<p>I sympathize with your situation and the difficult decision you have to make. I wish I knew the answer. I can only say that personally, if our decision involved S winding up that much in debt, I probably would have decided against MSM. He did get merit aid from other schools. I am very interested to know the opinions of other posters because this is the real sort of "nitty-gritty" that these decisions come down to. Personally, I think 100k to 150k of debt could potentially drain someone struggling to make a living as a performer of his/her creativity. I did not view it as a realistic amount of debt that my S could assume. H and I did not want debt that we would shoulder for years to come either. We are rapidly approaching retirement age-S is the youngest of our three kids. So we are driving old (and older) cars, putting off home repairs, etc. in order to not incur the debt. Fortunately, it is now possible for us to do so--if this had been the first or second kid, it would not have been possible.</p>
<p>My S is very uncomfortable with this situation and has made it known. My understanding is that things could change regarding merit aid after the juries each year. These are coming up and we are waiting to see what happens. I will post in a few weeks after I know more about how this works and what the possibilities are.</p>
<p>"My S is very uncomfortable with this situation and has made it known. My understanding is that things could change regarding merit aid after the juries each year. These are coming up and we are waiting to see what happens. I will post in a few weeks after I know more about how this works and what the possibilities are."</p>
<p>Wow! I wonder how often merit aid is reduced after such a jury? It's understandable if the student is truly slacking off but where do they set the bar? I would be terrified if merit aid could rather arbitrarily be reduced or eliminated- the student could easily end up on the street and nowhere to go to school if that can happen.</p>
<p>What an interesting and unsettling concept.
The merit award offered our son was listed as renewal over 4 years. It did not say what the conditions of its renewal were. Since he did not end up attending, we never investigated those details.
It does kind of make sense though. Academic scholarships often have minimum GPAs to maintain the award....</p>
<p>I may have misspoken. What I meant to say is that my son is very uncomfortable with the situation of our being full payers. Apparently he stated this, among other things, to someone who asked him how he was doing (to my horror!) It is our understanding that current students are considered annually for merit aid based on jury results. Whether that operates in reverse, I do not know. However, I do know of a case where a student's scholarship was reduced due to a (very) poor grade in an academic class.</p>
<p>I strongly urge you to rethink that level of debt. There are many highly trained conservatory graduates that are underemployed.</p>
<p>If you can study in France for free at prestigious institution, do it. I do not know the level or quality of jazz instruction on the continent however.</p>
<p>The classical orchestral position route is uncertain. The chances of a top tier position on this continent are elusive. And the audition process itself is expensive. It may take many auditions to achieve a chair. I hear the situation is somewhat better in Europe, and better still in Asia, but there are still many more highly trained applicants than there are job openings.</p>
<p>Do not let me discourage you. My son graduates this May with a BM in viola performance. I know how the Muse drives the person who pursues this dream. </p>
<p>Pursue your dream, but without that level of debt. Unless you have been identified and confirmed as the next Zukerman, Stern, Bell, Hahn, Benedetti, or Marsalis, do not overburden yourself with unrealistic debt.</p>
<p>Spelmom- My experience with my son at Hartt (senior, viola performance) was that he was initially awarded a one-half tuition merit scholarship. He was given some additional merit money beyond that second year. The last two years he was able to audition for and accepted into the honors chamber program, and these years have been full ride tuition, and a lot of paid gig "right of first refusal" perks. Similar students of his caliber across most instruments have also benefited from this program. It was one of the stronger reasons we chose Hartt... an achievable monetary incentive provided he could attain that level.</p>
<p>He has told me of no one ever losing merit money unless they crashed and burned, and there is a semester probationary period involved.</p>
<p>Spelmom- Further clarification: my son's second year increases were due to a one time "best in studio" award and a "best ensemble" award. There may be specific endowed scholarships at MSM for particular instruments given on an annual basis. Jury results would of course rank placement after a year of study. I'm thinking the change could well be a positive, rather than a negative one. You might want to investigate from that angle.</p>
<p>"He has told me of no one ever losing merit money unless they crashed and burned, and there is a semester probationary period involved."</p>
<p>I should think this would be the more typical scenario. It's reasonable that a student should maintain above average progress in their major & not slack off.</p>
<p>My experience has been that students who work hard and improve may have their merit awards increased. I have never heard of someone's scholarship being arbitrarily reduced, unless they have been a flakey student.</p>
<p>Certainly any student that is slacking off shouldn't be burdening his parents with debt, to go screw around at a fancy music school.</p>
