Hypothetical choices: Money, teacher, reputation

College Majors Music Major
1

As many on the forum are wrapping up auditions and enter the waiting game, I would like to tap the forum’s collective wisdom on choices we hopefully will be faced with - Which of the institutions that I (or my child) has been accepted into should I pick to attend?

As I entertain this happy hypothetical question my daughter may face, I really see three main factors: money, teacher and school.

Money: self explanatory. Merit and/or need based aid.

Teacher: The studio you ended up in. Was it your first choice? How did the trial lesson go? Will he be around a lot?

School: Many sub factors here. I was thinking mostly ‘reputation’ but may include things like location, ability to double major, campus, etc.

Hypothetical situation #1:
You got into your top two choices. Choice #1: $0 aid, great teacher, world famous institution. Choice #2: full merit scholarship, awesome teacher, top 10 ranked.

Hypothetical situation #2:
Choice #1: Full aid, unknown teacher who seems very nice and trial lesson went well, top 10. Choice #2: decent aid, great teacher, top 5

Hypothetical situation #3:

I thought about making up situations with actual schools and teacher, but that didn’t seem proper. Maybe putting school names is OK?

2

We have been impressed with the learning and networking opportunities at all of S’s possible places. Maybe one is favored over another for some specific reasons, but money is definitely going to be a hugr factor, especially if the 4-year cost difference would pay for grad school or pay for an extended amount of post-graduation living expenses.

I am keeping a lot of detailed observations out of my main journal thread that could be useful, but could be also “risky”, so I will not be naming names, either.

3

We are spending a lot of time weighing those questions, too. As for my contribution to the discussion, when it comes to school/ reputation we are trying to look at the schools’ reputations in the music community and in our child’s area of interest rather than at broader name recognition.

And our experience with our non-musician child tells us that, however much time we spend now weighing the possible options, once we know what the actual choices are the decision will be very easy. :slight_smile:

4

Wait until your student has real choices to make! It won’t be that much longer and it is infinitely easier to comment when particulars are stated (though not names of studios).

5

Almost everyone with a music student has worried about this. As songbirdmama wrote, wait for your choices. However, if you don’t have the money, don’t burden the student with parent plus loans for option one in hypothetical #1. Paying back $50k in loans or more will impact their ability to take risks, gigs and chances in the future after college due to large loan payments. Hypo #2, decent aid that’s affordable without large loans seems a good choice.
Personally, son knew what his finances were and we went for choice #3. Solid state school with great aid/scholarship package with a decent teacher and no loans. Now, he is a full time public school music teacher at a large suburban school district. Interestingly, the first and second choice schools with studio teachers he loved and we deemed too expensive had both teachers go on extended leaves for at least 1 year while son would have been there. So, he would have payed tuition to work with someone who wasn’t there anyway and paying the loans off for years.

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unscripted, your child is very wise. So is everyone else suggesting ‘just wait!’ Yes, the choices will be easier one the become real. But the month of march seems so long and it’s not even March yet! My D did get one acceptance already at Indiana/Jacobs so I have about 6 weeks to kill entertaining these non choice choices.

Some choices have already been made. She cancelled her audition at Peabody which was to take place tomorrow (2/21). Auditions have been completed at BU, Rice, USC and Michigan. Juilliard audition is in a couple of weeks.

I’m thinking of starting a audition experience thread for these schools. I guess it could be useful for future parents and students.

I wish I can drop my D’s name from my user handle. I feel uneasy certain with putting profs names etc.

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It’s a very small world; the teachers all know each other, and everywhere we go, my child sees friends and colleagues.

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I agree, I would be careful about specifics on here, it is a small world, those kind of discussions, like
“how is Joe Schmoe at the University of Despair on Marimba”, maybe better off in private:).

There is no magical formula,but I tend to agree with the idea that if you financially can’t afford a place without loans, it may be worth scrubbing it even if it is that school that everyone says “if you don’t go there, you don’t make it”. I don’t recommend coming out with student loans, among other things these days performance majors tend to go on to grad school, and you don’t want that debt there, even if it can be deferred until you graduate, it is still there.

