<p>Hi, I'm a high school junior who wants to major in choral music education. I'll be auditioning as a piano primary, vocal secondary. I'll be auditioning at all Texas/Oklahoma schools that are not uber competitive but still fairly challenging (SMU, TCU, UNT, Baylor, Oklahoma City University.) Right now I have a list of nine schools that is not budging. How many schools should a music major apply to? I know there is no magic number, but traveling to all nine schools for auditions may be a bit much. Any thoughts?</p>
<p>Six is a good number. Try to take advantage of any early audition dates (early action). If you are accepted early it reduces the pressure and enables you to potentially withdraw from later auditions.</p>
<p>S applied to 8 schools and had auditions at 7 (one was BA non audition). 1 school was local (no travel), 3 were in one city over 1 week (NY). Two were EA schools (including the local). I can’t imagine doing any more if you have to travel. As it is, he missed two weeks of school total on just auditions never mind travel for his school music groups.</p>
<p>He originally had 9 schools but dropped one after his acceptance to Berklee in Dec. You could apply early to couple if they offer it and then make a decision to shorten the list based on the outcome (LGSMom’s idea above!)</p>
<p>Choral music ed is usually not nearly as competitive as performance is and your list of schools is not on the uber-competitive side, so you shouldn’t need 9 schools in order to ensure some decent admissions offers. Students applying to schools where the chances of admission are <10% do need to keep a reasonably large list since admission to those types of schools is much more of a gamble.</p>
<p>On the other hand, your schools are all relatively close (I’m assuming that you are from Oklahoma or northern Texas), so you can probably drive to most of them which keeps the expense, stress, and time down during audition season (and your schools aren’t known for their traffic-killing blizzards during audition season–again reducing stress and problems). Because of the relatively large chance of admission, the stress of the audition is even further reduced. Hence 9 auditions is probably not impossible (although probably more than is optimal).</p>
<p>Given the close proximity of the schools, have you visited them all? If not, do, and then use your visiting experiences to narrow things down. Talk to some choral music educators in your area (starting with your own choral teacher), in order to get them opinions on the strength of the various schools’ programs. </p>
<p>Also ask your piano teacher how strong a candidate you are for admission to your 9 schools. You may also want to take a sample lesson at two or three of the schools you visit in order to get the piano teachers’ opinions on your chances of a having an audition which will help you gain admission. This information can further help you narrow your choices.</p>
<p>Doing some more upfront research will save you a lot of time and expense if you can eliminate 3 schools.</p>
<p>Thank you all so much for your advice, especially violindad’s advice about the direct relationship between competitiveness and the number of auditions. I have visited three schools, two for campus visits with interviews, and one for a whole day in the department, where I could sit in on classes and talk in depth with the music education faculty. I’m trying to visit the rest of the schools, but I don’t think I can make it before they’re out for the summer. I have heard it is better to audition at your favorite school or the most competitive one last so you have more experience with the audition. But what about scholarships? Don’t they go pretty quickly? Any advice?
Thanks!</p>
<p>I would be careful about auditioning at your favorite school last if that school has rolling admissions. Otherwise, yes, good idea.</p>