How many music auditions did you do?

<p>Daughter is at the end of junior year, looking toward senior year and all of the college applications and auditions. She is interested in Music Education. Her list of preferred schools is about 6-8, but it is looking rather daunting to attempt to audition at all 8. How many auditions do most students do?</p>

<p>7 live; one by DVD.</p>

<p>It depends on how common and/or competitive her instrument is and how strong she is both musically and academically. Standards are a bit different for music education, but at those schools which are also conservatory level for performance students, they will still be highly competitive.</p>

<p>She is alto saxophone and it does appear to be competitive at most of the schools she is considering. She is strong both musically and academically so not overly concerned about getting in, but the scholarship component is the driving force behind wanting to audition at so many schools. Hoping for talent awards or combined merit/talent awards.</p>

<p>Glassharmonica: any tips for surviving all those auditions? Did you schedule them in any particular order according to your preference for the school? (Favorite schools later in the audition period etc?)</p>

<p>D did 9, starting in November and ending in March. It was a looooong winter!</p>

<p>It helped that we live within a day’s drive of many of the places she applied.</p>

<p>Grizzy–is she auditioning for classical or jazz?</p>

<p>My daughter did five live auditions plus one taped. She might have squeezed in another live audition or two, but I’m not sure whether I would have been able to get her there and back (driving everywhere because traveling with a bass on a plane is not a pleasant experience). You can’t always schedule auditions when you want them, so get your paperwork in early, try to schedule some early auditions in the November/December time frame if possible, and clear your calendar of as many other commitments as you can from mid-January through early March. Do your research on school websites to determine the audition requirements and follow them to the letter. Call the school sooner rather than later if you have any questions. Whether or not you plan to do a recorded audition, having a recording of your audition repertoire can be a lifesaver if illness or severe weather prevents you from appearing as scheduled.</p>

<p>As an undergrad D planned 7 but only auditioned 5 (due to some early offers). I would reiterate what Bassdad says. Have a good recording of audition rep.</p>

<p>I did 5, one of which was regional. Due to some schools only having one day for all of their string auditions (I’m a violinist), I ended up doing three auditions in 3 different locations in one week! At the time I was very high-energy (probably due to all of the stress), so my body didn’t really get that tired. I definitely needed a mental rest day after each audition though, and I think that contributed to the success I had (I got into 4/5, with great merit and admission to my favorite studio at my favorite school). It is possible to do a lot of auditions with a great result, (as glassharmonica, BassDad, and others have shown), so don’t let the number scare you.</p>

<p>I’m thinking about doing four or five next winter. The only problem is my mother is refusing to let me go to them because they’re so far away and it would be near impossible for her to pay for travel and time off of work. I have another year to convince her, but it’s not looking so good. For some reason, she thinks a music education at Central Michigan University with a BA would be completely equivalent to one from USC or Northwestern with a BM and a conservatory-level rigor. :&lt;/p>

<p>With my son we planned 5 and did 3. He was accepted to his first choice early on so we cancelled 2. My daughter will be auditioning next year and I’m thinking 6 right now.</p>

<p>My son did 6 live, 2 by DVD (to, admittedly, lesser choice schools). One of the live auditions was early decision in December, which meant only five live auditions in late January and February. </p>

<p>Not wanting to miss too much school due to travel, we also made the choice to combine school visits with auditions, a plan that, from what I gather, might be quite disadvantageous outside of the jazz world. It also means applying to schools based on research rather than personal impressions, and saving those for later. </p>

<p>But it worked out for my son.</p>

<p>Similar topic, older thread: <a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/music-major/309522-auditions-there-magic-number.html?highlight=magic+number[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/music-major/309522-auditions-there-magic-number.html?highlight=magic+number&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>This may prove useful as well: <a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/music-major/901390-2010-collective-experience.html?highlight=2010[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/music-major/901390-2010-collective-experience.html?highlight=2010&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>S did 7:
1 very early rolling admission in October, special accommodation since he was traveling a long distance to an out of state public, 1 Early Action in December, 1 local in late January, 4 in February (2 back to back days in Boston at beginning of the month and 1 long weekend Eastman Friday and Peabody Monday in mid Feb.) He had a down weekend in between the 2 Feb weekends. S had 1 more scheduled for mid January but decided he couldn’t handle the pressure and send a CD instead (wasn’t accepted). This was 4 out of state trips. </p>

<p>We were under the impression that most schools required live auditions to be considered for merit awards. We were VERY lucky with the weather in winter of '09, especially since we were traveling a long distance, Spring thaw for the Eastman / Peabody weekend. We allowed an extra day travel time to get to each February audition. This schedule was manageable but I don’t know if he could have done any more. Since we are from Florida we would have had to travel for regional auditions anyway so decided to audition live on site for all. </p>

<p>There was a big difference in how well prepared S felt for the early auditions vs. the later ones but this did not seem to make a difference in his acceptances.</p>

