<p>What if the student applies to music schools all over the country and finds out that his East Coast auditions are spread through some week or 2-week period and somewhere in the middle of that time period the both possbible dates for West Coast auditions are held? Some schools even assign some particular dates and times to all auditioning applicants - what people do if they get assigned to more than one audition on the same day in the different parts of the country?</p>
<p>Immediately call the admissions departmet and explain your situation. They will be helpful. Buddy of mine here in Chicago had 2 children auditioning in NY and they were assigned on 2 separate weekends. They called and explained and "voila," back to back auditions on the same day...</p>
<p>Agree. But recommend using phone or email depending on what the school prefers. We could not get a flight to arrive to make the set time so they moved it to the next day for us. We used email since they had stated a preference for that form and response was right away.</p>
<p>Put together a backup plan and also consider which auditions are most important and most likely. We found that some of the best conservatories were not very flexible. Unfortunately, some also only gave a lead time of about 2 weeks. My D had problems even with East coast auditions. I can't imagine trying to do auditions on both coasts.</p>
<p>I can't imagine trying to do auditions on both coasts.</p>
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<p>Well, we live on the West Coast ... where double-degree opportunities for musicians are much fewer than on the opposite coast, so my D might not become completely satisfied with somewhat limited local opportunities; but, on the other hand, she can't ignore them completely (some of them are in-state schools!) - therefore she might end up with auditioning all over the country.</p>
<p>And right now it looks like the least flexible of all might be music department of UCLA which can be neither ignored (as the best of all UCs, where we have in-state advantage), nor relied on (as having very restricitive policy and high selectivity).</p>
<p>Sorry, I just realized your D is a junior and you are starting to worry about the possible logicists for auditions next year.</p>
<p>You and your D have a long way to go before you worry about audition schedules. You first need to start on an analysis of the available programs. This usually involves an honest assessment of your D's music abilities. Your D's music teacher may be helpful, but we found that was not always the case. Some teachers can be encouraging and reluctant to give a true assessment. Often they don't have current information about various conservatories and the level of competition. I highly recommend you consider a conservatory summer program such as the Eastman program. This will give your D an idea of the level of competition and equally important will give her an idea of the life of a conservatory student. Your D also needs to decide about double degree programs. If she chooses that path, she can eliminate a whole bunch of the best conservatories from consideration. There have been several discussions on this forum about dd programs. I recommend eliminating from consideration any dd programs where less than a dozen students graduate each year. There are very good reasons for only a few students graduating. My advice would be to pay attention to the red flags.</p>
<p>DS auditioned for seven schools for undergrad...all over the U.S. map. When his decisions about school were made, we got out a huge desk calendar, and wrote in all of his obligations first (youth orchestra concerts, school events, festivals, etc). Then we took the audition dates of six of the seven schools (long story about the 7th, but suffice it to say he auditioned prior to the audition "season" beginning...oh and that was a mistake, he should have gone to the campus...but he did get accepted). Yes, there were overlaps and some "ugly" travel times during the period between November (1st audition) and end of Feb (last). BUT by looking in advance, he was able to be on campus for all of the auditions. First, we wrote in the dates of schools with only one audition date (yes there were a couple of those). Then we wrote in dates for the other schools. Miraculously, there was a time for all. I will tell you, however, that we met people at auditions (folks DS knew) who had either flown or driven to two auditions in completely different places on subsequent dates. You do what you gotta do. Some folks will choose to go to a regional audition. Also, some schools allow taped auditions for those who live further away. I will say, DS auditioned in person at all of the schools except that 7th school...and it was the only place that didn't offer him merit aid. He said he wished he had gone on campus for that audition.</p>