As far as teacher versus school, I think that you would need to weigh that but that a teacher who doesn’t do the kid will at a great school is not a good thing. The school and its environment of course are important, a great teacher at a school in the middle of nowhere where there aren’t the performance opportunities or networking opportunities may likely not be worth much, whereas the hip and happening school where the department on your instrument is so so and the level of the kids is meh, won’t do much for you, either. Personally I would put more weight on the teacher, not just in rep as being a ‘great teacher’, but how they work with your kid. Friend of my son’s who is a fantastic player transferred from the studio my son has been in, with a teacher who is one of those teachers everyone wants to study with, to go to another school wth a teacher he had worked with before college, because he felt that teacher was better for him (both are top schools, though the one he went to is on average better than the one he transferred from). The name of a school has some benefits, but it doesn’t create a road paved with gold, either, and honestly I would put the ‘name value’ of the school well below the teacher. Other factors are how strong are the other kids in the studio and the school as a whole, some kids need to be pushed, others are happy as the big fish in a small sea, a kid may do better being one of the Avis kids (We’re number 2 and try harder) than being a number 1 there…

That program that gives a great financial aid package but only has one teacher might be fraught, because what if that teacher doesn’t work out? Unless you know for sure the kid loves the teacher, has worked for them before, was driven to new heights, that is something to think about, too.

And yes, the environment the school is in could be a factor, a city kid in a rural school might not do well, the kid who hates cold may not do very well at Eastman…it is below other factors IMO, but it is something to weigh if you have relatively equal choices.

So I would do it this way:

1)Money, if a program is too expensive, would require too much sacrifice on the family or heavy loans, then skip those programs no matter how good the teacher is (if the teach really likes the kid, you can always try appealing the package, of course, doesn’t hurt).

2)Once you weed that out, teacher. Not scientific, but based on what the kid hopefully has seen or heard, which teacher do they think they can work with? While kids get teachers without having worked with them, and do well, I think it is really important to try and get to know the teachers involved, music learning is not like algebra, one size doesn’t fit all in terms of learning, it is master/apprentice.

3)The school itself, what kind of performance and networking does it have, the name alone doesn’t mean anything (and if you are tempted to look at USNWR or one of the ratings guides, grab a cattle prod and give yourself a jolt until the impulse passes lol).What is the level of students, will they detract or drive your kid forward

4)The environment, among schools seemingly equal, which environment overall would help them achieve? This shouldn’t be the biggest consideration, no music student failed to achieve because the school didn’t have a great greek life or football team, but some students would feel more happy at a place like that, others would like the urban environment with a lot of different things to do and diverse people, it all depends.

If I had to describe the above, it would be a sieve, where the schools/teachers ‘fall below’ to the next level, and among the candidates that fall through financially (appear doable), then you rank the teachers, if they are equal, then weigh in the schools of those teachers again each other, first for the level of playing, facilities, etc, then the environment.

Not magic, how this all plays out, is up to the student in the end.

9

EstherDad, I suggest you abandon this CC handle and make another account without your daughter’s name. The music world is too small. And if you have questions about specific teachers, do this discussion via PM or email, not on this highly searchable forum. As for your question, also factor in where your daughter might want to land professionally, in terms of geography. My own daughter was very clear that she wanted to work in New York, so that is where she put down her roots for undergrad and grad school. Your daughter may prefer to go for an orchestra career, in which case location is not that important, as she would take auditions all over. My daughter is set on a career as a freelancer and chamber musician with some solo and orchestra work on the side, so location was critical to her. She’s in her first year out of school and is completely self-supporting (actually she was self-supporting through grad school because she had a full scholarship and was able to make enough money for her living expenses). She is able to support herself because of the connections she made in the music world during her six years of school in NY.

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Weighing money vs teacher vs school is a very personal formula for every child and every scenario, and people have rightly pointed out that you can burn a lot of emotional BTUs worrying about this before you have things in hand.

That said, it should be pointed out that it doesn’t always come down to money vs teacher in making a decision. Sometimes a gap year is the way to go. If your child finds themselves in a situation where in order to realistically afford a music education they may have to “settle” a bit more than they’d like (maybe they really want their dream teacher/school) then it can be beneficial to work hard for a year and re-audition. Sometimes that opens up doors on higher merit awards, or even studios you couldn’t get into just 12 months before.

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Also don’t forget in the consideration of ‘school’ one’s peers - they are an essential element to one’s experience in school, and may even end up more important to one’s future professional network than one’s professors. For instance, my S formed a New Music chamber orchestra as an undergrad which is still going strong in NYC as a professional organization seven years later. Some of the original members are from his undergrad experience, while others were invited to join over the years. In addition, as @Glassharmonica pointed out - the musical region of the school is an important factor to weigh. The proximity of his school (Bard) to NYC can not be understated in the ultimate outcomes from his undergrad experience.
@EstherDad you think now the right choice will be easy to make once all the factors are considered - but, in fact, it’s probably the hardest part of the whole journey - particularly because your D will have to say no to many appealing futures she can imagine, and turn down professors with whom she’ll have made a connection. Just remember, there are always summer programs and grad schools where those same professors may likely be an option.

