Community Service

College Majors Music Major
1

<p>I couldn't find a thread like this so I'm asking. We've been working on scholarship stuff around here lately, local and some nationals and I'm somewhat frustrated when I go through the Financial Aid forum.</p>

<p>I'm posting here because I guess at least some here are looking at the same stuff. My son spends an inordinate amount of time playing and practicing. Certainly nothing more than most of your kids do but let's face it, my son spends every day in school till around 2:00. He gets homework like everyone else and he has good grades 3.7/4.00 gpa. There is studying involved. Monday nights he has an out of school practice 5:00 - 9:00. Tuesday night private lesson. Wednesday night is wind ensemble. Saturday from 9 - 12 outside school group practice. School brass ensemble 3 months of the year on Monday afternoons. 10 weeks combined pit practices after school for senior and middle school musicals, State and local music festival ratings and auditions and the list goes on and on and there's still audition prep and just plain old practice.</p>

<p>How do we compete with some kid who doesn't have auditions, outside groups, does a couple of ec's and pretty much has all the free time in the world to feed and clothe the hungry. I'm serious here.</p>

<p>My son does nursing home visits here and there and some concerts that are for charity but it all seems so little compared to some of the uber kids who just submit grades and SAT scores. He's worked some charity events with us but the truth is there really isn't the time.</p>

<p>Anybody else discouraged about this kind of stuff. Sometimes I feel like grabbing his horn and yelling, get out there and march for world peace or something :-))</p>

<p>Help me out here.</p>

2

<p>The answer to your question is simple - you do not compete against those kids for scholarships that are designed to reward the particular activities in which their activities are clearly superior to your son's. You would do better to look for scholarships that reward the kind of things at which your son excels.</p>

<p>To paraphrase professor Tolkien, we all have to decide what to do with the time given us. In making the choices that he has, your son has positioned himself far better than most others for admission to audition-based music programs, and far better for consideration for certain music-related scholarships. The price for that is that he may be less of a candidate for scholarships that reward other activities. He cannot be all things to all possible scholarship sources and it is more than a bit late in the game for those sort of regrets.</p>

<p>Student musicians can do volunteer service in the form of benefit concerts, hospital and nursing home visits, and projects to benefit various arts organizations that need all the help they can get in these hard financial times. These kinds of things can be very effectively packaged for the right type of scholarship applications. They may not carry much weight on scholarships that are intended to reward excellence in the sciences or dedication to helping the homeless. Different choices, different outcomes.</p>

3

<p>Don't get me wrong BassDad, I don't regret any of the decisions made regarding my son. He does his share when time allows and we have a page of community service stuff. Many of his concerts do benefit various groups which is what we use.</p>

<p>My problem is that the system just seems biased towards others. I guess I'm just using the board to sound off on a particularly stressful week. Hope no one really minds.</p>

<p>Anyway, I have a daughter (flute/picollo) whose a soph and I wonder whether there are other things we can do. I'll be going through this again starting next year, hoping to be more prepared the second time around :-))</p>

4

<p>Community service is often how you present it. Unless you trying to get a community service scholarship, which as BassDad has indicated should not be in his target range, developing a theme and presenting the impact and results is far more important than just logging in hours. DD was able to translate the choral performances that were done in various venues with a theme and storyline that got her past all of the community service requirements of various scholarships and EC requirements. Have him step back and look for the theme rather than the cause.. .</p>

5

<p>Vent all you like, that is part of what the board is for.</p>

<p>Singersmom07 is right on the money. Applying for scholarships now, and applying for grants as a professional musician involves targeting not the ones that you would like to get but the ones that you have a reasonable chance of getting and then packaging what you have done in language that emphasizes what the source of the money is looking for.</p>

<p>Happy hunting.</p>

6

<p>sagiter, my son was in the same boat with the music 24/7 throughout high school, as are a good many of the folks here. Between hs music, pit orchestra for spring musical, yo, private lessons, 3 string quartets & coachings, a decent amount of paying gigs, there was little time for eating, let alone community service.</p>

