I’ve had 2 callbacks with the VP department this week and I’m hoping to hear back by 6/9.
Lorraine Nubar seemed very interested in me. I was interviewed extensively and my final CB was a lesson.The studio is 12-14 students from all over the country. They have just graduated 7 and I know she is looking to fill two soprano spots this year. Is anyone here familiar with the Pre college at Juilliard? I am currently a MSM student, but we love to do my senior year with Ms. Nubar and her faculty. I have two friends who have studied with her. One is now going to Juillard and the other is at Curtis. Am I dreaming to think I could get in?
I don’t know a lot about the vp department in the pre college, but the fact that you had callbacks I would assume means you have a good shot at getting in, the fact that you had a lesson means they are definitely interested in teaching you. There are no guarantees, it could be she also did lessons with other prospective students, but the fact that you got to that point means you have a decent chance I would say. Wish you luck!
Thank so much for your reply @musicprnt. I am thrilled to have gotten this far. I felt really positive after the 3rd round and now all I can do is wait. It was a great experience and no matter what happens I know Ms. Nubar will remember me when I come to audition next winter for schools. Well, I can hope. Ha!
@songbird-
I can’t speak for that teacher, but teachers do remember kids they have run across before, teachers remember kids from summer programs and so forth. I wish I could tell you “of course you are going to get in”, but knowing that the voice department in pre college is pretty small, and they generally only admit to fill spots from graduating seniors (with some small exceptions one way or the other), it is hard to say what the final outcome will be. When my son was auditioning for the pre college on violin, the first year he auditioned they had 130 kids audititioning (they didn’t pre screen then), for like 6 slots…his second year, he literally tied with another kid to get in, and he lost on whatever tiebreaker they used (in part, because the other kid had auditioned several times I suspect, among other things)…when he got in, I think they only admitted 10 violins or so, and in a sense part of that was luck of the draw. I think the fact you got so deep in should stay with you, if you got to that round it means you deserved to be auditioning and if you don’t get in likely it was because there were few slots and it simply didn’t work out, which means you are on the right path. Like everyone on here says about auditions, you just never never, but what this audition said was you were good enough for a very close look, and that means something when you are dealing with a program like Juilliard pre college voice (plus if you are at MSM, that says a lot on voice, the rep on their pre college voice program is that it is up there, I won’t get into the 'is it as good as Juilliard’s or not, which doesn’t mean much).
I wish you well, please let us know when you hear back…
I really appreciate you taking the time to share your experiences with me @musicprnt. I’ll know on Tuesday either way and I’ll post the outcome.
I received my acceptance yesterday. needless to say I’m over the moon. thank you.
@songbird16-
Enjoy it! My son still says the years he spent there were some of the best of his life, and he said that had he not been in the program, he well might have not gone on to study music in college. I can’t speak directly of the vocal students, but it is a place where you can make friends with some really musical kids, and learn a lot, so enjoy it. It is not easy to get into, that is for sure, so you should feel good at accomplishing something by getting in there.
Congratulations for getting into the pre-college program at Julliard! How does this program work? These 12-14 kids that get accepted, if many are from all over the country do they all have to move to New york to attend Julliard pre-college?Does this mean they do not attend their own high school any more?
Pre-college is a Saturday program and is for musical subjects only. Students continue with their regular high school programs. Some commute great distances–when my daughter was there, there were kids coming every week from the west coast, and the family of a bass player drove in from Michigan each week (because it’s too hard to fly with the instrument.) But most families end up moving closer if they continue at pre-college because all that traveling is grueling. I’m not sure what you mean by 12-14, but if you mean ages, the span is wider, about 10-18. If you mean the number of kids accepted, it varies from year to year.
Thank you! The voice studio is very small. There are 12-14 students each year. My daughter was one of 2 Sopranos selected this year.
Pre college, like Juilliard is a conservatory education.
She is 16 ( 17 soon!) and a rising senior. D attended MSM precollege last year.
There is a student in the precollege who moved to NYC from The Netherlands and one who flies in from Portland, Oregon who is now going to boarding school in NJ.
@songbird16 is my girl!
Just to clarify, for urenough, who asked how the program works: Juilliard Pre-college (like other pre-college programs) is a Saturday program. You still need to complete your academic high school program on your own.
