Hypothetical choices: Money, teacher, reputation

Well, we are at a loss on how to decide. Waiting on one more school, which we will visit if accepted (although it is a big reach). Of the other three still considering (ruled out a few acceptances), we are truly stuck. S loved all of them - enjoyed the classes, the students, the faculty. The faculty were kind, encouraging, and engaged. The locations all work even though they are spread across the country. So, there isn’t one that just feels right over the others.

Sadly, although I know a lot about higher ed, we know nothing about music and how to judge. We are reaching out to many people to hear how they would evaluate the programs - pros/cons of each. This weekend, S is sitting down and creating a list of what he wants. What are the essentials of a program, how he would prioritize those essentials, what would be nice to have if all of them have the essentials, etc. The student bodies outside of music vary widely and we need to see if that is important since S plans to study something in addition to music. Access to other arts programs, like theater, film, ensembles, etc are very important, I think - but we will see the list. Other intangibles, like is it s a close knit community are important, so we are exploring that too.

Honestly, we did not expect to be in this situation and are pleasantly surprised by the admission and equally overwhelmed. Which is funny because usually things are clear to us - the right decision tends to come quickly.

S was offered nice scholarships to some of the schools. We are first trying to make the decision without regard to money and see if one rises to the top. If not, then that will become a big factor.

Anyway, thanks to everyone on CC for help along the way and for the PMs - those have really been helpful. I will probably be back with more specific questions after this weekend.

@beaglemom congrats to your S on having such great choices! Here are a few ideas to consider when all the important music-related components look good and the money part doesn’t rule out any programs.

If there are Facebook groups for accepted students at the schools, your S might join those. They might not go up until early April, though.

If the studio and/or school has a web site or Facebook page, look through past posts and photos to get a better feel for their activities, performances, etc. Look at bios of current students and alumni if they are available.

If he knows anyone in any the studio he could reach out to them with some questions. If not, perhaps the prof could pass along his contact info to a student willing to answer questions. My son cares a lot about the general atmosphere in the studio (competitive vs. like a supportive family), if they hang out outside of class, what they do for fun, do the grad students and undergrads work together, how is the food, that sort of thing. My son has gotten unsolicited emails from a current student in two of the studios he was accepted to, offering to answer any questions.

Check the schools’ web sites to see if they are live-streaming any concerts or studio recitals in the next few weeks that you could listen to, and/or check out archives if they are available or check Youtube. It may help your S see what range of repertoire they typically play.

Do a deeper dive into the curriculum on the music school’s web site under academic programs. Look at the course catalog. See how many Gen Ed classes are required and in what categories and how much choice is available. Look for advising sheets for your S’s major to see what a typical 4-year curriculum looks like. My son would prefer never to take another math or science class ever again, so a school where he would take only one Gen Ed per semester and has a lot of choice is a lot more appealing than the school that would require 2 per semester and has rigid categories and only 3-4 choices per category.

From a quality of life standpoint, Google the immediate area and see what restaurants, shops, cafes, etc are available. If he has a favorite chain restaurant at home, is there one nearby? Where is the closest grocery store? Is there a kitchen in the dorm where he could occasional make a meal if that matters to him? What type of on and off campus transportation options are there, if he will not have a car with him? None of these are likely to be deal breakers, but a lot of small pluses can add up.

I took lots of photos on audition days and have put them in online albums for my S to go through to remind himself of what he saw and how he felt so he can start to visualize himself there (or not). Pictures can elicit emotional reactions and memories, at least they do for me.

My son is giving each school letter grades in each of about 8-10 categories, both music-related (most important, obviously) and campus/quality of life related. He is doing this even for schools he has all but ruled out to help judge the relative merits of all the acceptances. They all have their pros and cons.

Good luck!

@beaglemom:
Congrats, having a lot of good choices can be as bad as having none lol. When my S applied UG he agonized over the choices he had, and in the end his decision was based primarily on the teacher at the school he went to (and he will tell you today that he might have made a different decision, my S I mean, knowing what he knows now, which personally I think is him not realizing what his experience did for him yet). It will be the same in grad school, it looks like he will have several attractive offers to mull over, that involve a myriad of factors (for him, both the teacher he would be working with, but also the strength of the music theory department, which is another love of his), if all come out fo be pretty much the same financially or location wise, likely is going to be a rough several weeks:).

In the end, it isn’t scientific, the spreadsheet of likes/dislikes, the needs, the wants, in the end comes down to a gut decision, because in the end I don’t think any of it is scientific. Not talking tangible things, like the cost of going to to the program and finances, but rather all the rest, which is the best teacher, which program is the best, and those are hard to figure out logically.

Nothing to add to the great comments above…except that auditioning is a leap of faith and so is choosing the school. And it is best in the end to let your child make the decision (with the parents being the sounding board).

All very helpful. but he doesn’t know what to do. He liked all the schools, the students and the professors. We will let him choose, but just trying to get educated so we can have conversations that allow him to think of the pros and cons of each school. I am a firm believer in going with the gut, but also recognizing that at 16/17/18 they don’t have the life experiences necessarily to see the whole picture and that is where a parent can play a critical role. Thanks again.