<p>And what little community service he did, it was musical. Some mentoring, coaching of elementary & middle school kids, the hospital, nursing and vet home visits, and pro bono performances for some civic activities and nonprofit fundraisers. </p>

<p>I agree with BassDad, you don't complete for the broad spectrum scholarships, be they local, regional, or national, unless your kid's talent fall within the parameters and there is a realistic chance of being competitive within the pool (kinda sounds like audition advice ;)).</p>

<p>Face it, in many cases, the time spent drafting & revising the essay alone may be better served doing scales and rep for audition prep.</p>

<p>Singersmom07 has sound advice. Target the theme. Son's quartet had a recurring well paying gig at a supper club. They played the week after the 9/11 attack, and announced they were contributing their pay to one of the 9/11 charities, and left a donation can on one of the tables. By the end of their gig, they had over $1000, excluding their contribution. He incorporated this experience in his school applications and scholarship essays. Even without this, he was able to focus and expand on the smiles, the joy, the memories his other cs participation evoked in describing his participation. </p>

<p>It maybe a bit late now, but if you're looking for music specific outside scholarships, there is not much out there. Most are competition based, and offered by local, regional, and a few national paid orchestras. Additionally, local music societies, instrument specific societies, music educators groups, provide them as well. Again, some are worth the effort, some aren't. Son had local peers that nailed a few nice ones, but we were in a geographic area that afforded a number of decent sized competition based awards; not all are so fortunate. </p>

<p>I spent many hours looking for these opportunities for son both prior to and during his undergrad, and would be happy to pass along any info I may still have.</p>

<p>Face it, we and our kids fill a niche market, and the broad spectrum scholarships usually don't fit. Is it fair? Maybe. Maybe not. It might be, because depending on where your son ends up, many of these opportunities will still exist as an undergrad, and not just as an entering freshman. Institutional internal competitions, instrument specific departmental and/or endowed, alumni scholarships for continuing students, local, regional, national performing organization competitions are still available, and are often tiered to different age/performing levels.</p>

<p>And don't forget all the free, full tuition or full ride summer festival/program opportunities that many will compete for and take advantage of, often into and beyond grad school. </p>

<p>Again, it's a crap shoot. Much like an audition. Know your opportunities, and take advantage of all that provide a realistic expectation of positive results. Tilting at windmills is frustrating; shooting fish in a barrel can be far more rewarding. </p>

<p>A couple of prior outside scholarship threads:
<a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/music-major/663031-private-music-scholarships.html?highlight=scholarships%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/music-major/663031-private-music-scholarships.html?highlight=scholarships&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>And some competition or discipline specific possibilities:
<a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/music-major/559701-long-island-competitions.html?highlight=competitions%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/music-major/559701-long-island-competitions.html?highlight=competitions&lt;/a>
<a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/music-major/541925-guitar-competitions.html?highlight=competitions%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/music-major/541925-guitar-competitions.html?highlight=competitions&lt;/a>
<a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/music-major/487175-must-do-vocal-competitions-beyond-all-states.html?highlight=competitions%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/music-major/487175-must-do-vocal-competitions-beyond-all-states.html?highlight=competitions&lt;/a>
<a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/music-major/269839-trumpet-competitions.html?highlight=competitions%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/music-major/269839-trumpet-competitions.html?highlight=competitions&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

7

<p>To the OP....is your son applying for admittance NOT as a music major? If so, just highlight what he DID...not what he didn't do. Put down the nursing home visits, etc.</p>

<p>DS (who is a music major) had significant community service playing his instrument at varying functions around our town. He also found the time (in the summers and maybe on show a year) to do the lights for civic theaters around here. </p>

<p>He also volunteered for things happening durin his school day (taking info at the school blood drive, etc).</p>

