@ScreenName48105 thanks for reminding me about that thread! I just re-read it. Despite all the angst at the time, it brought back some great memories of everyone going through that together last year!
Interesting - and in a few weeks it will be clearer.
My big thought is music reputation vs academic reputation.
Hypothetical 1: top college with top music. Dream school that granted you live audition! Waiting on two of these. One is my alma mater. Other one is alma mater of his teacher. Big national name selective schools that everyone knows; they have it all. Is looking at BA & picking up minor.
Hypothetical 2: school w excellent academics, comparable to the first two, but other programs are stronger than music. They are schools that employers love, more known for STEM. Hard to get in. Private teacher is well connected though.
Hypothetical 3: school w excellent music reputation, almost as good as those top schools, and ok academics but not nearly as selective as the others. No problem with it for MM though! Several schools are in this category.
Location & cost are not deciding factors. The private teachers are all well connected; in the end fit will play a factor.
If music is not what he hopes, we want him at a school with the best plan B.
Son notices how he was treated at the audition - he prefers the schools who talked about their programs, asked him about himself, tried to put him at ease.
His private teacher says to go to school w strong undergrad and grad program w a bigger choice of ensembles. Go somewhere where you learn from the upperclassmen.
but if he does not get into one of those two top schools, it is hard to decide between hypo 2 and hypo 3.
We have a very specific amount we are willing to pay for college. S starts in the fall, and D starts in fall of 2018. After she graduates we’ll have about 3 years to recover and get ready for number 3 to go to college. So when we say this is our budget, we really mean it. In addition we have said no loans for music school. We have emphasized the importance of flexibility upon graduation and debt seriously limits flexiblity.
So when the offers arrive, if a school doesn’t come in under our budget, it will be a nice compliment, but it will not be an option.
For any schools that come in under budget it will be up to S. He seems focused on how he clicks with the teacher he will be studying with- that’s pretty much the most important thing as far as I can tell, more than reputation of the teacher or the school. Also, he didn’t apply to any stand alone conservatories, because he wants to be able to pursue some other interests as well. So how he feels about those opportunities is also a big piece of how he feels about a school.
Unlike his mother, he doesn’t care where the school is located. City, suburban, rural, beach, mountains - whatever. This surprises me.
Anyway, I’m glad we made clear what our absolute budget is up front. It makes the situation a lot easier. He can choose without guilt or concern from any of the schools that fall below the number.
@notastagemom It is hard to tease out all your hypotheticals but I just wanted to share my middle child’s story.
All too often it is easy to get caught up in the “marketing” and the “name” of a college with the belief that going to such a school will set your child on the right path and make his/her future easier. Sigh if only that were true. But if you look around you will see graduates of top institutions with exclusive admissions and prestige do not necessarily out perform those from institutions that have good faculty but are not as exclusive.
What is important is to know your child. There are many children who can benefit from being a big-fish in a small pond. There are some children who need peers who are more advanced then them to push them. There are some who will do better in large lecture classes and others who will do better in small classes where they are not anonymous.
My middle son was one of these complicated kids who struggled in high school. He had an ambitious goal which was to go to graduate school in mathematics. Now it can be very difficult to get into a top tier graduate school in mathematics if you do not attend an undergraduate institution known for it’s mathematics department or or a large state University where you excel. Neither was going to happen for our son. He was too immature to go off to a large state school and he did not have the transcript or scores to get into a prestigious undergraduate University/College.
He went to a very small nurturing liberal arts school with excellent faculty. We thought if he excelled there maybe he would transfer. But he didn’t. He stayed there and matured and grew and the faculty was able to listen to his goals and customize their program so he could complete the courses he needed to complete to be competitive when applying. When he applied to graduate school he was worried. His learning disabilities meant that his GRE scores were still awful and he worried how schools would react to his application coming from a school that is not known for producing mathematics students. But much to his surprise more than one top institution accepted him and his now a graduate student doing what he loves.
