Good luck with all travels and auditions this long weekend. We’re getting closer to the end.
For us we have no auditions this week, but leave Thursday for Blair. We were unable to switch NEC and have to leave directly from Nashville to Boston. We made some plan changes and then are going directly from Boston to NY and taking a train up to Bard… these are our last three auditions… I CAN SEE THE LIGHT…hopefully we will be hearing some more positive news. good luck to all
How awful @UniversityMomOf2! I can’t even imagine what you went through. Just focus on staying healthy. I hope you will be back on track* to be with your son for his last leg of this marathon*
Good luck to those auditioning this weekend, congrats to those who are DONE with auditions (wow!) and enjoy the down time if you have a buy week* or a little break before the next audition or set of auditions.
We are down to 2 more on March 7 & 9, although she has 2 local scholarship auditions on March 1 and March 11 to add to the mix.
My daughter and I have a week off for winter break so we are really looking forward to that. She is doing an Accepted Student Shadow day at the College of Saint Rose on 2/18 but she plans on just R & R (rest and rehearsing) for the rest of the time.
*apologies for adding 3 sports references to a music thread. Lol
D received the expected note from UNC Chapel Hill yesterday that she was not a finalist for one of the four Music full-ride (tuition, fees, room, board and more) scholarships. The cost at UNC works for us and we had no reasonable expectation for this scholarship, but free would have been nice; it was a nice lottery ticket hope while it lasted.
From past years’ threads, I expected the selections to be made in the last week of February as to whether applicants were one of the 8 invited to attend a March weekend “audition-off” for the 4 Kenan Music Scholarship spots, and I wasn’t sure how the notification came, so I thought I would update future readers as to what we learned this year. UNC Chapel Hill’s latest audition date this year was February 2, which I think may have been earlier than previous years. I don’t now if that accounts for the earlier notification or if they were just more efficient this year. D got the non-finalist letter yesterday (12 days after the last audition date) saying that they had selected the 10 (up from 8 in previous years) applicants to come for the finalists weekend and that all ten had indicated that they were coming to the weekend (I assume so folks don’t hold out faulty hopes for wait-list-type later good news). UNC has already informed EA music auditioners of their admission status, but I don’t think Regular Decision has been announced. So I assume this letter went to all admitted EA music auditioners and pending Regular Decision auditioners who were not the selected 10. The letter also said that decisions on music scholarships were still pending. We know from the audition day information session that those will be $3,000 or less per year.
@UniversityMomOf2 I think that you need to look at the financial “big picture” to see if the payment of the lessons out of the scholarship is reasonable…to you. I have not heard of this before. It’s easy to get on your high horse and say lessons SHOULD be part of the tuition. But fees at colleges can be really different from what I have seen. So if you get “free” lessons at a school that costs $10,000 more a year…maybe the payment for the lessons is acceptable to you. So yes, it’s “different” but I can’t say it’s “wrong”. Note that many schools have a music school fees (at IU it was about $900/yr back in the day). My D’s grad school was maybe half that…but I can’t remember for sure.
As for ensembles, that sounds “different” too. It’s very up-front. However my D couldn’t graduate without an ensemble each semester…so was it really different in practice?..maybe not. I assume all programs have ensemble requirements. My D’s UG also would pay students if they did more than one ensemble per semester (when needed). Her grad school did not do this…however it was not putting on as many productions.
Compare it with other offers to decide if it works for you or not.
I think things like applied music fees, ensemble requirements, required seminars and concert attendance are all things that can vary a LOT from school to school. Yes, you should ask about all that and know that going in and yes, it becomes part of the big picture.
Also, unless your school freezes tuition and fees for all four years, don’t be surprised when your costs go up $1-$2000 every stinking year. On the flip side, some schools offer additional scholarships to attending students. (Another question to ask!) My D has received extra $ every year , but her applied music fees doubled this year. Since she takes voice, piano and guitar…that was a bit of a killer. I guess I still can’t complain…it still isn’t a lot of money when considering we’ve paid so much more for lessons from teachers with significantly less credentials and accomplishments.
Cleveland Institute of Music turned quite the maverick in 2018. Their tuition for 2018 was about 15% lower than the previous year. Their eventual goal is to be completely free. That will raise demand for sure.
Two auditions this weekend for my son. one tomorrow and one Monday. Fingers crossed that the midwest forecast holds steady and we can make it to both of the between snowstorms.
@gram22 - I didn’t realize that CIM was trying to move to being free. I do know they are trying to get smaller, but maybe that goes hand-in-hand with being free. With competition from schools on both coasts they are probably trying to become more desirable to lure students to the Midwest.
Rutgers audition in the books! Just got the report from S and S Dad.
S liked this audition. It started out a bit late and there was some confusion about where to go, but this was quickly resolved. He attended a student orientation, then played for a panel of three jazz faculty members (classical piece, jazz piece, scales). There was a live backing group that included a rhythm player he’d met and liked on his shadow day. This was followed by a one-on-one interview and a request to play the classical piece again for the music education professor. Finally, students, faculty and parents were all invited to a brunch where he was able to chat with the director of the jazz program and other interviewers again.