@beaglemom:
Everyone is different, but my take on it is parents can best act as a sounding board when they are working things out. The problem is that as parents there are certain things we have the ‘whole picture on’ (or should, given the crap I have heard from some parents over the years, specifically that a music degree is ‘worthless’, I would argue that a lot don’t havve that much vision), but there are things we don’t. Music instruction is a weird beast, and the relationship between the studio teacher and the student is like an old school apprentice and master, it is very personal in many ways and with that a parent might be able to help talk the kid through his feelings, but they can’t evaluate how good the teacher is for the kid. I have had parents over the years talk about reputations of teachers, but that reputation may not be based on teaching but as a performer, for example, about the reputation of the school “why, that music school was rated as number 5 in the country by USNWR…”…really?). Other parents often push kids into a program inside a college, arguing socially, or being able to do something different if music doesn’t work out, or networking, it is better than a stand alone, yet maybe for that kid having the distraction of being in a ‘real school’ would hurt him/her.

The point being that the criteria the parent might think is important won’t be a good judge of the fit of the program…and hence acting as a sounding board. I would argue, though, if a kid was looking at Frost because it is in Miami and the girls on the beach look good there, well, life experience would play a role:)

recognizing that at 16/17/18 they don’t have the life experiences necessarily to see the whole picture

Lol…that’s what I meant by it being a leap of faith - not for your kid but for YOU!! You may watch them agonize, fumble around, bring up irrelevant concerns, drag their feet and generally “not know what to do”…and you’ll want to straighten them out and/or hurry them along. But in the end THEY need to decide based on “something”…and that’s a parent’s leap of faith in their kid. It seems like you’re doing everything right to help him and have some great comments above. He’ll get there.

And, don’t worry, the “something” may not be on a spreadsheet. It could be a hot girl or guy that smiled at him during an audition. And all things being equal maybe that’s OK. My D’s UG teacher who sang on many opera stages chose her graduate school based on a cute accompanist. Most of his schools are probably excellent and he just needs time to process or remember a cute face.

lol again @musicprnt - about Miami - just saw it after mine!! Spoken like a veteran parent.

@bridgenail:
I actually always wondered why the top music schools seemed to be in cold, dreary places in winter, some worse than others (Boston, NYC, Rochester brrrr, Cleveland, Philadelphia,Ann Arbor), but i realized what a great way to get kids to practice, won’t be out running around lol. (and this is half in gest, Rice is a nice climate, Colburn is a great program and USC is a pretty top level program, too,Frost is more than decent). I told my son if I had a couple of billion dollars, I would endow a music school in Hawaii so the kids wouldn’t suffer lol. ) One rumor I heard was that Paul Kantor moved from Cleveland to Houston (Rice) because he was tired of the cold:).

@musicprnt I’ve NEVER heard anyone say Houston has a nice climate, lol! I know plenty of folks who would choose a dreary winter in Cleveland over a hot and humid summer in Houston (and make no mistake - summer there lasts all the way to October).

True enough, BTM, but music students generally leave by the summer, and in the fall the tail end of summer lasts about a month or so…and summer in those other places is pretty hot and humid a lot of the time, too lol. Houston isn’t as temperate as LA is, when my son auditioned at Colburn in february 4 years ago it was 75 and gorgeous, back home it was sleet and snow and dreary cold:)

Same boat here. My daughter has been saying one particular school is her first choice for months now, but when she got into another one that was a real reach, she’s been thrown into a tizzy of confusion.

School 1 (her top choice up to now):
Extraordinary teacher, couldn’t ask for better, and he really likes her and wants her there. He plays with a top symphony but is really present for students, focuses on them as whole people, nurturing, pushes them, helps them become professionals, super well connected…
Amazing city, school is #1 conservatory in the city
Tons of performance opportunities
Very small studio in her instrument (too small?)
Great dorms, great location in the city.
We went to a concert there on the revisit and it was superb.
A plane ride away from us, we don’t know people there
Fewer gen.ed requirements
Seems very supportive and nurturing generally

School 2 (the one she thought she could’t get into):
Very good teacher, not as focused on her particular area of musical interest. Don’t know yet about how he stacks up to teacher #1 in other respects as we haven’t revisited yet, but she did a summer institute with him and liked him.
Amazing city (that my daughter knows well and loves and where we have lots of close family), school is maybe #4 music school there (but much better university as a whole thant #1.)
I assume there will be tons of performance opportunities but will learn more when we revisit
Don’t know yet about the size of studio.
Crap dorms, great location in the city.
2 hour train ride from us
More of a sink-or-swim culture, I think
More challenging academic/gen-ed requirements (more credits,maybe harder classes.) My daughter is very bright but has struggled academically (anxiety etc.) so I worry about that…
And best of all they have a Quidditch team

She doesn’t know which one to choose at the moment (very dazzled by the name/location of no. 2 but really wants to study with the teacher at #1)

And I don’t know what would be best for her either.