On that note my youngest who is now a musician decided to choose the school he would attend based on where he was most comfortable and where he felt he would get the support and nurturing he needed rather than by what institution seemed to impress the most or gave him the most money. And that decision was wise as well because he was allowed to spend four years comfortably growing and is now in graduate school and is program is completely free. So we might have spent more on undergrad for him to go to the school he felt was right but it paid off in the end.
THE LESSON: You really need to put aside your own preconceptions about what institutions are the best. And encourage your child to choose the school where he feels the most comfortable and the one that will best meet his needs. Because in the end there is no point in going to a prestigious college and then being miserable for four years. The prestige is only going to get you so far post-graduation. Where the confidence gained by being in the most supportive and best environment will last your child a lifetime.
@stacjip-
Wonderfully written, I second what you wrote, and it applies both to music (where the name of the school means little going down the road, it will be about the strength of the teaching and how good the student is) and academics as well, eventually where you went to school means less and less and what it is you do that matters. I don’t doubt that a kid who went to Juilliard (because it is well known) and decides to get a ‘real’ job might get some name recognition out of the name, because it is so broadly known, but that won’t last IME/IMO.
I would be a lot more concerned personally about finding a program that is affordable and can drive the musical interests forward, one of the problems with Plan B thinking is IME it can sabotage doing the music side, can create a self fulfilling prophesy in terms of music ‘failing’.
Agree with the above. And sometimes it is the kid that is caught up in the “hype/marketing” for certain schools or environments.
Jr year of high school my D desperately wanted to audition at NYU (for MT). The problem was that we couldn’t afford it. My D at that age had the NYC or bust attitude (more prevalent in MT I believe). I never said a straight out “no”. Instead I used ever parental tactic ( good and bad) to try to stall a serious consideration with the warning that an acceptance wouldn’t change our financials. As luck would have it, she got extremely busy sr year, a few schools had to be cut (due to time and finances) and her opinions started to mature (just in time). She took NYU off her list. She knew our budget and adjusted accordingly.
I also tried to get my D to think hard about the message/marketing (most of it based in some fact) from all schools. Some sell their reputation and selectivity and star teachers. And some LACs have a certain way of talking about their communities that at first attracted my nervous D. At first the talk about everyone knowing you was attractive to her. It was during a back-to-back audition - one at a big U and one at a small LAC - that made her question if she really wanted or needed a tight, small community. Did she really need that to grow? Or was she more excited by the big U environment. She always seemed to do better in larger more fluid social situations. So again, trying to help your kid to look beyond some of the messages (at a vulnerable time) is important. Note I think LACs are great. We looked at many with amazing programs. It just wasn’t the right fit for my D.
So the point here is to challenge your kid to look beyond the messages to find best fit…and ignore some of their frenemies! Hope this helps in some way.
With regard to being at the school with the best plan B" reputation, be aware that it might not be straightforward to transfer into another school from the music school, as academic standards are often more rigorous for non- music students. Minimally, the Dean would have to sign off on it, and I’m not sure it would necessarily be granted for all students. Of course, it depends who on the university and the student, but it is probably not a given.
Yeah… I remember thinking that, too. But my son turned down University of Michigan, USC and Oberlin, and chose Berklee instead. He has a plan ‘A’ that he has his heart set on. If music ends up being not what he hopes, then we’ll worry about plan ‘B’…
My son’s thoughts about plan B is if you have a plan B you will just end up giving up because there will be times when you are going to feel inadequate and miserable and be frustrated. As he put it to me when explaining why he would not go to a school like Oberlin: “If I went there I would want to hang with friends and party and sit around debating intellectual ideas instead of being in the practice room?” Practicing is hard and that is why I want to be in an environment where everyone is as committed to practicing as I am. If I am going to be a musician I have to commit to being in the practice room." My son’s plan B is to work even harder at music.
