And should your son do a Category 2? If you can afford it and he really wants it, absolutely! What the heck. This really isn’t a sane process. So go ahead and put one on the list. Live large…as auditions come around and financial realities set in you can always re-visit it. Just let him know there can always be financial constraints based on results (meaning if the results are GOOD you may need to pick and choose).
Your son’s academics are better than alrightish. It is likely he could get a merit scholarship. Some schools give both merit and talent scholarships in conjunction with each other and others do not–only giving one not both. Even if Frost is a bit of a financial reach it may be worth applying to. You just never know what sort of scholarships may be given.
I don’t know about Temple for bass but the Jazz folks who I know at Tempke love if and they give excellent merit $$$ for kids in your son’s academic range. It coul be another strong financial safety.
USC (Southern California) gives academic merit money, even if the music merit is small. NYU does give merit money - you won’t know how much until he’s accepted. My son applied to only four schools. That is not unusual for music students who are looking for something very particular.
These are my impressions and observations, keeping in mind that my son is still in the audition phase.
I’ve noticed some big changes in my son’s priorities over the course of a year. He started out much more focused on playing opportunities, cache schools, being in NYC (aka Mecca). He’s now more focused on personal growth; he still has so much more to learn just about playing his instrument. He’s been gigging enough that the luster is wearing off; he’d rather have more time to practice. He’s also been playing more under college professors and pros and starting to really appreciate what a difference they make.
So, going into auditions and final school choices, I expect that it will simply come down to faculty. If he has any regrets, it’s that he made a list of schools first and then looked at their faculty. I think if he had to it over again, he’d list players first, and then find out if/where they teach. I think jazz is still very much a mentor-apprentice discipline. Also, jazz students don’t have to rely on the school to provide big production opportunities like an opera or an orchestra; something very self-reliant about jazz. 
FWIW, I thought Berklee was known to be somewhat stingy with the merit money but they surprised us. I have an EFC of 17K from FAFSA and Berklee met it.
With NYU, whatever merit money they offer is generally pretty small given the cost of the school (it is over 70k for tuition, room and board), and I have heard from a number of people who applied there for music performance in Jazz, Classical and contemporary music, that the merit aid is generally very, very small (their need based financial aid isn’t that great as well). It may be worth a shot, @GoForth,if you are willing to audition there, but I am pretty dubious about their merit aid. The conventional wisdom, that I have seen little to make me think differently, is that the traditional conservatories, the Juilliards, NEC, CIM, etc, are not very generous with merit aid, that most of it is tied to need based aid and what they consider need seems to be way out of whack with what people seem to be able to pay. I will add, though, that if there is a school your son really likes, it may be worth the expense of going through an audition and seeing.
Another possibility might be the New School in NYC, their Jazz program has a great reputation and they are less expensive than the ‘big schools’ last I checked. Another place I have heard has a good reputation might be William Patterson in NJ, I knew of some working Jazz musicians who taught there, and it likely will be more affordable.
I wouldn’t be too worried if you don’t have a big list to decide from, not everyone does that. Conventional wisdom is that you apply to at least 8 or 9 programs, my son applied only to 4, and he only considered around 8 or 9, because he already had an idea of what he was looking for. I agree with another poster, your son should be thinking of all the factors, is he a small town kind of kid, where UNT might really be a great fit, or would he pref being in a bigger town, or would it even matter?
The “brand” schools like NYU and USC for most will be expensive. For the top pick on an instrument that year they probably will go to bat and take care of you. The rest not so much.
And the other point to keep in mind is the competition between undergrads vs grad students for performance opportunities. If it is a top program with superstar masters candidates - how much opportunity will that freshman get? Even as a sophomore same deal…
For jazz UNT is a brand school. Oberlin provides merit aid in the form of Conservatory Dean Scholarships which vary in size and not dependent on the filing of any financial aid forms.
Now that I am not on my phone, I’ll say that Temple has big academic merit that is indexed for out of state students. It goes up to full tuition plus summer stipend. My understanding is that they do not stack music merit but I could be wrong.
Thanks for the great outpouring of thoughts.
Keep in mind, if S gets a $25K scholarship on a $40K tuition, that would still be quite a stretch for us (where stretch = financial risk). I think some of the suggestions are of this kind.
@ScreenName48105 - I envision the way gigging could start to de-luster. I think S will reach that point this year.
@musicprnt - In my bringing this thread back to life and mentioning only of wanting a great peer group, a lot of typical preferences were not specified - such a big/small, urban,rural because they do not really matter compared to playing skills and networking - being able to graduate and get down to business. Eventhough his academics are good, he is not looking specifically for academic challenge, having given his schoolwork a fair shake during high school at the expense of playing time. Dual majors and the like are not sought after as well. It would be nice to limit the auditions a bit - none of us really know for sure which ones will be offers.
The large presence of grad students hogging up the top spots at UNT is understood, but viewed as a realistic view of who you might run into in the real world. And those spots are something to shoot for anyway. And there will still be spots for undergrads in other ensembles and such. Reminiscent of ScreenName48105’s note about the luster of gigging, I wonder if there is also the luster of being in a particular performance group - I mean, as long as you are learning and playing in situations at your level, maybe that is fine. You might not be seen at the big jazz gala, but what loss does that cause for you?
