One piece of advice to all parents flying places…get on that treadmill now and start working out! We had a big ole sprint through an airport too. I remember it well because I’m a runner…and my D was in front of me! I was shocked that she could keep a good pace through long corridors with a big bag on her back. I knew I could…but she was in front of me! We arrived sweating and panting to be told it had been delayed…lol.
But I like to think that if it hadn’t been, we would have made that flight…bc her old mom could run a hard mile. We laugh about it to this day.
@akapiratequeen - good luck this weekend. We’ll be sending good vibes.
@bridgenail thanks for the workout reminder! There was a memorable sprint through the Charlotte airport for a connecting flight on one of D16’s scholarship visits. I remember well the gate agent looking up and surveying the area for anyone else to board that plane and me hoping she’d see us coming in at a run. They closed the doors behind us and we collapsed into our seats exhausted, but at least we made the flight and didn’t miss a sibling’s performance in the school play.
Question: S submitted his music application and voice prescreen to one of his schools over the weekend. Today he was given audition times for both voice and cello (no prescreen required for cello). Would they have reviewed his voice prescreen that fast? Nothing came that says, “hey, you passed your prescreen,” just emails with the audition information. Would they give an audition slot and then review the prescreen? It just seems awfully fast.
It sounds like a pass to me. It’s been too long for me to remember what emails said…but the offer of date sounds like a pass. And sure they could have done a group of pre-screens this week. I would just give them a call to clarify. If you need to schedule and plan, it’s fair enough to call and clarify it. Hope it’s good news!
You guys are doing awesome. By trimmimng our list down to percieved good fits, we spent extra time at 3 of the colleges. Such as a week in Miami Frost. A couple days in Michigan, and some time at North Texas, where we had been at a summer camp before. It gave a chance to get a deeper look at each place and in some cases attend classes, play with student bands, and meet with professors more than once per visit. At William Paterson, they do not do live auditions (audio submittal only), and we were kind of tired and already satisfied before the 5th audition were to occur, so it was skipped.
@akapiratequeen For EA Berklee gives you financial info by mid Jan. Congrats on getting all the apps in. My daughter is still combing through tapes. She has merge them (she used a Zoom), try to get an annoying buzz out of one of them from her amp (hopefully a sound engineer can help) and write the essays. All the apps are done otherwise (haha). She had a jazz concert tonight that was great but you have to wonder who in the world picked this week for a concert???
She is really down to the wire…although she’s already admitted to one of her top choices and the other top choice isn’t due for a few weeks. She heard that if there is anything amiss with NEC pre-screens you aren’t granted an audition so she is stressed about that,
If anything, I’m trying to talk her into dropping one or two that on the face of it aren’t top choices. For instance, CalArts is known for wanting original pieces which she hasn’t recorded yet.
Thanks @tripletmama — so good that she already has an offer. We’re hoping to hear something in December and perhaps get news re the prescreens as well. It’s a lot!!
We submitted apps and slideroom prescreens for Thornton and Frost last night at 11:30 PM, so almost exactly 24 hours “early” for tonight’s deadline. So breathing a very brief sigh of relief before trying to get CalArts done tomorrow ahead of their deadline on the 3rd. Next weekend is her audition at Berklee.
And then we can focus on NYU/New School apps ahead of their Jan deadlines.
Still felt great to finally hit submit on these two big ones we’ve been thinking about and discussing for a year now.
Thanks again to all of you who have made this easier by creating such a vibrant and helpful forum.
Check my other post about prescreens if any of you want details on some last minute surprises in the way slideroom works differently between schools and what we ended up doing with videos. It might save you some stress and calls to the school. Best of luck to all of you submitting today! May your uploads be smooth.
Congrats @drummerdad and drummer kid! We’re sitting in a coffeehouse around the corner from Berklee waiting for S, who is auditioning as we speak. I didn’t know I’d be so nervous! PM if you have questions about the process—lots of kids, lovely people, quite efficient though they told us it tends to run a bit late.
S is out and SO relieved to have one in the books! He said people were nice and easy to talk to. Two people at the audition (not blind!), then a one-on-one interview.
I have been long absent for both music related activities and personal stuff so I am playing big catch up on everybody. It has made our journey a nightmare.
It sounds like @AmyIzzy has had lots to report. congratulations on the Columbia admission. I knew your D would get it. I’m sorry your Loyola trip was a nightmare but glad that you ended up getting good feelings from the faculty and glad they were understanding of the flight situation. But it sounds like everything else is going good and you are knocking them out of the ballpark. Congratulations on the acceptances and scholarships all around.
@SpartanDrew I am sorry about your dog getting hurt (and ouch to his recovery cost) and thankful you survived getting onto your plane.
@tripletmama congratulations on the admit. I know you have extra stress with multiples so hopefully that helps some. Also glad you got to see some aviation schools.
Congratulations @DrummerDad18 for getting things in under the wire.
As for our journey it hasn’t gone well but I will stick to music and college. Son performed in our district orchestra. He had a blast and was hoping for all-state. That announcement went out yesterday and he was not selected. Since it goes by score he was 4th out of 121 Flutes in our district who COMPLETED the audition. They get kids quitting half way through if one part goes bad. Last year they took a lot of Flutes from our district. This year it was clarinets. But he did get chosen for the Future Music Educators Seminar that accompanies All-State weekend. It was a separate application and video interview.
We visited another college (Valparaiso) that wasn’t far and then literally booked it back for parent teacher conferences. My son liked the school. I thought it was pretty and modern looking but not satisfied with some of the things. We had a good talk with one of the people responsible for music admittance that was a positive and encouraging experience. She also clarified some things for us about the pre-screen that were a little vague which took a weight off our shoulders. But he still has to record it. No idea how. His private instructor says iPad with external microphone is sufficient but no idea what microphone is good. At conferences that night his band director said it’s a good music education program but not a great one. However he should still apply.
We went for a second visit to Lawrence. We went on a Sunday to see a joint recital with the flute and trombone studios. The dean played with the trombones. Both flute teachers (the one for majors and the one for non-majors) played as well. The one he had a lesson with previously recognized us right away and introduced us to the main flute teacher who we had only been corresponding with by email. On our way down S got an email from main teacher asking if we were going to be there and inviting us out for coffee afterwards. That was fun for him. It was both flute teachers and a large chunk of the flutists. We hung back and just observed. He had a great time with them. The next day he had his second lesson there but first with the main flute teacher. She gave him some pointers and also said he had a great upper register (he got similar comments before in an audition). It was dad’s first time on campus and so we did the whole tour again after his lesson. He also attended another class, this time a musicology class. At that time we met with financial aid. She was new and had to keep asked no other people the answers to our questions so not happy there. We had another interview with the conservatory director of admissions. This one went much better and we got better hopes of him being accepted, Still not a shoe-in but we came away with a more hopeful feeling than our first visit. That’s important because it’s his number 1 school.
For applications, 4 have been submitted through commonapp as of last night. We had Naviance problems. For some reason it reverted to his old info on major choice and it lost all of the form for requesting counselor forms and teacher recommendations. So even though two of the three teachers had already submitted recommendations, we had to start from scratch on the form. So all of the thoughtful answers that had been written to the 20 something questions had to be re-done in a rush job. S is so exhausted he literally fell asleep sitting next to me while I typed in the answers he quickly scribbled down. Poor kid. So the other two colleges, which are his top choices, have not been submitted because one requires a music resume that I have no idea how to write (he did a simple version of one for his FMES application so hopefully we can use some of it) that was pulled into the commonapp, but their website has a form to fill out for that section. So he needs to write it for me to upload it to the commonapp. And the other has an optional essay, which he skipped but I think he should do because it’s a competitive college. Or maybe I should just have him skip it and do the music applications? Two more external apps to do but they are rolling admissions. We have 2 weeks to have prescreens done. Hoping to record next week. He has madrigals all weekend so he doesn’t know when he will even get to homework much less more college stuff.
Good luck to your kids @DrummerDad18 and @akapiratequeen and all the rest! I can’t wait to hear how auditions went! @UniversityMomOf2 the dog trauma happened last year in February but thank you for your sympathies. Our wallet has recovered although maybe not so much with 2 kids in college LOL. And the dog runs around like nothing ever happened which is amazing. I told that story to remind everyone that you can’t prepare for those unexpected things that always seem to happen when you least expect it. So build in extra time for travel etc and take deep breaths!
Well his EA application for DePauw is in and audition slot reserved. Just paid the fee to reserve his Baldwin Wallace spot. Luckily the day we wanted is open. Lots of dates filled. Registrar has to confirm we paid it for it to be official. Obviously it can’t happen until school is in. I don’t know if it will go Monday or if they will drag their feet but we got our time stamped payment receipt at least. His band director has to fill out and mail a form. Our portion of music app is done there and his DePauw music app is done. So we have 4 college apps in and 2 of their music apps.
@UniversityMomOf2 so sorry you have been hitting roadblocks. It Sucks when things go sideways in spite of your best efforts. Sounds like you are giving your S the help he needs and managing to get things done regardless! The Lawrence experience sounds especially positive and exciting. Sending positive vibes your way for the next few weeks!
Welcome back @UniversityMomOf2 ! Thanks for updating us. I’m glad you had a positive experience at Lawrence. I really like the Dean of Music and the Director of Music admissions there so much! S is waiting to hear on EA at Lawrence. I’m sorry about your technology issues! Oh boy - I would be so mad too! Frustrating!
Today out of the blue the boy was awarded half tuition academic merit to our flagship U. I haven’t even heard if he’s gotten through pre-screens in the school of music yet, but it’s nice to have some positive feedback on an application after sending all the info out to the matrix with no response for what feels like forever. That is far from kid’s first choice but if nothing else could help negotiations later and other money (like music merit) can still be stacked with that too.
@MusakParent - good deal with the half tuition merit! Way to start the audition season out!
Our daughter got her apps in tonight just under the wire. It was a family effort with our other daughter and I each taking an application to download the tapes. So - completed NEC, MSM and SFCM (San Francisco Conservatory of Music). just under the wire. I am beginning to think that she should be in the theater world because she obviously really like the drama of an under the wire finish! Of course all sorts of technical issues (turns out that 2 tapes needed the beginning/ends edited out - so there is our other daughter trying to do it on her Iphone…it was kind of funny in a sick kind of way. All while hubby watched TV. (why did he get to miss all the fun??).
One thing that kind of annoyed me was that one of her NEC tapes was audio only. In the eleventh hour, I asked her why - and she said because someone that she knows who got in sent an audio only tape. I didn’t have the heart to argue with her given the deadline looming. The other tape was video - so at least they will see that it truly was her and that she doesn’t have two heads. I’m sure it was audio only because she taped it at 6pm tonight and she probably hadn’t taken a shower Oh boy! All in a days work.
CalArts and the New School will be done by Monday. I’m fairly sure she has all the bits and bobs ready to go - just needs to download. CalArts is interesting in that they really want original works. She has written works but hasn’t performed them in an ensemble - so she will likely be submitting the music transcripts (or whatever you call them).
The audition date that Berklee selected for her is Feb. 1 at 11:30am in LA - however, her ensemble members have school during that time - so we called and sent an email requesting an earlier or later time. The email response from that office is that they are swamped and will get back to us within 5 days. Hopefully the time will work out. Although she has already been admitted to Berklee from the summer program with a scholarship - she is hoping to increase the scholarship amount with this audition.
When do you usually hear back re: pre-screens? I hope with enough time to book flights, etc? NEC only auditions jazz basses on Feb. 3, so if that one ends up on the list - then MSM and the New School will need to be around the same time so we don’t have to make more than one trip back to NYC/Boston. Does anyone happen to know if MSM and the New School have specific blocks of days set for in-person auditions or are they flexible?
Congrats everyone! I sure am glad to be watching all of this from the comfort of my armchair this year. @tripletmama I am almost 99% certain that D’s NEC prescreen was audio only. I think that’s what they requested. WP was also audio only so it is done that way in many cases. And there were loads of New school audition dates and times to choose from. For vocalists anyway but I’m sure it’s the same for instrumentalists as well. I’m sure you will be able to coordinate that with NEC.
Enjoy some time relaxing everyone before the big audition season push is upon you!
Congrats @DrummerDad18 and drummer kid! We’re sitting in a coffeehouse around the corner from Berklee waiting for S, who is auditioning as we speak. I didn’t know I’d be so nervous! PM if you have questions about the process—lots of kids, lovely people, quite efficient though they told us it tends to run a bit late.
S is out and SO relieved to have one in the books! He said people were nice and easy to talk to. Two people at the audition (not blind!), then a one-on-one interview.
PS Sorry for the repost, I had the wrong drummer dad and can’t figure out how to delete the first one
@tripletmama checking out last years pre-screen thread can maybe give you a rough idea when prescreen viewing is done and audition invites go out? I keep referring to it for my own sanity! Congrats on making those December 1 deadlines!
We did an online info session for Eastman last week and they said they try to give applicants at least 3 weeks notice before your audition. LOL. That doesn’t seem super generous to me when you’ve had the prescreen for 2 1/2 months at that point! My husband is a bit twitchy about pre-booking a bunch of travel so I have nothing booked basically but I’m at the ready with my credit card. The Eastman trip in particular would make a LONG road trip for us but if we don’t hear soon enough to get a decently priced flight and car rental that’s what it will be (and could fit well with another audition). Pass the wine!
@MusakParent We are in the same boat re: Eastman. Pass the wine is right! If we happen to be there at the same time, the first drink is on me. I’m hoping for the first weekend in February because we’ll be in the general area anyway. Would love to fly since the drive is loooonnnggg. Also thinking of prebooking hotels but probably won’t be that organized. I did book for the two auditions I know are coming up where we can’t do it in a day. I was also glad I prebooked for Berklee because the hotel was packed!
Oh boy! All in a days work.