Came here to vent for those that understand. Our daughter lives in LA and we live in SF. She is very focused on practicing for her pre-screen audition videos on Sunday - so much so that she told me that she feels like she can’t come home for Thanksgiving I tried not to scream as I know she is focused and stressed - but it just seems nuts to me. Her shoulder has been acting up from her hours of practice (she tends to overdo practice) so she feels like she just needs to focus all her time on practicing.
I have her booked on an 8pm bus today and then a flight on Friday at 6pm - so she really will only be missing all day Thursday (Thanksgiving) and part of Friday.
I keep telling her that pre-screens aren’t the end all be all and that she should worry more about the live auditions in Jan/Feb. Is that true? Do some musicians not make it past pre-screens? I don’t really have much info on how she stacks up compared to other musicians except she did get a full-ride to the Berklee Summer program this past summer - so one data point. What % of the musicians make it through pre-screens? (she’s applying at Berklee, NEC, MSM, the New School, Cal Arts and SF). Do pre-screen videos have any impact on their admittance or scholarships?
I would hold your ground on this one @tripletmama. It’s hard to convince our serious musicians to take a break from time to time or that there are other priorities like family time and rest, but try to reassure her that the prescreens will come together and one day away from intense practice won’t impact her efforts. Your daughter is extremely talented so I don’t think she needs to worry about passing prescreens. For most colleges, they just want to be sure the foundations and potential are there in her playing to justify offering an audition. Obviously, they look at grades and recommendations too and this could play into decisions. I have heard of some mediocre musicians not passing prescreens but these were at top music schools. I suppose there may have been strong musicians not passing for academic reasons, but I have personally not heard about any and actually hear more of the opposite-making exceptions on academic standards for really talented students. With her so far away and you not seeing her much to begin with, missing out on Thanksgiving with the family is NOT an option in my opinion. Be firm and just keep reassuring her. With her shoulder issues, a day of rest might be a positive. Let us know how the convincing goes! Have a wonderful Thanksgiving!
My daughter received her acceptance letter from Loyola New Orleans with a generous scholarship package (about 60% tuition) and received a phone call from the College of Saint Rose yesterday congratulating her on being accepted and letting her know the letter with scholarship details would be arriving soon (not sure if they do this through email or the regular mail.) Saint Rose gets bonus points for a personal touch. A voice professor from Saint Rose sent an email to my daughter after the audition with very kind words and that personal phone call went a long way. In both cases, much faster decisions than we expected! With 3 acceptances under the belt and her winning Honorable Mention in Popular Voice for YoungArts, we have ALOT to be thankful for this year. She actually thanked me for pushing the early action auditions (and I thank the people here on CC who gave me such great info about EA and schools that would fit her major best) and is feeling an early boost of confidence as she preps for some tougher ones like Berklee and Miami Frost.
Wow, such good news!! Thanks for sharing @AmyIzzy. You must all be so relieved and happy. It’s inspiring! Hope the coming months are filled with happy news for all our music kids. They work so hard and bring so much talent and joy to the world—today I am thankful for all of them.
Thank you @akapiratequeen! I agree that we should be so thankful for our music kids. Music can touch lives and change the world in amazing ways and we are the parents of kids who dared to dream a little and take the unconventional path. This can be a challenge in many ways, especially as we approach this college chapter, but here we are cheering them on and encouraging the drive, creativity and passions they have. That makes us pretty cool parents (not that we will get our kids to admit that! Lol)
I’m feeling a bit more sentimental today anticipating a huge year of change ahead (with no clear idea of where my daughter will be a year from now) but knowing I have to cherish every moment in the coming months. I guess I’m prepping myself for the bittersweet reality of being proud that I raised an independent young woman ready to fly solo but knowing I have to reluctantly let go of her hand soon (at least a little.)