When I started this thread, I had mention ‘ability to double major’ as one of the decision points (under reputation). I had suspected that the reason my daughter applied to so many more universities than pure conservatories has too do with uncertainty and doubt about her ability/potential as well as music as a career choice. Perhaps leaning on a possibility of majoring in something else if violin does not work out.
My thoughts and advice to my D has been that she if she wants to find out if violin is something she loves and can excel in (to her own satisfaction), she needs to go all in. I told her that double major did not make sense for that reason. There are much better options if music is a secondary interest. I told her I felt like double majoring while trying to pursue music at the highest level is simply unrealistic and takes away from finding out if music is her thing.
It’s not to late to decide something else after giving your all for one thing. Trying to do two things at the same time just to feel safe is not the right thing. (At least for her and imho). For that reason, we are taking ability to double major or ability to change major away from music out of the equation.
Also, my son’s at a (stand-alone) conservatory and I’ve been really happy to see the depth of his liberal arts classes as well as the intellectual curiosity of his friends.
Thanks for all the feedback! Feel free to PM me with helpful tips as I value everyone’s comments but my post is getting too long and I want the posted comments to help everyone and not be so personal.
- Ability to double major, minor: I teach in a public school and in my district all of the elective teachers had to earn supplementary credentials in a core area! (like, the veteran teachers had to go back to school!) It’s not a deal breaker but if S has extra electives, there is no harm in picking three to five classes in English. At a cheaper university it is worth taking an extra semester or summer classes to make yourself more employable. Other than that I agree with the comments arguing against a full double major.
We parents are the ones who think about plan B, not my son. Being a musician is now part of his identity. It is not something he does. It is something he is.
Some of the uncertainty on the parent part is… you see how your kid is at his/her school but not against peers from across the area, state, nation except for being in honor bands, summer band camp, etc. You trust that if the school admits you, they think you will succeed and that you will play well enough to contribute to their program (two way street).
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In three weeks it will all be clear - I am just trying to think ahead so that he can really drill down once he gets his short list… do a shadow day, etc. With each new acceptance, clarity comes and the “what if” demons go away.
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Let’s put some names to the schools:
UCLA & USC
vs UC Irvine (just admitted here a few days ago - so he can cross 7 schools off his “back up” list!)
vs Cal States (Cal State Long Beach, Northridge, Fullerton in particular).
He just got into UCI… so it makes for an interesting choice between UCI vs the Cal States if he does not get into UCLA and/or USC.
He is looking most at
- how the specific program fits his goals and interests in music
- gut feel and rapport with the music department faculty, band directors, etc.
- applied teacher with wide interests (not just classical but also jazz, commercial work - in LA a lot of these teachers play on movie soundtracks. He likes arranging and works on it with his private teacher so a teacher who enjoys writing and arranging is a plus and it is what he is used to.)
- does the music department feel like a cutthroat place or a collaborative place? Do the students build each other up or are they mainly out for themselves? He would want to collaborate and he would want to learn from others. Unsure how you determine this - seems like more of a gut feel thing, maybe something you see when you go to a concert on campus or walk around the practice rooms…
They are all large urban schools with separate Schools of Arts or Schools of Music but definitely the Cal States are commuter campuses with not that much dorm life. They do have really good music schools though.
Again all of the comments are really helpful!
I hear you about the “Plan B”…and it being more a parental thing.
I did wonder if my D would stick with music in college. She’s in voice which starts late. So she had only been serious about music for 3 years. We were unclear about her ability and competitiveness. And…would she still like music when it was 24/7? Statistically a good percentage of kids do switch majors and/or schools. So I did want my D to think about environments that would allow flexibility…just in case. I didn’t think of it as a “Plan B”…I simply felt she was young and had every right to change her mind in college.
How did my D feel about all my mental gymnastics? She was pretty quiet about it and I didn’t push it too much. Was I helpful or hurtful by thinking about it? I don’t know. But for me…I knew I was looking at spending a boatload of money and wanted to do a few “what ifs” to make myself feel better about it all.