<p>Grizzy,
The audition experience was even harder than we anticipated. The weather was problematic (not just for us.) We had some opportunity to make requests about audition dates, but for the most part, we just held our breath and hoped that we wouldn’t be assigned to the same date/time for two auditions. But that did happen. My daughter ended up auditioning for both schools at 10 AM, but on different days (of course necessitating two separate overnights in NYC.) The process was exhausting and expensive. Judging from our experience, the results were unpredictable. I would advise you to cast your net fairly widely and to pick a few safety schools that your daughter feels she can live with.</p>

<p>10 applications, 3 pre-screens denied. 5 auditions total: 1 audition in October (open house), 3 in February, 1 in March. 2 applications withdrawn after better offers came in. All auditions except one involved air travel/hotels. One trip included two auditions. Definitely try to do at least one very early audition (Fall). If you have a few “less important” auditions, you can schedule those for later in the season; these can be canceled if it turns out you’ve got better offers. Good luck! This is going to be lots of fun!!</p>

<p>@flaucinauci: You’ve got some FANTASTIC options right in Michigan with UM and Michigan State. Don’t discount your own state, people come from all over the country to go there for music school.</p>

<p>Sopranomom, the program to which she was referring is not one of those for which folks come from all over the country. But indeed, Michigan has some awesome BMUS programs, so as a Michigander, thanks for the shout-out ;)</p>

<p>Applied to 8 schools, 5 of which had prescreens. Passed all prescreens, and S was told at the first audition that he would be accepted at all schools to which he auditioned, so we dropped two of the prescreened schools. Auditioned live at 5 of the remaining 6 and sent a recording to the 6th. Accepted at all six. Considerable merit money ($30 000+ per year)at the school to which we sent a recording which goes against the conventional wisdom (I am not disputing the conventional wisdom that it is better to audition in person; just noting that it is certainly possible to get generous merit aid from a recording). </p>

<p>Major conservatories (i.e. Curtis, Juilliard, Colburn, CIM, NEC) do not do pre-Xmas auditions, so that wasn’t an option. The auditions started in January in the midst of semester-one final examinations (so S had to write all his finals early crammed into a two-day space prior to hopping on a series of delayed planes for a 15-hour trip to the first audition, arriving after midnight just a few hours before the 8:30 am appointment at the school!). </p>

<p>As the OP has stated that they are not concerned about admissibility, but rather about money, I would suggest doing lots of research on the merit awards. Call the admissions or financial aid departments, to find out what they give for scholarships/merit aid. Find out how many of the big scholarships they typically award. Email students who have been accepted or who have attended the schools that you are interested in. Ask them about their experiences and perceptions and also about how much scholarship money there is (and take what they say with a grain of salt as it will be limited to their own experience). Go to the websites that list average financial awards to get an idea as to what you can expect (but recognize that an average is only that: a school with a lousy average may actually give full rides to well-qualified students).</p>

<p>Some very good schools just simply do not give large scholarships and others do. The school with by far the largest per-student endowment (we are talking many times as big) gave the least merit aid: less than half of what we got elsewhere, including the merit money from very poor schools. </p>

<p>Do your research. Auditions are time-consuming, energy-consuming, and expensive; you don’t want to waste your time, energy, and money on auditioning at wonderful schools that will not be financially viable. </p>

<p>Recognize that even if you do your research, results are often very unpredictable (by results here, I am not referring to admissibility as OP is confident that child will be admitted everywhere; rather, I am referring to the OP’s concern: financial awards). It is very difficult to accurately predict awards in most cases (although music ed is probably more predictable than performance). As endowments and applicant pools fluctuate, merit money can change dramatically. As some posters in other threads have noted, during the month of April financial offers can stay firm or be increased to several times the original offer. Often the fluctuation will depend on who else applied to the school on your instrument that year and whether or not they accepted the school’s offer. So as glassharmonica suggests, do cast your net wide. It doesn’t hurt to initially apply to more schools than you want to audition at. If you get early favourable results (particularly pre-Christmas ones), then you can drop some auditions (or choose to send recordings if you have schools that will accept them).</p>

<p>All wonderful, helpful comments. Thank you so much. Yes, violindad the research about financial aid at each school is key, but even with all the questions we’ve asked, at many schools they just won’t give any predictor about gift aid. Depends on how many students audition on her instrument, what instruments they need most etc, so we are casting the wide net as suggested in hopes that she will be offered a nice package at the schools she most wants to attend. Many of the professors she did a sample lesson with, have suggested that between talent awards and academic merit awards, she could be offered significant aid, but no one muses about numbers. </p>

<p>I also see the value in doing some of the earlier audition dates, but daughter is concerned about being properly prepared for auditions during the already crazy season of marching band competitions. Many of the early dates simply aren’t feasible.</p>

<p>Excellent suggestion to have a recorded audition “just in case”. Hadn’t considered doing that as she plans to audition in person at all, but with the weather issues many of you have faced, this sounds like a must. Is there a format you followed for these recordings?</p>

<p>Grizzy, Some of her schools may require pre-screening DVDs. Check on the requirements for last year on the school web sites since the next year won’t be posted yet. They do not usually change much from year to year. "You can use the same pre-screening DVD or create another. There are threads on this forum about recording DVDs. I’ll let a link expert help out here.</p>