8

<p>My son will attend as a Double Major Music Ed/Performance. We do have all the musical community service stuff, benefits for food drives, performing at the town inauguration, a benefit for the New Orleans Strings Project after Katrina, nursing home visits, etc. All I'm saying is that in total I can see the readers saying "so what did he really do, just play". He didn't really organize anything, just one of the many who perform on that day.</p>

<p>As to music based scholarships and stuff, we've done that it just seems that the vast majority of other the larger national and smaller local scholarships are looking for kids who have done more "whole hog commitment to a cause stuff".</p>

9

<p>Agreeing with Thumper- focus on what your son DID.You can't change what was, just list what your son was part of and what the performances were for. My D has all of the same practice schedules, maintains a 5.0 weighted GPA and still has plenty of community service to list. Is your son a member of NHS? With his grades ,he should be, and those NHS service hours can be listed seperately under Community Service. Does he play for any community theatre groups? If they are non-profit, those hours count too. Any playing in a house of worship- yep,those will work. Look at the bog picture and then go back and take out what you can and see where it fits. I bet you'll be surprised at how much time your son really has put in!</p>

10

<p>I am going to give a somewhat different observation on this matter of community service vis a vis college applications. From recent reading, including some exposes on college admissions that had off the record interviews with admission directors, here are my thoughts:</p>

<p>1)The whole “you have to have X community service” to get accepted by a good school is part of the general hype out there, often not based in reality. While having community service probably is a plus, , I suspect admissions people are also wary of the ‘hyper ones’, asking themselves are they doing it because they want to, or because they think it looks good on a college resume? The articles I read had statements about that, that kids who on their application had a mess of community service “hashmarks” were suspect.</p>

<p>Keep in mind that no study of college admissions has found ‘golden numbers’, that the claims that if you don’t have a list of extra school activities and community service as long as Bernie Madoff’s victims you are screwed is something that is promulgated by paranoid parents and conventional wisdom more then reality. Not to mention that ‘community service’ is really easy to fudge, which makes it kind of dubious.</p>

<p>I agree with the other posters, on the application mention the kinds of community service your child has done. The fact that it was related around their passion for music to me is a plus, since it shows a committment around the area they are passionate about:). If you are talking general admission criteria, rather then a special scholarship around community service, then your kid should be fine IMO. </p>

<p>2)All the activities your child is involved with count, they aren’t throways, they show school community spirit, the performances, pit band, etc, giving back. That is no small thing and counts as much as community service, if not more so. It shows dedication to something.</p>

<p>3)Also keep in mind that in the essays about themselves the child should mention that music is important, that they spend a lot of time in rehearsals and practicing, on top of maintaining their grades and so forth. I suspect college admissions directors (especially if your child is applying for an ED degree with something else), are going to know the kind of dedication music takes for someone to have enough talent to want to go into music. That is a discipline that is pretty unique, based on what I observe with my son. Yeah, kids can talk about studying, doing soccer, etc, that have their own discipline, but music is quite a different one; not only do the kids get physically worn out, it involves a system of discipline to achieve that works differently IMO then other such things.</p>

<p>There is a lot of FUD (Fear, uncertainty and doubt) around admissions, and there is a ton of absolute crap out there on 'guaranteed ways to get admitted". The problem is, everyone is now pumping their kids full of activities and community service, so what advantage is that (especially since admission people long caught onto the ‘plumpers’, ones doing it to pad their resumes). Having music makes your child unique, and it is the unique combinations that I hear grab their eyes. It is kind of like in music school auditions, there are a lot of hot shot musician types out there, who play perfectly, who in many cases have been ‘prepped for the audition’…but often lose out, because that is all they have and it is quite common. You get kids (this in the violin world) who can play the Mendelsohn technically perfect but if the auditioner asked them to sight read a chamber piece, would sit there frozen, or if asked to sing part of the piece couldn’t do it, or explain even the smallest bit about the piece…</p>

<p>Anyway, my more then 5c, hope it helps with your fears a bit.</p>