<p>Also, I absolutely feel that students should shoulder a substantial portion of education costs, via loans and jobs. I have always placed much more value on that which I personally had to pay for.</p>
<p>Our personal view is that we DON'T want our son to "shoulder a substantial portion of education costs" particularly via loans or low paying jobs. Employment in the music world is uncertain enough, without adding the burden of thousands of dollars of debt. Plus, we have always said that our children's "job" so to speak, was school, which in this case, includes practicing, although S has taught lessons for a couple of years (and made four times minimum wage) and contributed to summer programs, etc. But if he weren't teaching lessons, I wouldn't have him down bagging groceries, just to shoulder some portion of his music education costs (which are already outrageous, and he is still in high school).</p>
<p>We figure that if we can't afford the lion's share of music school expense, after whatever grant money he may be awarded, he will have to go somewhere else. </p>
<p>For Tone, I would absolutely take the French option, since you say it is highly esteemed, and nearly free. In rereading your post though, it appears you have not yet even auditioned. So MSM is the proverbial "bird in the hand", albeit one with big debt attached. Can you defer until you know if you will be admitted to CNSM?</p>
<p>Thanks for that information. I think MSM operates similarly, though I do not know to what degree. S seems to be doing well; he was placed in a major ensemble after the first semester and grades are good. So we are just waiting to see if this translates into anything in terms of merit aid.</p>
<p>Maxtexada,
I hear what you are saying. Although we are not making S take loans for this--all our kids got undergrad, beyond that is on them--my deal is that he must do his best, and above all, he must graduate no matter what. We'll see how it goes....</p>
<p>I hear you - and I know that this is a stressful time for everyone (believe me, I know!). Best of luck to you and your son. It's great that you all have options.</p>
<p>No help for the OP - I have no experience with MSM, and certainly not strings. </p>
<p>I don't mean to side-track this discussion at all, but wanted to comment on a couple first page comments about the Juilliard orchestra. As I said, no experience with MSM so no basis for comparison. However, my S's biggest complaint with the Juilliard program is that they concentrate on teaching kids to play in an orchestra, and sacrifice the soloist qualities. He gets irritated at the efforts to make everyone sound the same, forgoing individual musicality. So I find the comments really funny (odd) -- guess my kid would have been significantly unhappy at MSM if it is more orchestra focused than Juilliard.</p>
<p>One of the strengths I feel the Juilliard program has is that it is not a "fixed" orchestra. Every single concert is individually staffed. Supposedly they are staffed based on the needs of the music as well as the needs of the individual players. Sounds good on paper -- in reality it does seem somewhat random, although the individual departments do have some influence. Students rotate among parts, and take turns in the various programs, including the Opera orchestra. In a recent concert, my S played first on two pieces, third on another, and not at all on the fourth.</p>
<p>My S had over 50 orchestra "services" (including rehearsals) spring of 2006, which was way too many, and he had to cry uncle. Normal is more like 20-30. That's not counting ensembles. I am surprised to hear that MSM has more.</p>
<p>Now back to your regularly scheduled programming.</p>
<p>I think that attending a program that's focused on orchestral playing is valuable regardless of which instrument you play. However, I think this focus is considerably more valuable for certain instruments than others -- bassists NEED to learn to play in orchestra or else they have no jobs later in life. On the other hand, violinists sometimes are frustrated having to play in orchestra so much because many of them want to become soloists and feel that orchestral training detracts from that goal. </p>
<p>I don't know much about MSM's program - all I know is that the bass teacher, Tim Cobb, is fantastic. I study with him at Juilliard now.</p>
<p>"In a recent concert, my S played first on two pieces, third on another, and not at all on the fourth."</p>
<p>My D played trumpet in a high school level symphonic band until this year, when she decided to concentrate her efforts on preparing her violin audition. Her band assigned parts in a similar way. A) because the directors wanted to develop a strong culture of collaboration and support within the section, rather than an intra-section culture of competition and B) because they wanted to be able to be flexible in part assignments based on student strengths. For instance, at the end of her time in that band, my daughter was a strong technical player who also played lyrical parts very, very well. But she didn't have a strong sound in the upper register. Pieces with the really high notes were assigned to players who sounded good in that range.</p>
<p>I thought this style of managing parts worked well for that organization.</p>
<p>I graduated from MSM this year in viola performance, and will be attending Yale next year for Master's. Kerren Dreyfus was not my teacher, though I have had a bit of experience with her. She is a great teacher and she has a beautiful Testore viola. I am sure your son will have a wonderful experience.</p>
<p>If you have any questions, feel free to inquire via email:</p>
<p>You're a bit confused. Violamandad's son is attending MSM under Karen Dreyfus, whereas I, violadad, have a son who just graduated Hartt with a BM in viola performance.</p>
<p>As a noted cartoon character would say, "confusing, isn't it?"</p>