@dbandmom - you mentioned PE. Have you asked if its possible to waive the PE credit with an organized sports or fitness class? We were able to petition for same a few years back for mcson.
In his case, because he knew the specifics of what was required at his top 3 schools, we could demonstrate that the PE requirement caused scheduling problems that would negatively affect his preparedness. He was also able to dual enroll at a local university. Its possible his program was more flexible as it was a small g/t magnet program where the size gave outliers scheduling grief, but it might also be possible for you to make such a case for your D.
While I wholly agree your d, given her interests, should take jazz choir, I’m less certain which of her courses are truly safe to spike. But I’m also looking at it from more of a preparedness standpoint than strictly an options standpoint, though there are circumstances that support the latter as well.
For example, the math might be useless nine times out of ten, particularly in a pure performance degree, but if she were to end up in a music tech/production program at a rigorous school like my son’s (Umich), she would have a Calc 1 grad requirement which would be murder without at least precalc (if not AP Calc). It really depends on the school, but the last thing a music student needs to worry about in college is spending time and energy catching up on math concepts. (That said, my son’s production program is perhaps unusual in that it included engineering classes, and required/recommended previous study in programming and a minimum math ACT/SAT score. So the portfolio requirements pretty much spelled out that math, science and programming were closely regarded in addition to the primary considerations of music composition, production and performance experience.)
While my son’s program may be unusually rigorous on this front, when you’d mentioned her interest in production it prompted me to mention it. Belmont had also been a school my son considered but I don’t recall if the preparedness was as emphasized there.
At the same time, many liberal arts schools and University of Michigan’s other degrees like to see the fourth year of language. The school of music and Engineering are the only two degree programs that do not have a second language grad requirement. At Umich, for example, even with the fourth year, they test proficiency and that determines the number of language classes in your sequence. But if you don’t have the 4th year, which is a recommended but not required element, you can make it up, but that’s more time (and possibly money) out of the schedule.
To make a longish explanation shorter, its a safe bet that in your shoes I’d be trying to get the school to waive PE to make her course load work by saying that everything else in her schedule might for SOME programs be foundational for her college success if she includes either music production or LAC-style general music study in her college shortlist of applications. When you put it that way to them, they are sometimes given to recall that THAT is what they’re there for Best wishes sorting it out!