Overall, he enjoyed the experience and it solidified Rutgers as a top choice. He felt that the other players he met were diverse (not always the case in his experience) and serious. He could see himself there.
Best of all, we are now officially done! S has a four-day weekend and plans to spend the rest of it doing absolutely nothing. I will try to follow his example and take myself off the crazy train of checking portals and emails.
Happy travels and great auditions to everyone on the road this weekend!
Congrats @akapiratequeen on a successful day at Rutgers (my alma mater) and the end of your son’s auditions! Enjoy the quiet time–may it pass quickly and end in good results!
@akapiratequeen Congratulations on that successful audition and end to your son’s list of auditions! Big milestone reached!!!
@akapiratequeen can I just say I am jealous as we head into 3 in a row…yikes
@akapiratequeen Hooray for what sounds like a great audition and for being finished!
My son got a $10,000 academic scholarship from Rutgers this morning on the day he was supposed to audition. Yay?
Thanks, all, and wow, @eh1234! Congrats?
@eh1234 congratulations on that academic scholarship! What a booster on the day of audition. Way to go!
Actually, my son decided NOT to audition at Rutgers today, so it’s kind of bittersweet to get the scholarship. Hopefully another school will come through with some money for him. If not, he likes one of his likely in-state options.
@akapiratequeen - congrats on being done and a successful near-to-home audition! @eh1234 - I’ve been pleasantly surprised at the amount of $$ coming in (both merit and talent) at some of S’s schools…so holding out hope for you. In fact, the $$ S has gotten has made the schools cheaper than our flagship in-state.
Hi all, I have posted a few times before, but have not properly introduced myself. At my D’s request I will not mention te schools she is applying to or provide many details of her journey, but I’ll share what I can. I don’t catch all the posts here, but I do read though the thread every week or so. Congrats to all who have acceptances and good luck to those who are waiting.
Our D is a soprano and has applied to three audition-based VP programs. She has also applied to a number of liberal arts colleges where she could continue to take voice lessons and have performance opportunities. She did a number of sample voice lessons at liberal arts schools which could help for admissions, but also gave her an idea of which liberal arts schools have voice teachers she would like to work with.
It was about a year ago today when our daughter surprised us by saying she wanted to apply to conservatories. We have always supported her singing, but had never thought that this was something she wanted to pursue as a career. Apparently, she has had this dream for several years, but we never talked about it until it was time to make her college list. Our D is very much running this process and dragging her parents along for the ride. We don’t have the password for her admissions portals or for the common app. She’s been doing all of this pretty independently, except for travel arrangements. I’m sure it hasn’t been easy for her. Her parents are supportive, but this was never our dream for her and we have no background in music. If she wants it, she needs to make it happen. She also doesn’t have any classmates or recent alums from her high school who have applied to conservatories. So, she texts with some friends from summer camps who are applying to conservatories, but she has no one around her who is going through the same thing. Her voice teacher is fantastic (and as we have gone through this process, we have learned how lucky we are to have her), but she is not from this country, is young and has no other students who have applied to conservatories. Our D is the first. Because the voice teacher was not trained here, she is learning the college admissions process just like we are and couldn’t help us with contacts or a college list. So, she is a great voice teacher, but she can’t double as a college process coach. We have had to use the internet (and especially this forum) to get good ideas and figure out how this process works.
After reading the Double Degree Dilemma essay posted here, she decided to only apply to music schools that allow and encourage double degrees. There are quite a few, but we got a late start, couldn’t visit them all, and in the end she only applied to three. If she had started a year earlier, she probably would have added a few more to her list. She loves all three of the music schools she applied to, but they are all very selective and she doesn’t have a safety. I guess her safeties are the liberal arts schools, several of which she quite likes, but obviously that would be a very different undergrad experience.
She passed her pre-screens and had her first audition a week ago, her second one yesterday and the last one will be on Monday. It is a bit stressful, but probably good that the whole audition process is condensed into 10 days. Like some others in this thread, she picked up a cold last week, which is especially tough for a singer. She can sing through it, but she’s disappointed that she is not 100%.
Good luck to all with auditions coming up. And thanks for all your helpful posts!
Update from us. For anyone that remembers my post about Cal State Long Beach and my son deciding not to audition at the last minute because he didn’t like his trial lesson. He emailed the cello prof as to why he decided not to audition, who sent him a long email with an apology saying he thought my son’s technique was flawless, etc. etc.
Long story short: my son decided to audition for Long Beach after all. The professor has been amazing and said my son can just send in a video audition instead of driving back up there, so that’s what he’ll do. Interesting how the school has risen in his eyes.
He also finished his SDSU audition which went well. Neither cello teacher was there so they videotaped his audition for them. He got an email from one of the profs asking if he wants a trial lesson which he’ll definitely do since he’s never met this guy.
Two auditions left!