Of course. Juilliard used to be affiliated with PPAS HS ( professional performing arts) but that’s no longer available.
Seriously?? Someone who flies from Oregon every Saturday? Someone who moved from the Netherlands to attend a one day a week class? Wow. That is personification that music education is for the elite.
Everyone thought me sending my d to a prestigious performing arts school 30 minutes away was pretentious. This is a whole new level that I honestly would have never considered.
But good for the few who can do it.
We are at the other end of the spectrum.
We moved to NYC for its PUBLIC performing arts school.
My D receives FA at Juiilliard as she did at MSM.
It’s up to us as parents to find away to foster great talents.
To be fair, Juiilliard pre college is from
9am until 7pm on Saturdays so it’s not just a class.
The girl from the Netherlands originally came to go to HS at a boarding school in NJ and was accepted to MSM. This year will be her first at Juilliard. She is 17.
Ms. Nubar is a world renowned teacher.
She is a huge draw so it is an elite group, I guess.
@Sguti40, my daughter used to travel from Philadelphia to the precollege, which I thought was pretty crazy–until she got there and we learned that there were kids commuting regularly from much greater distances. I don’t know if “pretentious” is quite the word for it, but it’s certainly a lot of effort and expense. I don’t think Juilliard was ever officially affiliated with the performing arts high school a block away, but I could be wrong. I hope your daughter has a great time, @coloraturakid!
thank you @glassharmonica. no julliard has never been associated with the performing arts HS down the street ( my daughter is a student there) BUT the pre college was associated with PPAS ( professional performing arts school) in the theater district.
How interesting! I didn’t know that.
Some kids at Juilliard pre college to to PPAS, some others went to the Children’s Professional School (which is aimed at, for example, young actors and musicians already working as professionals). The association with PPAS ended in 2014 from what I can tell, but kids from pre college still go there as their primary high school.
Yeah, there is a lot of craziness with pre college, one kid was flying in from San Diego every week, but most people end up making local arrangements, staying with family or friends, you name it for their kid to go. I don’t think you can simply lay it at the feet of pretensiousness, some people really believe the program is the best of its kind, and go crazy to get their kid in there, some parents like with the college, think that getting into pre college is a kind of golden ticket that guarantees their kid will become the next big prodigy or something, some parents do it because where they live, there isn’t anything comparable. Like anything in life, there are tradeoffs, and while the program is fantastic, nothing is that good for every kid, or that it is the only thing to do. We live in the NYC suburbs, so getting there wasn’t a big deal, but if we had lived far away I don’t know what we would have done. Friend of my son at Conservatory is a major player in the violin world these days, has won some major competitions, artists rep already, but he went to SF conservatory prep…and there are plenty of really good prep programs out there all over the country. Yeah, I am sure there are some parents who brag about it, who see it as a big feather in their cap, etc, but most do it because they think it will positively help their kid, if not in music (probably 60% of the kids going there either have no intention of going into music, or would but their parents wouldn’t let them; those kids go there because they want to do do music, and for the parents, they see the pre college as a golden EC for highly competitive schools, which there is a lot of truth to).
Just getting into the pre college program takes a lot of resources and committment, the levels of kids being admitted has gone higher and higher in the past 25 years or so, so to get a kid to the point where they can get in takes a lot of work, too.
Classical music in many ways is elitist, it is a kind of performing art where the resources required to get into it are staggering and the return can be, well, fraught. At the very least, it requires parents to coordinate resources, if their family is of modest means, it means cobbling together programs and financial aid and so forth to make it happen, it takes a lot of support.
There are plenty of good voice teachers out there but very few really great voice teachers. Those great teachers can be found all over the country and depending on where a young singer is in their development the extra effort and expense can be crucial. For most, including my D, at that age it would have been too much too soon. She did not have one of those preternaturally big voices at that age. By the time she was 24 and her repertoire grew along with her voice she thought nothing about jumping an inexpensive Southwest flight to a bi weekly lesson with an extraordinary teacher. Now in Europe, every week she regularly takes a four hour train ride to coachings or lessons. Just one more thing she has to add to her budget. Expensive and a lot of hard work, but hardly pretentious. It’s hard to be pretentious when your sitting in a second class train seat with a much needed beer and salami sandwich.
^^ You’re not your. 