<p>Yes the Conservatory</p>
<p>A better system.... About halfway through the audition process, I dreamed that there would be one big audition with representatives from every school. At the end, everyone would decide the best placement for each student to meet the student's needs and those of the schools. ...you can get a little dingy when making long drives and staying in too many hotels.</p>
<p>"I dreamed that there would be one big audition with representatives from every school" -- no pressure there!</p>
<p>Just checking back in to say thanks for all the info - </p>
<p>BassDad - as always, great info about Oberlin. Fascinating about its enrollment management. </p>
<p>edad - Hadn't heard about Rochester's Take Five - will explore that further. </p>
<p>One last question - any experiences with B.U. and merit aid?</p>
<p>FYI, universities offering joint degree options are: Northwestern, BU, McGill, Oberlin...</p>
<p>BU can be quite generous with merit aid, depending on the funds available in a given year and the particular ensemble needs etc of course. The need-based grants are also competitively awarded, so if you have real financial need, your aid will be partly determined by your musical and academic abilities. My former roommate and I had near-identical EFCs, but my SAT score was 200 points higher than his; his financial aid was so bad that he had to transfer to avoid a crushing burden of debt, while mine is extremely generous.</p>
<p>Merit Financial aide to a music major is based on SAT scores? I thought it was based entirely on the auditions. Thanks for helping me learn. I guess we have her take a SAT review class and squeeze those last few points out.</p>
<p>Not all scholarships and grants are based on the audition, particularly at schools that are more than a stand-alone conservatory. BU and many other schools have scholarships that students become eligible to receive, regardless of their major, if they have test scores and/or high school GPA's and/or class rank better than certain pre-defined levels. In fiddlefrog's case, it looks like his numbers qualified him to receive one or more such grants, while his ex-roomate's did not.</p>
<p>Many of BU's available merit-aid scholarships and grants have explicit numerical requirements, which are listed at </p>
<p>(just keep clicking on Next in the lower right hand corner.)</p>
<p>BassDad you know everything. Thanks, keep up the great help to those of us that are struggling to get through this.</p>
<p>Would that I did. I happened to remember BU being very particular about numeric requirements because that was one of the schools where my daughter auditioned.</p>