Looking for some advice to help my class of '21 son develop a list of possible colleges. Thanks to the pandemic and related stress, he hasn’t even wanted to think about this, but he really is going to have to get going at this point. And I’m the kind of person who just went to the same state school as all of my siblings so I feel very out of my comfort zone!
A little more info about him in case it’s helpful:
-solid jazz musician in a band that wins national competitions, but isn’t sure he wants to major in music as he doesn’t think he wants to play professionally (but would like to play in college)
-not much in the way of other extracurricular activities, other than rec league sports
-3.94 GPA with some AP classes
First, understand your budget - are you able to pay the sticker price or will you need copious financial aid? Then consider region - how far from home would be acceptable? How big of a student body? Country kid who likes outdoors, or a city kid? This is where to start. Where you go next will depend on the answers.
Oh for Pete’s sake. Yeah, he’s 2022. Good way to show how much help I need!
No SAT score yet. It got postponed to October.
We’re in WA, and he has questions still about his major. His passion right now is jazz, and I think starting out with music as a major would make sense, could always change it later. He’s not so sure about that.
Order the Fiske Guide to colleges from
Amazon and it has detailed descriptions of schools all across the US. Figure out your budget (as recommenced by others) and try to get the information of where kids from your area/high school attend - good for ideas too.
I think wanting to be a music major adds a whole other element, none of my kids went that route but I recall friends talking about making videos and flying to auditions, taking sample classes…
In WA, U of Puget Sound could be a nice fit for a jazz musician who wants to combine music with an as-yet-undetermined academic major. He could expect merit with his stats. (And there are music-specific scholarships, even for non-majors.) They’re supportive of double majors, with more than 25% of music majors double majoring, so it would be easy for him to add a second major or to switch majors and downgrade music to a minor if he prefers.
Do you have a sense of what, besides music, he might want to study?
Second, are there any broad subject areas that he definitely has eliminated or wants to to make sure are kept open? Examples are Engineering, Health Sciences (e.nursing), Business, etc.
Third, I would make a grid of big, medium, small by urban, suburban, rural. Try to exclude anything that isn’t of interest. It is helpful sometimes to visit a campus in each of the grid (if possible) to get a general feel. It doesn’t really have to be a school of interest. Sometimes excluding things is easier that determining actual likes.
My understanding is that the University of Washington is very good for music. It is also very good for computer science and many other majors.
I was a math major. One thing that I noticed is that quite a few people who are good at math are also good at music. This leads to the obvious question: Is he good at math? Math, particularly if you add in some computer literacy, is a much easier way to make a living compared to music.
If your son is going to be a music major, I would try very hard to completely avoid debt for a bachelor’s degree if it is at all possible.
One more thing: Washington is a WUE / WICHE state. You might want to look at the various WUE universities if cost is a factor at all.
UW is too good for computer science. The CS major would likely not be an option for him there.
There are definitely good, affordable options through WUE. U of Utah, for example, is excellent for music and many other majors, and there aren’t as many barriers to popular majors like CS and business as there are at UW. There’s a “U of Utah Jazz Studies” FB page that could be worth checking out.
You need to read the articles from Peabody…I’ll link them.
Here you go…read these…they start with the first post in this thread. A must read for anyone who is passionate about music but unsure where to go with that.
Kid one did major in music performance. He got the vast majority of information about possible college choices from his precollege ensemble director, private music teachers, and high school band director. The key for him was the private instructor. This kid graduated from Boston University. Their music program is conservatory like in a University. He also was accepted to New England Conservatory, the Hartt School, Peabody Conservatory, University of North Texas, Duquesne. All had excellent private teachers on his instrument.
My second kid sounds a bit more like your son. She wanted to continue playing her instrument in an orchestra, and take private lessons but she didn’t want to major in music. This was a hard criteria for her to fulfill…but she did it! She reached out to many music department chairs for information as well as the private teachers on her instrument. She was an engineering major, but did play in the orchestra at Santa Clara University for all four years.
Your son is interested in opportunities to perform as a jazz musician. He can reach out to music faculty at the colleges and ask…we found them to be very helpful and responsive.
I do wish his school did a little better job of getting this info out to parents. It’s a fairly middle-upper class cohort so maybe most people are just savvier than I am.