I have so many friends who tell me their children want to go to a local college and don’t want to leave home and they are trying to push them out the door. I just can’t relate. I wish I could keep her here another 4 years but she’s had her bags packed since she was 10! Lol. I know she’ll be fine wherever she goes, but just can’t believe we are at this stage already! Where did the time go? I think it helps I’ll still have my 13 year old son home for at least another 4 years but I will sure look forward to those holiday and college break moments when she can visit! Oh boy, I’m really getting ahead of myself, aren’t I? Forgive my sappy sentiments! Enjoy some delicious food, friends & family!
Happy Thanksgiving to all! This is such a transitional year for those of us with seniors. I hope everyone enjoys it.
And congratulations to the YoungArts winners too!
We visited Saint Olaf recently and I’m no longer super thrilled about that as an option for a number of reasons for my kid. It was literally the least upbeat and welcoming music related college visit we’ve done. But my kid disagrees with me so we’ll see how audition season plays out. The reasons are mostly VP specific to my kid and people are welcome to PM me if they want about that! I actually really like Olaf as a community and school and we are definitely not Norwegian or Lutheran! Every other school kid applied to would be considered secular.
@AmyIzzy - congrats on the acceptances and scholarship info already (wow!)!!! She must have blown their socks off. Such a confidence booster going into the other auditions! Congrats and Happy Thanksgiving.
And yes, our daughter is here for Thanksgiving (she did get on the Megabus and got in at 4am). I found a music store that is open on Thanksgiving (can you even believe it?) to get her a bass. But she is talking about getting on a bus tomorrow am to go back and practice which makes no sense since she is booked on a flight that will get her there around the same time. I guess I just will never understand her neurotic brain. I did tell her that I won’t pay for any other form of transportation at this point. She’s on her own. Off to prepare Thanksgiving dinner. I guess I should cherish these neurotic moments as next year she might not be able to come home. Our ballet boy is in NYC and spending Thanksgiving with a ballet friend’s family Glad he isn’t alone but I wish he was here with us. Ditto with our eldest who is in SC. College on various coasts really changes the dynamics.
Oh my goodness @akapiratequeen that ad made me ugly cry! My music kid applying to schools now started piano as a preschooler on an old upright inherited from his great grandmother. She was actually a piano and an organ teacher and played at church. We still have it and I’m about to invest more money in fixing it up. I am so glad we kept a good collection of his recital videos.
I can’t even tell you what that ad is for! LOL. Thank you for sharing!
Prescreens and all applications submitted! Seven in all. There were a lot of niggling extra essays (and charges).
The prescreens were a mess. S walked into the studio last night–sound person was there, band was ready, and the guy said,“So, who’s shooting the videotape?”
Uhhhh… We had assumed it was a single file, but in fact, sound guy only did the audio and we needed to combine with video in a program like imovie. Luckily, I had a new iphone and we balanced it on a music stand on top of a desk, and I perched on the desk chair and ran the camera. Quality was surprisingly good. But then today we realized we didn’t know how to use imovie, and one of the files was corrupted, and long story short it’s been about 14 hours and we just hit the button on the last upload.
I was ranting by the time we got to the last one. But my son looked and me and said, “Congratulations! That’s the last college application you will ever do in your life.” (He’s the youngest.) And I was like Noooo! My babbbyyy!
I swear, sometimes I think I’ve gone round the bend. On to auditions.
Our prescreen recordings went pretty well, although I did have to learn Adobe Premiere on my mom’s PC on the fly because my mac’s iMovie wasn’t working right then. That was fun. And S needed A LOT of takes to get through one of the pieces. But those got done in October. You have no idea how glad I am that they were done early.
The applications though—he’s submitted three of four school applications (accepted already to all three) but only two music applications. One deadline is this weekend. It’s all complicated by him being determined to apply on two instruments. Some of the schools want two applications to the music school, some just one. I’m really hoping it all comes together by Saturday! It looks like auditions will be late Jan to late Feb, in between regionals, all state, solo and ensemble festival, a chamber music festival with his choir, spring musical auditions and rehearsals, and who knows what else. I’ll just be thankful he’s not applying to more schools, and hope the auditions go very well where he has applied!