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We gave up on thinking too much about the hypotheticals very early on. Some of the colleges we would not be able to consider without substantial merit awards, so we had a certain level of “just try and see what happens” going into the choices in the first place.

I don’t know if I should start a new thread for the following because it is sort of in the spirit of guessing and estimating and sorting. I would like to submit Hypotheses1 for your consideration and review. Hypothesis1: If you were in the senior jazz band for ILMEA (Illinois) District 7, you are going to have a really good chance of getting admitted to almost any high-level college jazz program.

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Shoe in

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@GoForth I’m not sure if you were asking that as a question but, as good as District 7 (or 9) are you can’t really make any assumptions from all-state (in any state really) unless you can say with absolute certainty that all the top kids even auditioned for all-state. Most of the top ones I know didn’t even audition senior year because they were focusing on college auditions.

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Some good comments here it also depends on where someone is heading, what they want to do as well. @spiritmanager and @glassharmonica point out valuable things from real experience with schools and what they offer, peers are important which is part of the networking experience part of music, as is being in a place where you can do gigs and get to know people, like GH’s daughter in NYC did. It is why places like CC are important, you get views from a variety of viewpoints, some of which may not apply (what works in Jazz doesn’t necessarily work in classical, etc), but real world experience makes a difference. One thing to keep in mind is that these days grad school plays a big role in kid’s futures, so if a kid let’s say decides to go to program Y with a great teacher undergrad where it is affordable, if they go to grad school they could go to let’s say Juilliard or MSM in NYC and establish roots there that way, hopefully without any or a lot of debt.

I agree with @GoForth that in the end you can’t obsess too much on the hypotheticals and variables because in the end there is no one path, and the paths that open up are generally based on who the person is and what they need, and you have to make the decision as best you can once all the cards are unfolded and make the best decision you can at the time. My S is going through grad school auditions, and at times he has questioned his choice in undergrad, but hindsight is a funny thing, it doesn’t always tell a true picture either, the same thing that can make someone in the end assume they took the right paths can also make them question the choices they made, look at them with a jaundiced eye, when an hour or a day or a year later they won’t feel the same thing shrug.

16

This relates a bit to what @musicprnt said about undergrad vs grad, but another variable that came to mind from an article I read recently is timing. Is a certain school right for a certain kid AT THIS TIME? That doesn’t mean that that kid isn’t good enough or that they aren’t a fit for a school (they may have even been accepted), but sometimes a certain element (studio environment, school is in a big city, etc) is just not the right thing for that kid right now but might be perfect for them four years down the road.

The variables are endless!

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@designdad:
Yep, my son is considering schools for grad school that he wouldn’t have as an undergraduate, some of them because he felt like he wasn’t ready for the teacher(s) he would want to study with, others because from where he was looking at the time, they didn’t fit his view down the road…so yep, that changes. And as the happy parents are going to find once the results come back that that view seems to change hourly , about which one to go to, agonizing, etc even though they might have had an order of preference smile.

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@DesignDad - The foundation for proposing Hypohesis_1 is that I observed District 7, and then I observed, via jam sessions and such, some candidate pools. As well as we might consider the super musician who is skipping District 7, we can also consider that when asked who in the Senior Jazz Band 1 plans to pursue music performance, only 12% of them said yes. So, many talented folks in the District 7 pool will not appear at an audition.

19

I started a thread last year titled “Are we having fun yet?” in late January that continued through acceptances (13 pages long – lots of different experiences chronicled.) I remember, by March, my son was so sick of being asked about his school choices, I basically decided I wasn’t going to talk about it unless he brought it up. I just concentrated on making sure that finances were in order, so that there wouldn’t be any bad surprises when those acceptances came in, and I could support whatever choice he made.

FWIW, choosing ended up being really tough. He re-visited one school in April and his final choice was a surprise. For him, the location ended up mattering more than we thought going in, though that may be because he’s black and having grown up in a very liberal town, he was surprised by the atmosphere at some of the schools he visited. Financially, he could have chosen any school but the scholarship offers did matter to him. He’s in jazz, so not tied to one teacher’s studio; faculty definitely mattered but now that he’s there, the connections he’s making are mattering more than I expected.

Watching him and his jazz friends who are attending music schools all over the country, they are ALL having an amazing time. My gut feel is that whether they succeed or not is more up to them than picking the top-10 school or teacher. To that end, I think choosing the school where they’re comfortable and fosters their self-confidence matters a lot. I personally think that financial pressures are counter to that, even if it’s the parents who are paying.

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@ScreenName48105 - we need another such thread to post our anxietirs on without worrying about hijacking other good threads.