<p>Is this just a coincidence? Do schools award most their scholarship money early and then run out? Has anyone else experianced this?</p>
<p>The (not so) funny thing was that he felt that each of his auditions was better than the one before and he was very confident that the scholarship amount was going to increase, not decline. Their also seems to be no trend as to the cost of the school. The college that awarded the most was the most expensive, but the college that was the most inexpensive gave him the second most and the one that was the second most expensive gave him the least.</p>
<p>At this point, it is too late for us to do anything about it, but I was just wondering for the benefit of next years music applicants.</p>
<p>Not necessarily. Some schools operate that way, many do not. In some cases, you may be able to get them to increase the amount offered as they find out which of their scholarship offers have been declined. This mostly happens if you have a better offer from a direct competitor.</p>
<p>If a school has rolling admissions, then it might be possible that an earlier audition could net you more money. I think that even these schools try to be fair to all applicants that meet deadlines. </p>
<p>However, the schools that release their results for all applicants on the same date generally try very hard to make certain that the date of audition is not in any way correlated with the amount of scholarship. They try to place all applicants in the same pool for scholarships (assuming that the applicants did not miss any deadlines or have to do a make-up late audition (which most schools do not allow)).</p>
<p>I think that your result is probably pure coincidence. My son’s results were the reverse: his first live audition resulted in the smallest scholarship and his last the largest.</p>
<p>I agree with violin dad, admissions people say that they decide the scholarship/aid stuff after the kids have been accepted. I can’t guarantee that is true for all schools, or that for example with rolling admissions that might potentially occur, I have no way of knowing, but from what I have seen the audition date has little or nothing to do with rewards. I could see it being a factor with kids waitlisted, obviously, because the pool of aid/scholarships would depend on who chose not to go and how much money that freed up.</p>
<p>Without knowing what schools you are talking about (or probably even knowing about the schools themselves), it could be simply that the schools in question, in date order, simply tend to give less money. Some schools have the reputation of being crappy with aid and merit scholarships, so it could be simply that the first school is very generous relatively, and so forth. </p>
<p>The other factor is that some schools, to attract higher level players to their program, offer more in aid as an incentive. So as a hypothetical, the first school if it was a lesser known program and the kid is really solid, might offer a hefty aid package, while the last school, a ‘major’ player, might have a pool of incredibly talented students and had no reason to offer aid as inducement…and sometimes even with top rated programs, one program can come up with a great offer, another one on the same level throws a tiny package out. And history doesn’t even help, schools that were once generous with packages these days might be more parsimonious, thanks to a depleted endowment or having a lot more kids with need that needs to be filled, or both…</p>
<p>We learned a little insider info this year as we went through the process. For some sschools/studios the prof has a certain amount of money to use/recommend for scholarships. If that student doesn’t attend, then that money goes over to the “general” fund and is no longer avaiable to the studio. It may not be this way at all schools, but my D had a couple of teachers tell her this.</p>
<p>She was told that to a certain extent, a teacher needs to decide not only if the kid is deserving, but will that student actually attend. </p>
<p>I think that perhaps a student’s enthusiasm about the school as well as the “Where else did you apply?” question plays a significant role, not only in admissions but in money.</p>
<p>Great insider info. I just passed my prescreen for a late audition at new school. They said there will be less funds available for scholarships at this time. Is it true that you re-audition for scholarships every year?</p>
<p>It is possible that you re-audition for scholarships each year at some schools, but at most schools if you maintain appropriate grades and make appropriate progress on your instrument, then your scholarships continue. It generally needs to be this way so that students can make informed decisions about the affordability of a school prior to entering it. It could be unwise to enter a school hoping that you will get more money in the future.</p>
<p>Also, while you may not re-audition for your scholarship each year, you will very likely have to pass juries. That is essentially an audition that decides whether you have made sufficient progress to remain in the program the following semester or year. Normally, you would have lots of very clear warning from your teacher if your playing during the semester or year indicated that you were anywhere close to failing.</p>
<p>We just had an interesting twist to our decision process. Son’s last audition did not initially offer talent money (only academic) but since we just went and revisited the school the studio teacher offered him more $ which would now make it free tuition plus more toward room and board. The reason stated was that they were very impressed with his audition, needed his instrument and since he showed interest by revisiting they were making this offer. So it pays to show interest!</p>
<p>violindad, I have this feeling that one would have a better chance of getting more music scholarship by auditioning at another school and transfering. I may be wrong, that is just what I suspect.</p>
<p>Many years ago when I was unhappy with what I was making at my entry level managment job with a large corporation, my boss litterally told me to apply somewhere else and see if I could get a larger salary. I did that, I was sucessful, my current company offered me a little more but still not as much as the new employer, they told me it was against their guidelines. I found a new job.</p>
<p>imagep: I agree that if a person is unhappy with the scholarship level at his/her current school, then he or she is better off auditioning elsewhere as a transfer. Once you are at a school, it is relatively rare to have your music merit scholarship level increase substantially from year to year.</p>