When I went through this process with my older kid, he didn’t apply anywhere that merit wasn’t at least a possiblity. But his final offers had a spread of 45K per year - no joke. We were forward on the money discussion with kid #1, but now even more so with kid #2. It’s a lot harder to be a working musician with loans. Reminding my kids that the dream is to graduate college and be able to do what you want and explore a range of options has been helpful. There was a grieving process with kid #1. But I also think it is more than ok to set a firm comfortable budget. I also know my first kid may have been a number at some schools where he didn’t have an opportunity to click with faculty and had the red carpet rolled out where he is. Sometimes the money comes where the faculty really thinks you’ll be a fit. And sometimes the money doesn’t come where they may just not have money this year for your thing and that’s just luck of the draw - a faculty member said that to my oldest. I think with a well thought out list, there are rarely bad choices. Covid has definitely made it harder to visit, have sample lessons, etc.
My oldest is a college senior this year and incidentals are just always more than we think they will be. Definitely better to be under budget than over if it’s a concern at all. Like near my son’s campus, all the rental leases ended 3-7 days before the next one starts. Last 2 years we had to get a hotel room for at least 5 days to just move and store his stuff. Ridiculous! Things you don’t really plan for when you’re first sending your kid to college!
Schools that are delayed in academic admit stress me out. Its hard to think about spending money to fly out to a school to audition when we aren’t even sure he will academically get in (he has a 3.3 gpa which is borderline for a few schools).
He has virtual audition this week at U of Dayton of which he is academically in at least.
LoyNo and Indiana emailed him back saying he will get academic and music result at the same time as he sent in prerecorded audition.
Shenandoah will allow him a virtual audition as he has not received academic admit there yet.
But UofMinn, Baldwin Wallace, U of North Florida, DePaul, U of North Florida, U of La-Lafayette, all want inperson but no word on academics yet.
Syracuse is a mess. They had him listed under classical and contemporary and we emailed to ensure all was in for classical, they said yes, but never got the online test link. That has now been completed but we still sit without an audition or interview date.
Has everyone heard back from Blair about prescreening results? I haven’t received a notification, but it says that they will all be sent out by the 15th.
My sons 1st double bass audition is done, NEC. He was killing it in the practice room but nerves acted up when he stepped in for the audition in front of the 3 professors and said he had a few boo boos in the 1st piece which was probably the most challenging of his repertoire. Said he wanted to make a great 1st impression. He said the rest went pretty well and I am sure he did fine.
Moral of the story is maybe start out with 1 of the easier pieces to get you in the groove? also…virtual lesson with faculty will probably help you be less nervous auditioning in front of them!!
He cast a wide net not knowing what to expect with double bass and did great with prescreens so a bunch more to go!
My other son studies cello with Peter Wiley at Bard and physics and loves it! but he had zoom auditions due to covid so these in person college audition are new to us.
Multiple people heard last Thu. My daughter is BM VP. I’m not sure if the others who heard were also vocal but you should reach out if it isn’t in your spam folder.
Sometimes the first audition can be the hardest due to nerves. Auditioning can get easier with practice. However you can also just have a bum day. He may want to talk with his private teacher about strategies and his “line up”. People do a variety of things to try to remain calm. My D actually eats a certain food the night or day of a big audition for luck…which shows the psychological side of auditions. It’s one thing she can control.
Be aware that students get rejected at their best audition school and accepted at their worst. Most teachers are aware of nerves particularly with young students. They may even think…I can help with that…he’s great…just needs some help with the jitters. I wouldn’t worry too much. It was probably fine.
At an audition my son had, they suggested an order because one of his pieces required him to retune the cello and they didn’t want him to retune multiple times.
Also, in our experience, some of the places with prescreens the professors won’t necessarily give sample lessons until afterwards. It depends upon the professor.
Glad he did (mostly) well. We scheduled the least intimidating live audition first to try to get used to the process, for a school that didn’t have prescreens and had an early December audition option!
I have a feeling this will happen, just from what I hear on these threads. I can see there will be a period of mourning for some programs that seem so awesome and might not turn out for various reasons, from admittance to affordability. I’m not looking forward to disappointment, but I know our kids will work through the process and probably grow from it, just as I will grow as a parent.
I’m keeping this, because I love this perspective, and I think we should talk about it again as a family soon. We get so focused on admittance to great schools. For me, I’ve told my son that I think the goal is twofold. 1. Yes, get into and go to a college you love (and we can afford). You should love the next four years! And then 2. The future begins, and you want to be able to love that, too.
The net cost calculators are often pretty accurate when it comes to regular admissions. For some schools the music admission won’t make much of a difference but for conservatories it definitely will! Not that this is helpful. But the calculator can give you a baseline.
Our experience was very similar to @KaylaMidwest D’s final offers had a spread of about $50k per year. I don’t want to be a pollyanna because I know there is real heartbreak for some students, but I want to offer assurance that sometimes it really does work out for the best.
Here is a story to ilustrate that. One of D’s top choices offered only $2k (total music and academic) per year–vastly less than any of her other top choices. We were shocked and couldn’t understand why the professor hadn’t advocated for more money for her since he had called personally and expressed interest in her earlier in the audition process, but she simply had to drop that school and move on. A month or so later, we found out that this professor was moving to a different university. So, in the end it was an enormous relief that she hadn’t gotten enough money to make the program affordable.
This is just one story, but I do believe in finding the best match of opportunity, “fit,” and affordability even if it’s not quite what you expected.
I think the calculators are working well for schools like CU Denver, where the maximum music scholarships available (as far as I can discover in the portal) total 5K. Whether my son gets those or not, it’s not a tremendous difference in the price the way a conservatory might be. It’s more precise than the others. Same with our state U.
Ridiculous! Things you don’t really plan for when you’re first sending your kid to college!