GPA / SAT for conservatories attached to Universities: Same requirement as other majors?

College Majors Music Major
21

@goforth:
That is a very thoughtful post. With admissions, you are dead spot on, it really depends on the school and the area as well, a music school might have a very, very competitive let’s say flute program, while its violin program might be a wider range. Generally, the more teachers a school has in a particular area, the wider the range IME. There is a range of ability at any school, of course, the more competitive a school is, the less the range, and you also can have a couple of top studios, then there is a major drop off with the other ones. Likewise, within a studio you can have a range, from the superstar student who is already out there, to the diamond in the rough.

Which means you are correct, @goforth, you could have a kid who would be considered unacceptably mediocre by let’s say the teacher in the ‘top’ studio, whereas another teacher sees something in the kid. With my mediocre comment, though, I was thinking more along the lines that the kid auditioning technically might be above some mythical “pass line” .

So okay, what does this mean? That in the end, there are a lot of factors here. My post #8 was that strong academics won’t bail out a kid whose playing is mediocre (whereas strong playing can override so-so academics when you are talking a program in university), that was my prime point. Your model A, @goforth, applies more to the highly competive programs,like a Juilliard or Curtis, where because of their name and reputation, they are like the ivies, they get so many applications they can pick and choose among ‘the best’ (though even there, what a teacher is looking for might not necessarily be the kid who has won X competitions, plays paganini at lightening speed and so forth). In the end, it is why people will answer “can I get admitted” with the line “it is something of a crapshoot”, because the selection process is not scientific, what teachers are looking for is not standard, what one teacher thinks is great might be another teacher’s nightmare…I will add, though, that while the range does vary, to use the violin as an example, if someone’s technique is mediocre (not just in comparison, but has sloppy intonation, sloppy bow arm, etc), few teachers would see them as a diamond in the rough, usually what happens IME (and again, using the violin, since I know that a bit) is a kid may not be as technically sharp by a certain order of degree from the ‘stars’, but shows something else with musicality and artistry (and often those two elements are on other sides of each other, a lot of the technically astute aren’t as sharp musically or artistically, whereas often kids who are musical and such are not as sharp technically IME).

The reality is where that line is is so murky, that it never hurts to try IMO, saying “I won’t audition there, because I am not good enough” may be self defeating.

22

" I am amazed at a couple of her peers in her youth orchestra who are valedictorian’ish and also incredible musicians. I’ve found that these types generally choose an Ivy unless they can get into Harvard-NEC joint program."

@estherdad:

That is my experience as well. The kind of kids you are talking about amazed me, I saw a lot of them at Juilliard pre college when my son went there, where they were academically in the high flyer league and also musically were up there. Probably about 50% of the kids I saw there were there,not with the intention of becoming a music student/performance major, but rather were there because playing music at a high level like that is a plus in elite college admisssions, those schools look for that (put it this way, if you look at the seniors graduating from that program, the schools many of them went to would make a prep school jealous). I can also tell you that many of them have parents who would forbid them from majoring in music, that it would be okay for them to do it as a ‘hobby’ in college, but not major in it…and to be honest, more than a few of the kids I am talking about likely will drop music as soon as they can, that they got into it because the parents basically saw it as a means to an end…the kids who do love music can continue on in school programs (the ivies for example have strong music programs, support it) and then maybe later get an MM, others try to do the joint programs like NEC/Harvard so they can combine both and keep the parents happy.

23

When looking at admissions, with the tendency to focus on the concrete (number of players, their level of skill, GPA, ACT, APs), never forget the intangibles. The things that explain why mediocre “on paper or by reputation” is accepted.

My D asked her undergrad teacher why she invited her into her studio and her answer was something like…oh I don’t know, I just liked you, I saw some of myself in you.

I think you have to get all those stats down and get through the prescreening. Once you pass pre-screens you just need to believe you are good enough for that school. Then it’s best to just show up “as you” and wait to see which school/teacher sees you as the right candidate. For whatever reason. You remind a teacher of themselves or other past students. They see what you are good at and even where you struggle and think they can help you. Maybe they connect with a certain artistry. These are the intangibles and where you encourage your kid to just be themselves. Every student brings a bit of themselves into the audition - and that’s what makes it interesting.

So be authentic. Forget all the scores and numbers at the audition. Bc at that moment it’s about art and connecting and being just you.

24

Is that a recent change for Oberlin Con? Seems to me students had to apply and get into the college as well as the conservatory, but maybe my memory is wrong. Now they only have to apply to the Con, as someone said above.

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@compmom:
When my son was applying to conservatories 4 years ago Oberlin did not require a seperate academic admit, unless you were dual majoring. My son’s teacher before high school went there (they graduated in 1980), and I seem to recall they only applied to the conservatory, I don’t remember them mentioning applying to the college as well (and no guarantees on that one, I am sure with my son).

26

If you want to be a double-degree at Oberlin, you need to be accepted by both conservatory and college. That’s a 5-year program resulting in BA & BMUS.

To pursue one of the degrees, you need only apply to either the college (BA) or the con (BMUS) but not both.

27

That’s true now at any rate :slight_smile: We had to wait for something from the university but it might have been new on aid or something like that.

28

LadyMM is correct regarding Oberlin. You may apply only to the conservatory if you only seek a BMus. If you seek a double major in the conservatory, you must audition for both majors.

