and not ideal conditions at all for my daughter prepping for a vocal audition. We connected with Loyola during the delay and when we knew the less-than-ideal resolution and they could not have been more understanding and accommodating. That definitely helped to reduce the stress for my daughter. Needless to say, we missed the Open House and had to head straight to the audition with no down time (vocal warm ups took place in the cab-our driver probably thought we were nuts.) She ended up being their last audition. They greeted her warmly and talked to her for a bit which relaxed her. From my vantage point outside the audition room, everything sounded like it was going very well. She performed an original and a theatre song (“Breathe” which was ironic given what we’d just gone through!) They asked her many questions about her songwriting and interest in the Commercial/Popular Music Program, had her work on some scales and take a music theory test (both of which she reported were pretty easy) and it was done. I spoke with some of the department heads afterwards to apologize for our delay and thank them for being so accommodating and they were very nice and offered many positive comments about my daughter, hinting that they’d love to have her at Loyola. My daughter and I sure appreciated the warm fuzzies after our travel ordeal.
We had a very positive impression of the music faculty (who were so welcoming and helpful) but couldn’t really get a total vibe of the campus without a tour or open house activities. However, we were able to speak to a Freshman student (a connection through CC actually) who chatted with us for about an hour and answered a ton of questions about life at Loyola-which was wonderful and extremely helpful.
After the travel headache (more like a migraine) perhaps I soured on my daughter going to a school so far away (18 hrs by car and no direct flights) and she seemed a bit leery too. However, she did have a great audition experience and loves the Commercial/Pop Music Program they offer. So we are keeping an open mind and would consider scheduling a longer campus visit if she is accepted and it ends up being in her top 3 when all auditions are complete. So thankful I had off from work and she had off from school today. We really needed a recovery day!
So the moral of the story is: leave plenty of time for delays when scheduling travel and flights for auditions. In retrospect, I probably should have just planned the audition for a better weekend where we had more time to ensure an early arrival. Luckily, everything still worked out for a successful audition, but boy was it stressful!
We visited one small (WMU - Punta Gorda), one medium (FIT) and one large (Embry-Riddle) - the equivalent of a conservatory (only aviation) and two general colleges. Hoping to get some acceptances soon (and then of course, the wait for the packages which I hear will feel like forever and a day).
. Here’s his article that might be helpful to your kids: