@tripletmama I know I’ve said this before but don’t second guess your D’s college applications. Remember that Frost, USC, UCLA are really tough academic admits and also expect an academic course load as well. Your D’s list is perfect for what she wants. My D was so happy to know that she would never have to take a math or science class ever again. I suspect yours is the same. She will do great just keep the faith and stay the course.
@AmyIzzy Thank you for that great, detailed feedback. Sometimes these experiences are literally surreal! I guess you have to be ready for anything!
@glassharmonica I have been thinking about your post and finally have a chance to respond. I’ll post this paragraph from your post to refresh others:
“All that said, there’s something to the idea of aiming for your dreams and being willing to take a gap year after if it doesn’t work out the way you hoped. When my musician-daughter was doing her undergrad auditions her teacher strongly advised her against safety (or what I would call “compromise”) schools, where she was over-qualified. I remember feeling very uncomfortable with this strategy. At my insistence my daughter auditioned for one compromise school, by sending a recording because she had an audition conflict. She was accepted there, unsurprisingly, but her teacher was right in that it would have been soul-killing to go to that school. My daughter auditioned only for elite programs and it was a nail-biter down to April 1. She has had friends who took the same strategy and did not get into any of the schools they applied to, which is a terrible blow to the confidence of an adolescent. These were young musicians who were completely qualified for the programs where they auditioned, but, as you know, these programs are so small and so competitive that it’s completely possible to be a great musician and come up goose eggs. Even elite musicians get rejections, so you can imagine how the lottery of life could translate into all-rejections in some cases-- just as it can for an academically talented student who only applies to some Ivies, Stanford, and MIT. In the case of her friends with these unfortunate results, they took gap years and ended up in great programs the following year. I have four kids in different fields and I’ve never seen someone take a gap year and regret it.”
I guess I have a different perspective. Here are some of my random thoughts:
-To me, safety schools have higher admission rates, less strict academic/testing requirements, lower price tags, and/or are known to give decent merit money/work with you on lowering cost-but are not necessarily lower quality. In fact, one of the “safest” schools on my daughter’s list seems to be the best bang for the buck in terms of post-college jobs and income stats (and I realize much of that can be subjective but it does give you an idea of how graduates do.)
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-Sometimes “dream” colleges aren’t all they are made out to be. I have known outstanding musicians who felt “lost in the shuffle” at a dream school like Berklee or NYU and/or depressed leaving with so much debt piled up.
-I am impressed with all the professors from the range of colleges we have applied to. Vocal Instructors at safety schools often have just as extensive a professional background as those at dream schools, as shown by strong reviews, excellent connections, and their college degrees/background. They may tend to be more available to students as some of those dream school professors are limited in office hours, days on campus.
-I think a college should be selected based more on the personality/learning style of your child and the vibe they get from campus and less on the big name or elite reputation. My daughter got a nice scholarship to Berklee (but not nearly enough for our financial needs IMO) Would she be challenged there musically? Absolutely! Would she love the collaboration opportunities? Definitely. But would she thrive in a place with 1000 other vocalists where she might not get much individual attention? I’m not so sure. Is it worth the pricetag to say she attended Berklee? Again, not so sure.
-I would hate for my daughter to apply only to dream schools like USC, Miami, and NYU only to be rejected (with the low admit numbers, even a phenomenal student could face this) or get in but with little money. Taking a gap year to ensure she gets into a dream school would probably backfire, especially if it’s financial, because the money isn’t going to magically appear and she would have to keep taking more time off. I suppose if the gap year includes a local college where credits are earned to save money, it could be a realistic solution for some. My daughter’s friend applied only to the top 7 dream schools of theatre (which nobody questioned because he is amazing) and ended up rejected or on wait lists for each when May 1st came along. He ended up at a good theatre school but for acting, not musical theatre and really regrets not having some safety school on his list.
-My daughter has friends who are a few years older who go to a variety of colleges for music or theatre. They all give her the same advice: don’t choose a school based on name recognition or popularity but rather based on if it fits you and if you connect with the music faculty. Thankfully, she has taken their advice to heart.
-Doing some safety schools as EA has really given her a confidence boost heading into some of the tougher auditions. So if nothing else, it’s worth a few ego strokes during the grueling process and the great feeling of some schools actually recruiting her.
I totally see your points and we may be in a different boat with our focus on commercial/popular music/music industry so maybe for classical instrumentalists, for example, the name of the school you graduate from reveals your level of talent and ensures the best jobs in music, so it’s worth it. But I just wouldn’t call our “safety” schools “compromise” schools at all. In fact, her safety schools seem to be moving up on her list as she continues to communicate with staff and admissions. She is feeling like she’s not just a number at some schools.
Only putting my two cents out there for a different perspective, not to spark debate.
Having said all this, I don’t want anyone here in a panic thinking “oh, my child should have applied to more safety schools.” I think everyone here has a great list that meets the needs of your child. For some of you, money isn’t an issue so it’s fine to have more costly schools on the list. For others, can you see at least one school your child will definitely get into? If so, you can learn from experienced college parents how to play the “we need more money” game or you could do the community college first then transfer. Lots of good options for everyone here and soon enough we will be celebrating to end of this journey, wherever it may take us!
@AmyIzzy thanks for sharing that surreal audition experience and great to hear it went well against all odds! If all else failed the “ax throwing next door” would have been a nice venue to vent off some of that anger & frustration!!! 
@AmyIzzy If you decide to write short stories for a living, please let me know where to sign up
@dsinha So true on being ready for anything! I know it will seem like fiction but my “Surviving Audition Season” will be the funniest non-fiction book ever sold! I think we could do this collectively and make enough money to support our kids through college.Who’s with me? Lol.
Haha @HereWeGoAgain2018 Good thing that wasn’t the first room we stopped in for assistance!
Since you quoted only part of my post, I will reiterate my point about safeties. Safety schools are defined as schools to which you are almost completely certain to be admitted because your credentials exceed the schools’ range for the average first-year student. Audition schools are by strict definition never safety schools because the results of any audition are never certain. If your musician applies to a non-audition program as a safety, then that makes sense. The OP listed Oberlin as a safety, which was the reason I made that point. A financial safety is a school you are certain to be able to afford without merit aid–or in the case of some state school, that you will be able to afford because of a pre-determined merit and financial aid formula.
So “safety” doesn’t refer to quality but rather to who well the applicant is matched. Likewise, “compromise” doesn’t refer to perceived quality but rather a school that the applicant might choose if she doesn’t gain admission to, or can’t afford, a “dream school.”
Also-- doing nonaudition safeties as EA is a very good idea, I agree. My youngest daughter applied to theater programs and did a nonauditioned academic and financial safety at a good state program and it took the pressure off her during auditions.
Thanks so much for clarifying that, @glassharmonica. I’m brand new to this whole scene so I guess I was confused on the definition of a safety. So all of my daugter’s schools, including EA schools, were live audition schools with the exception of Columbia Chicago which was a portfolio school in which students submit videos or recordings for scholarships. The schools I considered “safety” schools each gave us generous academic merit (she’s 3.7 GPA and 25 ACT so not stellar stats) and either have great talent awards or have those pending. I think acceptance rates for our “safeties” were all over 60%. But maybe they aren’t really considered “safeties” by definition? Sometimes the semantics can be confusing but I see your points. This will all make sense to me by May 1st I’m sure! Lol.
@AmyIzzy, my cellist son would fall under the category of someone who is applying to mostly “safeties” in that he’s connected with all the cello professors at his schools and all responded favorably to him; therefore, I suspect he’ll get into most of his schools. None have low admit rates (though I suppose a number of them have low rates to get into the BM program) and none are cutthroat competitive.
He took off the two competitive schools from his list (Vanderbilt and CCM) even though he got very positive feedback from the cello professors there. He realized that 1) he wanted to stay closer to home, and 2) he doesn’t want to go to a school where they will try to remake him. He’s an outstanding cellist and could definitely be competitive for a selective conservatory, but he wants to be a teacher, not a cellist.
He needs a nurturing environment and one where academics aren’t hard (if possible). I think he learned his lesson from when he applied as a freshman to colleges as a non-music major. He chose to attend an Ivy League because it was financially a fantastic deal due to our income, but he was overmatched academically. It was totally the wrong environment for him, and he doesn’t want to make the same mistake again.
@glassharmonica @AmyIzzy @sbjdorlo these are really great points. To me, a “safety” is a school where the kid’s academics are iat or near the top in the range of admitted students — but as @glassharmonica said, with auditions all bets are off. This is why I was confused by the poster who called Oberlin a safe school — with a median GPA of 4.5 weighted and ACT of 34, to me it looked like an ultra reach! But if you’re a great player and they need your instrument, it could indeed be “safe” or at least not super competitive for some. (Not my S, unfortunately.)
Similarly, Berklee is considered to many a super reach dream school, but my S’s teacher called it a safety! When I asked why, he said it was big, they take lots of sax players (as opposed to just a couple at Oberlin and Eastman, for instance) and they admit a large number of kids in order to yield their final number since aid is limited. He felt that, given S’s experience and general playing level, it wasn’t as big a reach as, say, Eastman or Ithaca — yet S’s academics are very much at the high end for both of those.
I’ve been utterly confused by all of this, but in the end, what makes a safety vs. reach in music schools is so variable for music kids that the terms should probably be retired. My S has always been very clear about what he’s looking for, and it includes strong but not ivy level academics, a very strong education program that allows you to focus on jazz, and inspiring teachers. Most of the “dream” schools didn’t offer that, but his list does, which is why it’s right for him.
@akapiratequeen - I will have to go look at last year’s thread around now to confirm my batshtiness! Good to know that I’m in good company.
Related to that, @SpartanDrew - thanks for the reminder. It’s so funny, she was mentioning the academic requirements at USC to another musician and he said - oh - I got in and I only had a 3.5 gpa (eye roll!). I had to laugh. And yes, she never wants to take a math or science class ever again.
@thisismynameOH - it’s great to have a stacked audition!! Great job! It’s not stacked if they are natural connections. Kids need to learn that connections run the world.
@AmyIzzy - I was half laughing and half angry as I read your post. Really??? Oh dear God. Not a good reflection on the school - but sounds like they were musicians trying to run an audition - enough said That is SO cool that she was signing her original chorus. Wow!
@akapiratequeen - it’s funny - my definition of “safety” is one that might give our daughter enough $$ to attend That’s why I consider Oberlin to be a “safety” since it’s a known fact that they meet financial need. My daughter wants to be a in big city - plus their pre-screen audition list is pretty long so she passed.
It’s just interesting how everyone’s definition of “safety” is different.
@glassharmonica - thanks for all the sage advice in your post. I have two applying to college this year so I am particularly “batty” right now. The waiting and the wondering (and the worrying) is double the fun!!!
Who has auditions coming up this weekend? My daughter’s doesn’t start for 2 more weeks - so she’s in practice hell. She missed a doctor’s appt today which I’m not happy about!!!
Oh, btw, if anyone ever wants to change an audition time at NEC - don’t bother - we never heard back from the guy so luckily we made the original one work.
My music major S18 is my second child to go to college. My eldest was after a selective school for science and engineering. With both of my kids, we’ve tried to build a “ladder” of schools. At the base was a school with lower selectivity but affordable and with programs they could be content with. For us, this was selected from a state school or a public university with an in-state tuition exchange with our state. In MN, this means UofMn, UWisc, and the Dakotas. I guess this lowest rung could be considered a “safety.” From there, we built a selection of schools with increasing selectivity, with the only requirement that the student must prefer those schools more than the safety. We tried to keep the list of schools to only five or so, avoiding schools that were rather equivalent to each others in the ladder in terms of selectivity and fit. We also chose schools where the student would stand out a bit. For example, if University of Chicago and Rice are somewhat similar, we know that Rice is looking for more midwesterners, and UofC is looking for fewer midwesterners, so just apply to Rice. For my S18 who has good grades and ACT scores, it has meant that he applies to music schools with some tougher academic requirements so he can have some advantages vs an otherwise competitive applicant pool.
This approach has kept the churn and chaos of applications down a little bit. It is based on the premise that there aren’t really perfect fits for schools, but rather a whole bunch of equivalent schools in some different tiers, so therefore it doesn’t really help to apply to a whole bunch of equivalent schools. Lastly, it is an approach that helps when one isn’t really clear about where the student stands - for my S18, we don’t have much comparative assessment on whether he is top notch conservatory-quality. By applying to schools up the ladder, we get a better sense of where he stands. And, in his opinion, if he can’t make it into his safety, then he has no business pursuing music professionally.
Just our own $0.02 on the matter. It makes the choices rather clear in April.
Here’s the thing on “safeties” - if the musician has no desire to go there - then what is the point of applying? If our daughter doesn’t get into a school that she wants to go to (with enough $$), then she will just continue to gig and take more lessons with her teacher. Or travel to another country and go to a feeder school. I do think that a lot of kids apply to schools for the sake of a place to live, not necessarily to thrive. But then again, their idea of where they want to go (or not) is many times based on spurious information. I honestly think that in the area of music performance, going to college/conservatory (gasp) is actually not as important as experience.
@tripletmama I completely agree. This was a big discussion in our household as well and the result is that… gasp… my daughter chose to apply to only two conservatories. Those two were the only places she felt a good fit at this point in time, with bearings to who she is and where she is as a musician on the maturity curve.
Option three is gap year with her current private teacher who she would be very happy to study in a dedicated and concentrated fashion (without the HS senior year distractions). She consciously made the choice that if she is not good enough for her top two choices then its the best option for her to take a gap year and get better so she can get into the school of her choice in her second try.
I know this is not the right choice for all musicians and families and I’m in no way advocating this view over another but simply sharing this as yet another data point in this right thread.
PS. My eldest who is graduating from college this year is joking saying she has dibs on the basement suite and that her younger sister better make it through those auditions… Next year might be very interesting indeed with a partitioning wall project in the basement…
We pay 125$ an hour for private lessons. 9 months of lessons (to compare it to an academic schedule,) would cost $4500. I feel like you could double that, triple it, quadruple it, times it by ten, whatever, and offer that inflated amount to any of these teachers INSTEAD of enrolling in the school. it would still be cheaper than college! And your kid would get all the nuggets of inspiration and information from the teacher, with no intrusive gen ed requirements. Of course there are drawbacks to this plan, but music is generally an oral tradition that is passed down, plus a lot of practicing.
Same plan for us @HereWeGoAgain2018 and @tripletmama. My D is currently only applying to 3 schools.
All audition based. And plan “B” is a gap year.
She’s academically in the right range for all of them, and she passed her prescreens.
We’re fortunate enough that finances aren’t an issue and she won’t have to decide on that basis alone (although I’d certainly love to move any excess 529 funds into grad school or cascade to her siblings if she gets merit $$).
But we reached the same conclusion. There is no requirement that she go to college next year.
So why spend all that money to send her to a school she isn’t super excited about?
When the alternative is honing her skills next year without distractions of Senior Year in High School and re-applying.
She’s in multiple bands, loves to gig, and has great teachers she can continue to learn from.
She’s in MSM Jazz Pre-College now, so does know what an academic musical environment can offer, and she does want to go that route. But only if the school is right. Otherwise she’ll work hard and try again.
@tripletmama : For my S, safety was a place in a college where he could earn a degree in Physics. For him, the biggest problem was until the October before app-time, he did not have anything to compare himself against. He knew he could play well. We knew he sounded good. His teacher (and we) encouraged him to go for broke. He did not know if he could cross the threshold of being a good amateur to aspiring professional - until he started getting back the results from his prescreens and then his auditions (and at trial lessons with potential teachers). So, his safety was Physics which he loved as well. We’re certainly glad he could do what he was passionate about.