She does have a third option, also in a great city, great conservatory and top university, but to her it’s faded out of consideration.

(Oh and the money will be about the same in both.)

Similar situation here: Music Education at Baldwin Wallace with 100% job placement rate and $50,000 in loans(split between student and parents) or Youngstown State University with “very good” placement rate with no debt?

(I don’t have any problem with posting the specifics here, even if someone recognizes who she is. Both programs have their strengths - we’re just struggling with which set of strengths work best for this particular kid.)

I like to “think out loud” so below is my process:

Daughter has been accepted for Music Ed to 4 of the 6 schools she auditioned at. She’s down to choosing between two: Youngstown State University’s Dana School of Music and Baldwin Wallace Conservatory - each of which cooperate with the university’s Education College for the Music Ed degree. Both schools are accredited and have 100% of their students passing the Ohio licensing exam. A graduate degree is probably desired at some point, although not necessarily right away.

BW claims a 100% job placement rate for their Music Ed graduates and they were very frank during the site visit about how much attention they pay to the students - basically, you can’t hide. They WILL talk about how you’re doing. They stress early classroom participation so you know right away (as in the first few weeks) if you’re cut out for teaching or not. My daughter liked both of the flute professors there, although they are both adjuncts. She is setting up a private lesson with one or both of them for this Friday, followed by an overnight hosted by BW for admitted Conservatory students. Their people in admissions and financial aid offices are very friendly and helpful. My husband and daughter were VERY impressed with how they presented their program. Both really liked the campus as well. It’s very likely that the caliber of student would be higher than at YSU, and daughter is one that responds to peer competition.

Cost no object, daughter would be at BW in a heartbeat. But BW will cost about $62,000 more than YSU over the 4 years of undergrad. Since most of that premium would be in loans (about half hers and half ours), we’re not convinced that we SHOULD pay the premium for the supposedly better school, even though we can. (We calculated the total loan amount and payments we would be responsible for if we choose BW for daughter 1 and a similar cost for daughter 2…and the loan payment is about 75% of the amount we’re putting away in cash for college now. We’d have the loans paid off well before retirement.) Plus, daughter would be required to work to provide at least $12,000 over 4 years of her own money toward tuition (in addition to her spending money). There would likely be no money to upgrade her instruments, or additional experiences (traveling, extra private lessons, etc.). So, she’d graduate with a great degree, the same instruments she started with, and about $27,000 in debt.

OTOH, YSU has a really strong local reputation for their music program (Daughter2’s cello teacher works with a violinist who got her undergrad at BW and is currently working on her master’s…at YSU). My daughter’s private teacher for the past 2 years is the only flute professor there, and she’s a full-time professor (not an adjunct). We don’t know as much about the statistics of the Music Ed degree (job placement rate, etc.), but my daughter’s 1st flute teacher also teaches at her high school and came from there…and daughter likes her very much (as opposed to teachers & student teachers she’s had from other programs). Next weekend, my daughter will be participating in a Master Class at YSU’s Flute Festival with her private teacher/flute professor. We’ll also get to ask some of the questions we haven’t yet, such as job placement. Daughter has been on YSU’s campus several times for previous flute festivals and private lessons, but hasn’t done a real tour…but at this point she’s kinda “meh” about the campus, even though YSU has been doing (and continues to do) a lot of improvements on and around campus. I suspect (although I don’t know) that daughter may be more of a “big fish in a small pond” at YSU compared to BW - which would be good on one hand in getting the more coveted ensemble positions early on. But what about when she’s a jr/sr getting the same coveted ensemble positions? Maybe that means she’d have to find her motivation either within herself (ideal) or from outside sources. I’ve seen her do that when she really wants to, but truthfully, she’s much more likely to have her fire lit by constantly being around a bunch of other musicians who are better than she is and very serious about it. Although she really likes her private teacher and has absolutely no qualms that she has more than 4 more years of stuff to teach her, daughter is also looking to get input from other sources. Financially, we’d be able to fund supplemental experiences, such as private lessons with a variety of instructors, master classes, maybe some summer week-long intense camps with great teachers. I’m quite certain that her YSU professor would be of great help in finding and getting into some of these extra opportunities, but daughter would have to maintain a certain amount of internal motivation to apply and attend. Since daughter would only have to work enough to earn her own spending money, she’d have more time for these extra experiences. Plus, we’d be able to upgrade her instruments when needed. So from YSU, she’d graduate with an acceptable degree, upgraded instruments, additional experiences that could improve her playing skills, and no debt.

Daughter1 freely admits she will do “just fine” regardless of where she goes. She just doesn’t have any excitement about YSU like she does for BW. I do think a lot of it is due to familiarity - with the professor, with the campus, and the fact that it’s only an hour away from home (BW is 2-1/2 hours). And it’s Youngstown…not the same sparkle as being 20 min from Cleveland. But if YSU has a good job placement rate, I just have a hard time recommending going into debt just to have some fabulous 4 year college experience and letting that dictate the next 10 years of her life. If YSU has a mediocre placement rate, or the expected salary is much lower than for BW grads, then the premium may be worth it.