29

As far as music majors gaining admission with lower stats, does this apply to the Ivies as well? Obviously not for violin, cello, flute, where admission will be quite competitive, but if someone is a top notch player of an underrepresented instrument and the school orchestra has a need, would Harvard, Yale, or Princeton “compromise” on stats? I’m talking about a gpa in the 3.7-3.8 range, tons of AP’s, and SAT scores in the 90-95% percentile. Not horrible, but not exactly the level they advertise. ??? (Also, we are not “Ivy or Bust”- it just happens that there are specific programs my son likes at each of those schools. )

30

While I would always tell you to give it a shot when it comes to admissions at an Ivy league school or similar caliber my take on it (and take it for what it is worth) is that while it is true those programs do look for strong players I wouldn’t count on playing let’s say viola or English horn (if that is what they need/is underrepresented) giving you an edge over kids with stronger stats may be stretching it a bit, it is not the same thing for example as their sports programs where they definitely have lower standards for recruited athletes, usually music counts more as a plus between kids with the same relative stats, an edge, then something bringing someone with ‘lesser’ stats (I only wish I had those kind of stats when I was in HS) up.

In the end, if there are some programs your son likes, having a musical background certainly doesn’t hurt, and it could be that at one of the schools that music would help him, you never know until you try:).

31

Read a recent WSJ article about litigation asking Princeton to release the metric they use for admissions in regard to a possible class action for discrimination against Asian applicants. I would love to see what the criteria are, though they say it is a “trade secret”. Maybe they toss the to 25% of applicants paperwork down a stairwell and see who lands face up. At least, is seems more like a random process that anything explicable!

32

I’m pretty sure they don’t use a metric. It’s a lot of horsetrading, shuffling, and scrambling–with built-in benchmarks for achievement.

33

The fact that they claimed it was a trade secret made me laugh!

34

The schools themselves put themselves into this bind, because while they claim that student admission is not just about metrics IE GPA, AP classes, the number of EC’s you do, SAT scores and the like, the fact that they publish to show how great their student body is the typical SAT, GPA, class rank and so forth scores tells that those do weight heavily, and it is going to burn them, because students who focus on the stats can make a case for discrimination if they have hyper stats and didn’t get in. Stats make the admissions process easier, since things like GPA, class rank (difficulty of the school attended), EC’s, SAT scores and so forth is a lot easier to make decisions on, then more nebulous things. For example, a lot of the EC’s these kids are submitting to the schools are BS IMO, they don’t represent the kid’s passion, they represent what they (or more likely their parents) decided was a great EC. I can’t tell you how many times I have heard parents ask about music and getting into a top level college, and I have seen more than a fair share of kids doing music who would rather be doing anything else, and it wasn’t pleasant to see.

Put it this way, is the kid whose parents were immigrants working in a sweatshop who has a high school career with a 3.7 GPA in a school that is mostly full of kids from disadvantaged backgrounds better or worse then a kid who went to some public high school in a well to do area like Scarsdale who had all kinds of advantages? Are kids being bred for battle to go into STEM or Economics and Finance at a high level school more valuable than a kid who has shown curiousity, willing to take risks, and go for their passion? Who will bring more to the school? A friend of mine whose daughter is now at one of the Ivies loves it, because she is a true liberal arts type, maybe major in a foreign language and history or some such, and she has found fellow kids like her…will this be true if they just use stats as a basis for admission?

Some of these same arguments in a different way are involved in music school admissions, @glassharmonica is dead spot on. My S was shocked that a schoolmate of his who ostensibly is a better player, has won competitions, etc, got waitlisted or rejected at schools my S got accepted at and not only that, but had some really, really top teachers express interest in teaching him, even though with technical playing ability the other kid was more advanced, my S would be the first to admit it…so why? (I suspect having heard the other kid play, it was my S’s musicality and musical knowledge and expressiveness I suspect that idd it, one teacher told him he was a thinking player versus a violin jock…the other kid is a violin jock more.)

Ironically, things like test scores and metrics were in some large part designed to make the admissions process easier and also to defend them against discrimination suits, by relying so heavily on them they may have done the opposite.

35

“a lot of the EC’s these kids are submitting to the schools are BS IMO, they don’t represent the kid’s passion, they represent what they (or more likely their parents) decided was a great EC”

BINGO! This realization made me so happy D was a musician (in spite of all the extra hoops necessary at application time with auditions, prescreens, head shots, double essays… ). She was following her passion. The audition panels can see/hear/evaluate the candidate live, and this is (IMHO) a far better way to determine who has potential and passion for a discipline.

I really felt for her classmates with truly perfect resumes that didn’t translate into acceptances at any of their top choices. It must be very hard to discriminate amongst all these perfect applicants and to identify those with a burning passion for learning vs good college coaches. And it’s even harder on the kids who don’t understand why, after doing everything “right”, they still were rejected.

2 is still in middle school, but is definitely NOT on a music trajectory. I dread the traditional college application process ahead, but know she needs to land where her natural abilities and drive take her, and not fall prey to the trap described above.

36

On the EC thing, my son had two ECs. Music and soccer. Of course we all know what “music” as an EC means - school orchestra, youth orchestra, summer camps, competitions, all-state… and hours and hours of practice.

Soccer was much the same. Varsity soccer for a highly ranked 6A team, and rec then club soccer since the age of 4.

These were passions, not extracurriculars. I would never change that focus to lengthen his list of ECs for a full-ride to his school of choice, because he was living his life during those years and not playing somebody else’s game. He’s a better man for it.

37

I think that dedication to music can indeed increase chances for applicants to selective schools, including those whose scores meet the benchmark but aren’t as high as some other candidates. But in some sense it is the dedication and hard work that increase the chances, as much as, or more than, any orchestra need. For that reason, an arts supplement that includes letters of recommendation is very important, and those letters should address more than music talent, but other aspects of playing, such as work ethic, consideration of others, ability to collaborate, and “passion.”