They have expanded the idea of vocational discernment for ministry to everyone and have many programs around it. The idea is that we all have gifts and talents and passions and could use help to figure out what they are and how best to nurture them and translate them into a life’s work.
If he gets accepted, he should go back for accepted student visits if it is high on his list. That is always a good idea.
To answer your question about Carleton, we also observed a private viola lesson and an orchestra rehearsal at Carleton. The lesson was comparable to the one we observed at St. Olaf. The orchestra rehearsal at Carleton was perfectly enjoyable, but not in the same league as St. Olaf. The St. Olaf conductor was just INCREDIBLE and so nice too. The kids were clearly enraptured with him, with the music, and with the experience of playing together. The energy in the room during rehearsal was palpable. The Carleton conductor was nice and funny and talented; my daughter said she would definitely join the orchestra if she goes there. The kids were into it, but it was more low key, just not the same level in any way. Carleton is on 3, 10-week trimesters. The orchestra rehearses new music every trimester and performs on the last Friday of the trimester. They don’t tour or anything. There is a nice music scholarship at Carleton that is given to just one applicant annually. St. Olaf has a ton of music scholarships. Also, the recital hall at Carlton is slated to be torn down because it’s just terrible acoustically. A new one will be built in the next 3-5 years I believe. Overall, my older daughter loved Carleton (the progressive nerd vibe was a perfect fit for her) and will probably apply there ED, but if music were her priority, I think she would look elsewhere. My younger daughter (violinist) is very psyched about St. Olaf primarily because of the music dept. and also the swim team. Also, FYI Carleton has incredibly good financial aid with really low student debt. St. Olaf has very good aid, but not as good as Carleton. Our household is on the high earning end for aid so we are paying close attention to that detail.
St. Olaf, I believe, gives more scholarships to more people based on academics, service/leadership and music/dance. You can stack them so even if you are a lower “need” family you can do pretty well.
Somebody mentioned Concordia for french horn… we live near Concordia and my HS age son studies with the horn teacher, Karin Wakefield. She is indeed a very good horn teacher/player. The great thing about Concordia is that the music is accessible to non-majors and has the advantages of small liberal arts college, yet offers many majors/programs. The Fargo-Moorhead area has a lot to offer - very fun college town and thriving economy. My daughter is considering both Concordia and St. Olaf next fall for music performance… I have a feeling she’ll go with St. Olaf if the scholarships come through, simply because she wants to live in a different town and have a new start.
Thanks all for the helpful input!
Earthmama68: Did your daughters choose St. Olaf or another college? How were they able to audition for the orchestra in the winter before being admitted? Isn’t it highly selective? Thanks!
Hello. My daughter is currently a freshman at St. Olaf, playing the oboe in the St. Olaf Band. I found these boards to be insightful when she was a Junior/Senior in High school. I am here to pay it forward!
For reference sake, she is a non-music major and was awarded both an academic and music scholarship.
Music Scholarships are available for both major and non music majors. The application and recording for the music scholarships are completely separate from the common app, and must be submitted by December 15th. You do not need to apply ED. My daughter applied regular decision. If you are a finalist for the music scholarship, you will get a choice of a couple of dates to come to St. Olaf and audition in person in February. I believe she found out in mid to late March that she received the music scholarship.
Auditions for Band/Orchestra placement actually occur during the first week of school EACH YEAR. There are two bands and two orchestras. Depending on how you rank your interest, you can be placed on either a band or an orchestra, or a combination of both. You can switch between the bands and orchestras from year to year.
Both the top Band and the top Orchestra do a domestic tour each year, and an international tour once every four years. Typically the Orchestra travels domestically over fall break (right now) and the band travels domestically between Interim and spring semester. I believe the international tours are done after schools out in May, but I am not clear on that.
Both the top orchestra and the top band require a solid commitment. For example, you cannot be on the St. Olaf Band and chose to take a study abroad interim or semester. But you can opt to be lower band and travel. Again, you can try out for any band or orchestra each fall, so you are never “stuck”. Further, the band has three two hour practices a week, plus private lessons etc. It is difficult to manage a varsity sport with that.
On how selective, I would guess that would depend upon your instrument. I am guessing if you play the bassoon your set! The music admissions coordinator was very helpful in answering all our questions prior to both auditions.
So far my daughter loves it. Their first concert filled the auditorium, something that never happened in her high school. She has been able to join a club or two, and she doesn’t miss swimming as much as she thought she might.
I hope this helps!
Thanks for the great info, @hatsandmittens! In keeping with the original spirit of the thread, i.e., are there other LAC’s out there with strong music departments that are accessible to non-majors, I wanted to give a quick report of our visit to U. of Puget Sound, from which we just returned. We were very favorably impressed, and it seems like a place that would fit my son like a glove. The music is not at the scale of St. Olaf, but they do have around 120 majors, which is a very high number for a LAC. We sat in on a wind ensemble rehearsal (the orchestra did not meet on the day we were there) and they were terrific! The conductor had a wonderfully positive energy, while also exhibiting a high attention to musical detail. He really got a wonderful sound out of those kids, and they were clearly motivated to practice and master a very demanding program (their mid-semester concert is this week, so we saw them in final prep for that). Great stuff all around.
He also got to meet and play with the whole horn studio and have a mini lesson with the prof, and they had a wonderful esprit de corps, very non-competitive and supportive. Great players and a crowd DS felt he would fit right in with.
Academically, UPS is probably a half a notch down from St. Olaf, but they’re actually stronger in his particular area of interest (Computer Science). Anyway, while St. Olaf is still very much in contention and a school to which DS will surely apply, it’s nice to have found another candidate school that looks like it would also work beautifully for him.
Finally, we talked to the director for a while and he mentioned that he’d done a little study of which schools could be considered “peer institutions” of UPS from a music-within-a-LAC standpoint. His criteria were a large number of majors (at least around 100), and accredited. I think accessibility to non-majors was also a criterion, ruling out places like Oberlin. He said it was only about a dozen schools. I can’t remember every name he listed, but here are the ones I can remember:
St. Olaf
Lawrence
Gettysburg
Wheaton
UPS
Furman
Illinois Wesleyan
Luther
Concordia
Houghton
Only the top few on that list could reasonably be considered St. Olaf’s peers from an academic standpoint, but hopefully that’s helpful to other folks looking for schools of St.O’s ilk, musically speaking.
Another school for consideration would be Ithaca College in New York. It also has a separate school of music. The music facilities were amazing. More of an East coast vibe, not bad, just not as laid back as the Midwest or Pacific Northwest! UPS was high on my daughters list as well- and she also thought the band director was a great guy. In the end, St. Olaf was just a better fit for her (and us financially).
I know about the strong music at Ithaca, but I haven’t been sold enough about the rest of their educational package to want to encourage my son to take a look. Firstly, it’s quite a bit larger than an LAC, over 6000 students. And, based on the scraps of info I’m able to gather from various resources, it just doesn’t seem like as rich and rigorous an academic environment as a St.O or UPS. Princetonreview has 3 academic ratings they publish: professors interesting (PI), professors accessible (PA) and overall academic rating (AR). These sorts of numerical rankings are inevitably imperfect, and small differences probably aren’t meaningful, but Ithaca is in a different category altogether than either UPS or St.O:
School PI PA AR
St.O…91 93 93
UPS…95 97 87
Ithaca…81 77 81
That kind of difference between LACs and larger schools is typical, actually, accept for a handful of really premier universities. That’s part of the reason why we’re so focused on small schools. I think they simply do undergraduate education better. But, of course, I’m preaching to the choir here 