<p>This isn’t “around Michigan”, and I wouldn’t even be mentioning it if you hadn’t brought up the U of Alabama, but the U of South Carolina has a great trumpet professor, James Ackly, who is also a professional performer and has lots of contacts in the trumpet world. </p>
<p>Allen Vizzutti is the “artist in residence” at USC this year and for at least two more year. My music ed (trumpet) son has master classes and private classes Ackly every week and with Mr. Vizzutti every few weeks. Just a few weeks ago, Vizzutti was a feature performer with the USC marching band - now how many trumpet players can honestly say that they have “performed with Allen Vizzutti in a sold out stadium in front of a live audiance of 85,000 and a televised audiance of three million people”?</p>
<p>There are also some other “plusses” at South Carolina, like automatic in state tuition for all marching band members (if you are a wind instrumentalist music ed student you have to do marching band anyway), plus a small stipend for marching band. </p>
<p>Also they offer an optional “performance” certificate. You have to be selected for the performance certificate track by having a really good audition, and you do have to practice nearly the same amount as performance majors and once accepted you have to pass the same juries and do the same recietals as performance majors. Not all music students will be selected for the performance certificate track, but a lot of them are. Basically, the performance certificate is just a piece of paper that says that the college thinks you are a good enough performer to be a professional performer. It would be sorta like a performance minor for non-performance students, and it qualifies students to be awarded a “distinction in performance” when they graduate with a non-performance degree. I look at it like this - if you can perform well enough, you can get a performance job without a performance degree, but you can’t teach without a teachers certificate and a Music Ed degree is the track to a teachers certificate, so a Ed degree with a performance certificate is the best of both worlds.</p>
<p>A good audition at USC can get you a moderate size music scholarship (a few thousand dollars), and since you are apparently a top student, you might could apply for the USC Honors College, most of the Honors College students have close to Ivy League test scores and they get the best teachers for their general ed classes. I believe that all Honors College students get academic scholarships in addition to any special skills (music/athletics) scholarships. </p>
<p>First year Honors College music students have their choice of staying in the “music community” dorm or the Honors College dorm - both dorms are on the “horseshoe” (origional historic campus area - it’s kind of a big deal to stay on the horseshoe) and are very close to each other at USC, and I believe that both of them are apartment style accomidations where you share a two or three bedroom apartment, but you have a bedroom to yourself. About 40% of the students are from out of state, I think something more like 60-80% of honors college students are OOS.</p>
<p>The “east coast” USC might not be as famous as the west coast USC or even those other colleges that you mentioned, but it is something to consider, particularly for a trumpet student. My son turned down a larger music scholarship offer from a more prestigious college to attend USC due to the quality of their trumpet studio. Most students in the trumpet studio will be very quick to tell you that Ackley is their hardest teacher then they will tell you that Ackley is also their favorite teacher.</p>