After all the auditions, stress and surprises in offers (it was better than I anticipated), I could finally drop it…but I don’t regret the “what ifs”. I felt like it was part of the vetting process. And…some of the concerns came right back…when dropping her off the first time! Or when she called “devastated” about not getting (fill in the blank yearly). It was good to know they had a great “retail merchandising” program…maybe that would be better than the phone calls. Then the next day, all would be better.
You wrote, “Some of the uncertainty on the parent part is… you see how your kid is at his/her school but not against peers from across the area, state, nation except for being in honor bands, summer band camp, etc. You trust that if the school admits you, they think you will succeed and that you will play well enough to contribute to their program (two way street).”
Five years ago when I was in your shoes I asked my son’s private teacher and then later the professors at schools he was admitted, “Does my kid really have what it takes to be a musician?” Neither my husband or I are musical and honestly this whole “music-dream” thing scared us. My son graduated from a very competitive high school and state (we live in MA) and I knew he was not the best and that worried me.
What I heard back was “We have no idea. You really can’t tell where any one student will go.” They all talked about students who were unbelievably talented as high schoolers who flat-lined and then those who seemed not to have as much innate talent who suddenly took off and excelled. And talent is only part of the equation. Motivation, hard work, but also personality and creativity and intellect play a role as well. What I learned from these conversations was I had to trust my son when he said he needed to try pursuing music and this was his passion and something he would always regret if he did not give it his all.
5 years later and our son is completing his graduate degree and also working as a musician to pay his bills. He is a musician. And sure he might end up doing something else later on his life but for now being a musician is what he always wanted and he is getting the chance to live the dream. I am so glad I did not force him to double major or insist he not go this path. Life has enough bumps and challenges in it without feeling regret that you did not pursue a love and give it your all.
I second what @stacjip wrote, the thing about music is you never really know what it is that makes someone ‘successful’ as a musician and the problem with comparing yourself to other people is you don’t even know what you are comparing. That kid winning all the local competitions might be great at winning competitions, but when it comes to the nuts and bolts of making it, they fail. In the violin world there is this group of young musicians chasing the competition circuit (talking the big name ones), it always seems like the same people and they never seem to get anywhere, whereas the kids who might be less talented then this are pursuing other things. I have gotten to know some of the kids whose parents have posted on here over the years, and while they are not theoretically at the ‘highest level’, several of them have already started promising careers are music, and a lot of that has to do with who they are, the technical dimension of playing is only one factor, an important one (IMO with too many teachers too important a one but I digress). The obverse of this is the belief that all a musician needs is to have the dedication and hard work, that no matter where they start from it doesn’t matter, and that isn’t true either, there are levels of playing and such that will limit what someone can do, there is reality.
A good friend of my son’s, a mentor, said that in the end it is likely the student themselves will figure out what is going on, that though the process is nebulous when you are in it, at a certain point they will know and decide whether to go forward with what they are doing or change directions or do something entirely different. One of the benefits of going this path I think is that it teaches someone to handle ambiguous paths, where so much is undefined, in some ways it is like a gigantic Fermi Math problem, in that you have to extrapolate so much and the way you come to a conclusion is the real ‘win’, as there is no one right answer! smile.
It is always an important concept to come back to (thanks for the reminder @musicprnt): your kid probably knows where he/she stands and most likely doesn’t want to be over his/her head in front of peers. Students do “sort” themselves. And as painful as this process can be…it does show you where you belong. The schools don’t want to accept students that don’t “fit”. And students don’t want to be in “over their heads”. So you do need to let them lead…and not focus too much on reputation etc. Let them go where they are most comfortable and can grow.