Fingers crossed @Parentof2014grad ! You are right – it would have been a LOT better to get the prescreens done early. But S didn’t feel ready, and he wanted to learn some harder pieces, so we focused on the applications early instead. The deal was, he had to do all the supplemental stuff and have everything ready to go except the prescreens, then add those at the last minute. It worked out in the end, but I was definitely questioning our choices yesterday!
To make myself feel better, I just went and looked at @“Mezzo’sMama” 's great acceptance thread from last year: http://talk.qa.collegeconfidential.com/music-major/2044346-acceptance-thread-for-undergrad-class-of-22-grad-class-of-20-p1.html Lots of amazing admits, really impressive. I was surprised to see how early many of the acceptances came in–by December for early action in many cases, Feb. or March for regular! S has his first audition this Saturday (Berklee EA) and if history is a predictor, it looks like he may have an answer by the end of the year. That is both great and terrifying. Wonder if financial offers come in at the same time?
We had a terrible time with prescreens too @akapiratequeen . We were trying to be done by Nov 1 - there were a couple EA apps due by then. Long story short, kid did his first take 1 week before Nov 1, got home to download and had NO audio. We rented a space and had a paid pianist and paid the voice teacher to come. We had to reschedule under duress in days. We could only get an early morning time. I am less than thrilled with the quality. 9 am is not a great time of day for a singer! It is what it is though and the teacher thought they were good enough for our purposes. Sigh. Still irritated.
Kid is finishing up one app that is due Dec 1. That’s an academic app - the music side of that option is already done. He’s got a few more essays to get done by Dec 15, and then a couple more for Jan 1. And he just got a scholarship application that requires an essay. Sigh. I think he has something we can just plug in there. I think these last essays are going to be less than inspired. LOL.
We have NO other news. No hearing back on prescreens, no auditions scheduled other than the EA one that is done and the one that was already scheduled a month ago that did not require a prescreen. Going bananas with the waiting. Based on last year, I think and hope we should start hearing on a few pretty soon!? He should have word on his EA application mid December I believe. I’m really glad that one got done and I’ll be doubly glad if he gets in with decent merit. That will make audition season much more relaxed for me at least!
@akapiratequeen our roller coaster loop de loop was the night before our flight to Miami for D’s audition. Our dog had an accident in the backyard in a scrap with our other dog. They get along great but it was a weird enigma that happened resulting in him breaking his leg! :-(( SO off the the zillion dollar vet teaching hospital emergency we went and had to leave him there sedated not knowing what was happening. We all cried as we left him. $6000 and a week in the vet hospital later he is the bionic dog with a steel rod in his leg. Then we had a snowstorm that night and didn’t leave for the airport early enough and had to valet park at the Detroit airport ($$$$$) and SPRINT to catch our flight! We made it with ‘maybe’ 5 minutes to spare. Can’t even believe we did but we did. Expect the unexpected and build in extra time for a contingency plan.
As for Berklee EA I am almost certain all of the kids auditioning nearly December will hear on offers and admission before Christmas! Can’t wait to hear about all of your talented kids!!
I feel the same way about hearing back in December – it would really help to have something in his pocket. That said, this is one of his top choices, so it’s certainly not a shoe-in. Guess there’s no way around the stress. Realistically, he won’t hear from most schools until late February or March, so we need to prepare ourselves for a long haul.
@SpartanDrew what a story! How scary. So glad your $6 million pup was okay. As for spending money, between transportation, hotels, and so on, this is already costing more than I ever imagined. I keep telling myself that it will (hopefully) pay off in scholarship awards. Also really working to make it as fun and stress-free as possible. We’re taking the train to Boston, for instance, because I couldn’t face the five-hour drive after a crazy work week.
And fingers crossed he gets good news by Christmas…that would be amazing.
I tried not to scream as I know she is focused and stressed - but it just seems nuts to me. Her shoulder has been acting up from her hours of practice (she tends to overdo practice) so she feels like she just needs to focus all her time on practicing.