<p>My S only applied to four schools, but we still had overlap. We had to choose a day for CIM when he applied, and before we knew when others were. We purposely aimed for a time near when we <em>thought</em> Juilliard's would be, since I was going to fly to the US to accompany him (he was already in the US for final HS semester.) However, it ended up being the same day that Juilliard's auditions were. We knew Juilliard was not flexible, and also knew that Juilliard and Curtis were usually the same weekend, so it made sense to contact CIM. I emailed. I explained honestly - wasn't sure how they'd feel at being asked to change for Juilliard. They were very nice about it. They offered an alternate date - the only one available - take it or leave it. And we had to pay a small fee. My guess is that, since they attract many of the same people as Juilliard, it is a common request. (S ended up going alone to the CIM audition, and they took very good care of him!)</p>
<p>By the way, Curtis' audition was on Saturday, Juilliard's on Sunday, and I believe Manhattans (S didn't apply) was on Monday. They coordinate to make it easier for folks travelling. We flew into Philly, then took a train to NYC after the Curtis audition. Instrumental auditions are usually end of Feb or early March for them. It's possible that other NYC schools are involved (Mannes?) but I don't really know.</p>
<p>Two things to add to edad and thumper's comments... </p>
<ol>
<li><p>GET APPLICATIONS IN EARLY!!! The schools with the "floating" audition dates often ask you for preferred dates and then assign them first come, first served after an application is complete.</p></li>
<li><p>Try to "pace" the auditions with safeties at the beginning (as a warm up) and at the end (as a cool down) and put the though ones in the middle.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>I would also pay attention to thumper's warning about remote auditions. My D had even less success. She did two remote auditions because each only involving losing 4 hours of travel time and 1 day off from school. She was rejected by both, even though she was accepted by other conservatories that are generally more selective.</p>
<p>Also consider the feasibility of your D missing large amounts of school. All of D's auditions fell in about an 8 week period from early January through early March. She did the two remote auditions at one lost school day each, two local auditions in a failed attempt at gain admission into a studio usually reserved for grad students, and 5 travel auditions. Some of the travel auditions were on weekends and only 1 day of school was lost. Others were on weekdays and required 2 lost days. I don't remember the exact total, but I believe my D lost about 12 school days in the 8 weeks.</p>
<p>Nice spelling in previous post. I meant "tough" not "though" as typed...</p>
<p>You should also add into that "time off from work" if Mom, Dad or both are accompanying child to auditions. Since "Mom makes me nervous," I had audition duty. I didn't work a complete work week from the last week of January through the fist week of March last year. Fortunately, I have a great boss and his boss had 2 auditioning during that time.</p>
<p>Also start stocking up your frequent flyer and frequent hotel stay reward points. I started the fall of 2005 with close to 250,000 miles. By the end of the school visits and auditions, I was tapped. On the hotel side, I was able to get 8 free nights to help relieve the financial pain...</p>
<p>I think my son's story might be a bit unusual. He auditioned at 4 schools. We got out the calendar, same as Thumper, and mapped out everything. Things lined up very nicely for us. For Eastman, son decided to do the regional audition. He had visited Eastman in the fall and spent over an hour with the teacher he was interested in studying with. He felt that a live audition wouldn't change this teacher's mind much one way or the other and regional audition, which was taped and taken back to the school seemed like a good alternative. Many folks on this board will advise against regional auditions. However, son was accepted to Eastman with nice merit money and he ended up attending there. I met up with his studio teacher a couple of years ago (long story) and we talked a bit about admission. His teacher said that son had had a very strong audition. </p>
<p>So if you have had previous recent contact with the school and teacher I think a regional taped audition can be a viable alternative.</p>
<p>This year, west coast auditions were earlier than those on the east coast -- it would have been possible to audition at USC, UCLA, and Santa Barbara without conflict in early February (UCLA has auditions only one day, but UCSB has two weekends of auditions). You can also apply to those schools by CD if need be.</p>
<p>Last year my son had his USC, UCLA and UCI (Irvine) auditions the same day, and UCSB the next day. But UCSB preferred the day before. I can't understand why these schools don't coordinate things, esp. the UC's. After all, they are getting many of the same students audtioning for each. We saw many of the same applicants at more than one of the auditions. Luckily, we already knew his times for USC and UCLA before scheduling a time for UCI. Also, luckily, the USC and UCLA times didn't conflict.</p>
<p>Shennie, that is the very same situation my S had with CCM. He had met the teacher at a conference, and had a lesson with him there. S already knew he wanted to apply to Cincinnati, and talked with the teacher then. Then he was invited to the (merit) scholarship weekend. He stopped by the teacher's office while on campus, and the teacher talked to him and my brother-in-law (who took him) for awhile. So by the time it came time to audition, he'd already visited campus, and had met the teacher. But the actual audition was done regionally here in Atlanta, on videotape. And he got in, with merit money. But I think the teacher already had a good idea of what my S could do, and the video wasn't a deal maker or breaker in this situation.</p>
