Hi! My sr D will be applying to both conservatives and regular universities as a music performance major. She has excellent grades and SATs.
She’s worried about having enough practice time this fall and is thinking about dropping a class she doesn’t need but is worried about how it will look to have a “lighter” load to prospective universities, specifically USC, UMich and Northwestern.
I think it will be fine as long as her grades don’t plummet. I don’t think the conservatories will care.
Does anyone have thoughts on this?
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BM programs won’t care and practice, prescreens and auditions are much more important.
Is she applying only to BM programs? Any double degree programs or BA’s?
Ps avoiding excessive stress is also a priority!
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I second the response of @compmom above. For conservatory programs, grades and class rigor will not matter at all. So absolutely prioritize practice time, pre screen recordings and preparation for really high level auditions.
For the college/university based programs, the applicant needs to have good grades and decent rigor. But these programs very much understand that high level musicians pursuing performance degrees will not necessarily have a huge load of AP classes. And many (most?) students will lighten the senior load to accommodate all those practice hours, travel to lessons and auditions and so on.
Edited to Add: my experience is only with BM Performance applications. My kid applied to 3 conservatories and 3 university based schools of music (including USC, UMich) several years ago. He is happily in conservatory now.
Good luck!
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In general for a music performance major: AUDITION IS KING.
Besides the university/LAC making sure that you hit basic academic guidelines, the music dept will be most concerned with the audition. It is not uncommon for BM music performance students to have lighter loads due to practice time. That would be considered a “smart” move.
Edit: Even with the lighter load, the process to apply to music schools will feel overwhelming very quickly in the fall. It’s best to be smart about the work load. If it’s not necessary, it’s probably best to let it go…
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Definitely go for the lighter load. Not only will fall be busy with practicing, recording prescreens, and doing applications, but the actual auditions themselves typically mean quite a bit of missed school. My son missed 18 days for auditions (and a couple other music related things), though a big chunk of that was Curtis with its multiple rounds. It can be hard to keep up with really challenging classes when you are missing big chunks of February.
In addition, we lightened up his performance schedule and elected to not do any competitions as well.
My son only applied to conservatories, but I am pretty sure that universities would rather see a moderate schedule with good grades plus an excellent audition.
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Thank you all! It pretty much confirms what I was thinking. @compmom she is just applying for BM, no BA or double major.
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