@bridgenail, it is why with the process, both undergraduate and graduate, we pretty much let our son make his own decisions. We were fortunate that we didn’t have the financial constraints for UG that most families can face, so it came down to which program he felt would do best for him, same way with grad school. I understand why people focus on reputation of the school, because in some ways it is ‘quantifiable’, but for example Juilliard has this huge name, but not might be the right environment for a student on instrument A at that point, and in the end that name doesn’t really buy you much if it isn’t the right place for a student, U of Michigan has a great music program but might not be the best place for another student, who would do well at let’s say Juilliard…and yeah, I think the kids will know, most of the kids heading into music performance have seen enough, heard enough, to get an idea of what they want/need.
One of the big problems is parents thinking in terms of ‘yield’ IMO, because yield in music doesn’t mean all that much, in the sense that each student is likely to have their own path. I have heard people cite things like “X school ends up with 40% of their students in orchestra jobs”, which sounds great, but what if the student isn’t interested in that? More importantly, what orchestras are we talking about, there are a lot of semi pro orchestras out there, local regional ones where you get like 500 bucks a season to play, and that yield doesn’t say…with music it is hard to measure yield, because there really isn’t that well defined paths. The CM of the Philadelphia Orchestra was a ‘failed soloist’, for example, so paths change. With soloists figuring out yield is next to impossible, take a look at the soloists out there right now and their paths are all over the place, there isn’t all that much commonality of school (unlike the heifetz generation where so many came out of the St. Petersburg conservatory under Auer). As they say in the financial industry , past performance is not indicative of future growth:)
FYI our son told us that Dave Holland (a very well known Bass player who is on the NEC faculty) said he was discouraged as an undergraduate attending conservatory and thought about quitting many times.
My friend wrote this article about choosing a school based on the level of competitiveness. The research pertains to sciences, so I don’t know that success levels can extrapolate. But it does speak to the idea of knowing what will light your fire. Will heavy competition motivate or demoralize you? Will you slack off if you are one of the top performers, or are you self-motivated enough to continue to strive even if you’ve surpassed the competition?
It’s a very important factor that varies from student to student, and each student needs to be honest about their personality.
Enter this in Google to find the article: assetbuilder harvard gladwell
@BassTheatreMom:
From your search criteria this sounds like it is based on Malcolm Gladwell’s recent book which basically deals with being the big fish in the small sea or vice versa:). Competition, being among peers who are as good or better than you, is an important thing to some kids, to others it doesn’t matter. Being the big fish in the small sea, for example, could have impact on things like ensemble playing, if someone is a very strong player and in doing chamber the other kids are so so, that experience won’t do them much good (sorry, the old “you have to get used to people of all abilities” might be fine for school music teachers trying to convince an advanced student to play in the school program, it is rubbish in real life, unless someone is planning to play in a community orchestra given how competitive music is, the level of playing is, you won’t see top level musicians playing with mere good players, doesn 't work like that), same with orchestra, if the orchestra isn’t very good won’t do the person a lot of good (In NYC with the New York Youth Symphony, there were kids from college level music programs doing it, because it is high level while their school program was eh).
Some kids would be happy being the big fish, as long as their teacher challenged them, if they had great chamber experience and other ensemble experience, might not matter what other kids are doing, on the other hand some kids (my S was definitely one of those in UG), want and need the challenge of seeing the other students who are better than him, to help drive him forward. I also understand about the demoralizing aspects of that, it is natural to compare yourself to your peers, and it can be really intimidating to face that…so yeah, being in a smaller pond might help keep that from happening, but there is the opposite fact to think about, too…if a big fish in a small sea, can make someone think they are better than they are, I have seen this when kids coming from less competitive programs hit the real world and see what is out there, it can be really demoralizing, the one lesson being the smaller fish is realizing as good as you are, there are people out there who are going to be better (from the rock world, there is a story that when rock guitarists saw Jimi Hendrix play , talking about people like Clapton and Pete Townsend and the like, that it humbled them more than a bit:) and that is not a bad perspective to have.
In the end it comes down to who the kid is and what they need, and that varies from kid to kid, it is why the ‘golden ticket’ of going to Juilliard or Curtis or Rice or any other top level school is not really, for some it could be a gold plated lead ticket:)