<p>My son is a junior and his dream is to attend Berklee. He is very musically inclined with many years of lessons. He took piano lessons for several years in elementary school and he has played the alto sax for eight years. His true passion, however, is with the guitar. His genre of choice is in the rock, blues, and metal area. He has also been exposed to classical and jazz while playing the piano and sax.</p>
<p>Berklee presents a couple of hurdles. First he must be accepted. Secondly, we have a bit of a financial gap to close and it appears Berklee does not offer much beyond some audition based scholarships. As a parent, my issue with Berklee is that I question how marketable he will be with a $200k music (performance) degree. I am an I.T. professional and my wife is a CPA, so we sometimes have issues thinking outside the logic box!</p>
<p>In researching it appears that Belmont may be an interesting choice since it is a Liberal Art school where he could possibly minor in another field. It also appears to be more in my financial comfort zone.</p>
<p>As a parent, I am looking for that silver bullet of school and program where he can pursue the major of his choice (contemporary music performace), but where there may be other options. Our preference is to stay in the Northeast, or at least close. We live in Western New York.</p>
<p>Academically, he is a bright kid with mediocre grades. His average over the first 2 years of high school was in the low 80s. This year though he has picked it up to the low 90s. For what it is worth he is also a year round athlete (cross country and track).</p>
<p>Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated for a school/program that you feel would be a good fit. Also, are there any recommendations on improving his chances of acceptance?</p>
<p>Thanks!
jmd5505 is online now</p>
<p>My S is also a rock/contemporary guitarist, though he has played french horn for 8 years. He was recently accepted at Belmont for commercial music, and is waiting to hear from Berklee. It sounds like both programs would be a good fit for your S, but he may need to improve his academics for Belmont. My S has a 3.4 GPA and 31 ACT. Belmont gets a lot of applicants, especially on voice and guitar, and most of them have strong acdemics as well as musical chops. I would recommend you visit there if you can. </p>
<p>Most colleges have a “facts page” on their website, or available from their admissions office, that will give you the range of GPAs and test scores for their most recent freshman class. These do matter, even for music, and especially for merit scholarships.</p>
<p>Berklee does have some good-sized scholarships that are audition based. Your S may want to try to attend the one-week Guitar Sessions in August. They offer a $250 scholarship to about 30 kids based on a CD submission. My S got one of those last summer. He also stayed with family in the Boston area so we did not have to pay for housing for the week. He was put in the highest level group (they try out the first day and are placed into groups based on ability.) Then he was invited to audition for a large scholarship to attend Berklee. He wasn’t prepared for this and didn’t get one, but two of the kids in his group did (the largest one they gave that week was $16,000 but I understand that they have scholarships up to $25,000 and a handful of Presidential Scholarships that are full rides.) And he knew what to expect when he did have his “real” audition for Berklee. Just getting the workshop scholarship and being placed in the highest group was a huge confidence boost for him. But it also gave him a realistic view of the competition, and we have heard that Berklee does give some preference to kids that do well in their summer programs. </p>
<p>If your S is at all interested in jazz and has an aptitude for it, there are a LOT more programs for jazz guitar than there are for rock/commercial. There are also less-competitive academic schools offering jazz programs. Belmont also requires playing one jazz number for its commercial guitar audition. I know some people say that even kids who want to pursue careers in rock/contemporary music can benefit from collegiate training in jazz. Unfortunately my S never played a lick of jazz, though he was able to pull off the Belmont audition.</p>
<p>Feel free to PM me if you want more info about Belmont or Berklee.</p>
<p>Thanks Honestmom. He will be attending the Berklee guitar session. I have read about the scholarship competition, so he will be prepared for that if the opportunity presents itself. If nothing else, the camp should serve as a barometer to his actual level of talent. He has not taken the SAT’s or ACT’s yet, but he scored pretty well on the PSAT.</p>
<p>The music scenes to which your son is mostly drawn are not very oriented to credentials. People care how well you play, not where you learned to play it. My music advice to him would be to to learn contemporary music by playing in bands.</p>
<p>Financially speaking, it’s a winner-take-all world where a tiny minority make a great deal of money (typically for a fairly short period of heir lives) and everybody else scrambles to make ends meet. The happiest musicians I’ve known (and I place myself in that category) are those who focused their academic efforts on something that would lead to a day job. </p>
<p>One reason I was able to work as much as I did as a young musician was that my student loan burden was modest enough that I could take the kind of job that allowed me some flexibility about coming in to work later when I’d had a gig the night before. (Self employment is usually the key there.)</p>
<p>Have you looked at the Frost School of Music at the Universoty of Miami?</p>
<p>FYI, I attended a wedding last weekend and met a couple whose son graduated from Berklee in music engineering in 2000, and has worked steadily and even won a few Grammys. He didn’t decide on engineering until he got to Berklee and had zero background in it, but decided he was not likely to have a career on his instrument (upright bass) so he switched to engineering. They said it was the best money they ever spent. The great thing about Berklee or Belmont’s commercial music program is that you can make that decision after your first year.</p>