As far as Temple, yes we have been thinking of that - a full tuition within 1 ACT point - well that is doable. And I could probably see a chain of schools between Chicago and New York as a nice cluster (Michigan, Oberlin, Hartt, Patterson, Berklee, SUNY, or some such) where they are chosen for financial safety or for having a fair chance at a great final offer from a great place.
Did your son get a 31 on the ACT or as your other thread stated he was taking it in April and hope to get a 31?
@ClarinetDad16 - S has not taken the ACT yet, but only the practice tests or whatever they do at school in advance of taking the test. It looks like Feb 6 is the real ACT test date.
I would suggest thinking in terms of “cost of attendance”, not just tuition. Room and board averages around $15K among my son’s schools.
I think that Oberlin will consider your son’s academic focus - keep them on the list!
I realize this is from a somewhat limited perspective, but New School (jazz)was the only one that offered absolutely no merit money
@GoForth, you’ve mentioned a number of schools with good jazz programs that may be relative bargains, particularly with potential merit aid (e.g., UNT, DePaul, Temple, William Paterson, SUNY Purchase). Some others that might be worth checking out on that score include Columbia College and Roosevelt University in Chicago, UIUC, Western Michigan and UMKC (though I don’t personally have any experience with any of them). But it’s very hard to know what a school is going to offer and there are very few schools (maybe NYU) that I’d write off as financially not viable before seeing what they give you.
On a separate topic, but perhaps indirectly relevant to the creation of a college list, if gigging is already “losing its luster” in high school, that would seem like a bit of a warning signal for someone who is hoping to make a career in jazz performance, It may also be a sign that the student needs to have a broader universe of musicians to play with and develop with. I recognize that there are pluses and minuses to urban versus rural in choosing a school, and ultimately you want to find a place where the student is comfortable and can develop best musically, which could be in either setting depending on the student. But one definite advantage to the urban setting, or at least the jazz mecca that is NYC, is the huge universe of jazz musicians available to play with, grow with, learn from and be inspired by.
@jazzpianodad - that is a good point that “urban” or “being near other schools” could just as well be equivalent to being in a huge, competitive student body.
The way I meant “losing its luster” is that it is losing its mystery. It is becoming known how to get gigs, where gigs might be gotten. So it is less like a missing vitamin in the diet, less like an unknown road.
@ScreenName48105 - Yes, that room and board adds to it. There is some mitigation in that we are not buying food for S here at home. Another sort of mitigation is that W and I will be free to move to a different/smaller location. If we had a full tuition deal and had to pay room, board, and normal sized fees, books and so forth, that is OK.
@drummergirl - how is Oberlin as far as number of people to play with? Actually, I believe there exists a scenario where you could go to a place with a small number of people and an ideal-for-you professor and come out 4 years later as the best-you-could-have-become, but identifying that scenario has not yet happened, so having a large peer group and a very good professor seems more possible to find on purpose.
@GoForth, one thing to note about DePaul’s School of Music is that the tuition rate is frozen for all four undergraduate years: “The School of Music’s undergraduate tuition is billed as a guaranteed package rate, meaning you pay one flat fee each year for all of your coursework and you are billed the same rate each year you are in a program for up to four years. In other words, your tuition rate is locked in at the tuition rate you pay in your first year of the program.” I don’t know of any other schools that do this.
I brought this up. I just meant that it’s losing its glamour. My son’s quintet is playing at the Detroit Auto Show Charity Gala tonight. It’s a cool gig; black tie, lots of celebrities, TV time. Being high school kids, they get a lot of attention. But it also means being there by 4pm to go through security, schlepping all their gear through ice/snow from their assigned parking lot two blocks away. They play until 10pm; it’ll be midnight before they get home. Eight hours for their “15 minutes of fame”, as they say. The first year, he was super excited… this year, it’s a “job” that’s barely worth the logistics.
On the other hand, he’s participated in a lot of masterclasses (i.e. his combo plays and the guest artist critiques them and works with them) with some great musicians and he gets so much more out of those performances. A few years ago, if there was a conflict between a gig and a masterclass, he would always have chosen the gig. Today, he’s much more likely to choose the class, and as he’s gotten older and better, the clinicians have been tougher and more demanding. He’s realistic enough to know that he’s not going to be “gigging” with that level of musicians for a long time, and that his interaction with them will be in an educational setting, hence his focus on faculty over gigging opportunities.
@GoForth, I’m in about the same boat financially. An EFC of $17K essentially means being able to pay for R&B, fees, books for big city schools in Boston, NYC, LA. When I used the NPC’s for my son’s schools, Oberlin came out the most affordable, with the exception of Michigan/Michigan State which are in-state for us.
I would be a little weary of my child majoring in Music if they are already tired of gigging. A lot of what a musician has to do is not glamorous. Especially, when you will have to pay the bills. It is hard work. Some students leave Music school after their first semester because they realize that it might be just a hobby or they feel their “music” now feels like a job. My son has several friends who have come to this realization. It’s not all fun and games and it is a lot of work. Good luck to everyone!