<p>My D is going to be sending a video to St. Olaf. She is not majoring in music (which <em>requires</em> an on campus audition), and the audition weekend is the same as Georgia's All State, which she really wants to do. Her audition will be strictly for merit, and I'm aware that sending a video may decrease her chances. It's a chance we're willing to take in this particular instance. The merit money may make or break her ability to actually attend there, but after weighing all the pros and cons, she has opted to go to All State.</p>
<p>Oh yes...between auditions, festivals, competitions, band trip (why did they need THAT his senior year??), he missed 20 days of school. His school was VERY understanding. None were unexcused absences. But he did have to do the work and there were weeks on end when he wasn't in school the full week. It was also a particularly snowy winter and there were snow days too. We were actually in Baltimore during that dreadful Presidents Day snowstorm in 2003 when DC got about 30 inches of snow. It was something. Auditions were actually postponed from Monday to Wednesday of that week...so MORE time away from school.</p>
<p>This usually involves an honest assessment of your D's music abilities. </p>
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<p>Yea, there is a problem here. ;-) Unfortunately, she probably can't go to any summer program this year, because her orchestra has mandatory summer tour to Europe. She has been to some international music festival last year and, apparently, made a good impression there on many teachers but that was not particularly high-level festival (just one her teacher goes to and takes his strong students there annually ;-)). Her teachers' opinions on her abilities depends very much on her shape and preparedness (and for their own moods ;-)) from one lesson to another (it's tough to be both a musician and a straight A junior at her highly competitive school), so they vary from one time to another.</p>
<p>She is not much of the competition winner - goes to some of them (not often), makes good impression (gets complimented), sometimes takes some minor prize or honorable mention ... then doesn't go to compete for the long time. On the other hand, she does it in Sillicon Valley, full of gifted and overly competitive young musicians ... most of whom, btw, are practical people and tend not to think seriously about music career in future. ;-) But she did win the Honor Panel last year.</p>
<p>So, we still don't know how do her abilities measure up compared to average level (if there is such a thing) of american conservatories applicants and which programs are more or less realistic for her. There is no thinking about conservatiories themselves (like Julliard), but, rather, double-degree at some college/university with conservatory or double-major at some college with the strong music department. Are there any ways (other than summer school ate Eastman ;-)) to assess her abilities to realize where she ever stands a chance?</p>
<p>The "objective" assessment is really important and as edad said, summer programs are a great way to do it. My D went to NHSMI (Northwestern) after her sophomore year and had a mediocre experience, mostly due to room mate issues. After her junior year she want to Interlochen and just adored it. It was there that she and her parents learned,that she could "run with the big dogs" since her seating improved every seating audition. She also validated her notion that she needed to go to a conservatory so she could be surrounded with people who shared her passion for music. The experience also made Mom and Dad confident that all that $ we'd be plunking down for tuition won't go to waste.</p>
<p>So how do you achieve an objective assessment without a summer program? I recommend multiple Road Trips! As soon as "Audition Season 2007" is over, like mid-March, it's time for your daughter to start visiting schools that she is considering attending and get some lessons with the faculty. The lesson serves 2 purposes. 1st does she can consider if she likes the school she's visiting and if she likes the professor. The lesson also lets you ask the professor's opinion of admission chances at said institution. </p>
<p>Don't be afraid to ask many direct questions. The critical questions include, "Is my child's ability of the caliber necessary to be admitted here?" If the answer is YES or NO, you still ask, "What other institutions and teachers would you recommend for my child?" These become the basis for the next visit(s).</p>
<p>Have fun on your quest. It becomes an epic right up there with the Illiad and the Odyssey.</p>
<p>Is it suggested or expected that parents sit in on practice lessons? I don't remember if I have asked that before, but my son is very independent, and used to navigating auditions and so forth by himself. </p>
<p>I would certainly like to ask the peritnent questions of the professors (if I know what they are...please advise..), but also don't feel the need to sit in if either DS doesn't want me to, or it really isn't expected.</p>