Again, in our experience, some of these decisions to cut back on math or science did not affect chances even at the most selective non-conservatory schools. including Ivies. Music talent, the hard work, discipline and commitment required, and performance experience are all highly valued by top schools.
This is not just a matter of “oh he or she is going to conservatory so academics don’t matter as much” (which may be true at some places but not at others). This is a matter of choosing priorities to enable a kid to pursue the oft-mentioned “passion” at the highest level, and colleges will often honor that.
One example might be a ballet dancer who skips senior year entirely and gets a GED 
Instrumentalist do need to spend a lot more time in practice rooms than vocalists. This is common knowledge for college-aged students. My D is a vocalist. She can only sing so much and has to keep an eye on how her voice feels. She even skips days which I bet is rare for a violinist. If they have a cold they are probably still practicing while my D will be taking days off. But don’t worry, the vocalists work hard too doing a lot of book work when they can’t sing - translating and listening to music.
@bridgenail-
Thank you! While conservatories (and I am talking here stand alone conservatories, not ones inside colleges) do care about academics, since it does take academic ability to get through things like music theory, the aural training and music history classes, they don’t use it the same way academic schools do, they generally care if a student has not done well academically, rather than obsessing about a 3.7 versus a 4.0 gpa IME (and as you pointed out, even at schools within academic colleges, or programs like the Ivies, they do tend to treat musically out there students differently, they will make allowances if the kid has been doing music at a high level, even at the Ivies and such).
One thing I can tell you, the idea that music students (performance) have it “easy” compared to academic students has to be one of the funniest myths I continue to here, all I can say is my son seems to be busy as heck from morning until relatively late at night trying to squeeze everything into his day, including practicing, doing the work for his theory courses, chamber and orchestra rehearsals, outside gig work and so forth, he is a lot more busy than I was in academic college studying comp sci, that is for sure:)
I really appreciate everyone’s advice. My daughter also plays piano so we have that practice to contend with in addition to voice.
I have toured some schools and the units required for music ed majors are some of the highest of all. I think one university had them at 138. In addition to the practicing as you say and taking courses that are only designated one or two units but require much more work than the stated units lead one to believe. She is not planning on going to a stand alone conservatory so she will need to be admitted to the university as well as the music conservatory.
Music ed brings its own kind of complexity from what I know (and admittedly, that is not a lot), for one thing from what I have read and heard academics in high school might be more important in music ed than performance only degrees…and music ed makes it complicated because you have to learn a variety of instruments, as well as your primary.
Great question @thevoicemom! My HS senior (VP) has her Calc AB AP test on Thursday so I asked her about this. She got quite behind in Calc due to her auditions this spring and that’s an uncomfortable place to be for someone not used to that. Still, she’s happy she took AP Calc and she felt it made her a stronger overall applicant. (Her view.)
She plans to work toward a dual degree, so that was also a factor in her decision to take AP classes, including Calc. As has been mentioned before, there is tremendous variability, school to school, in terms of what your AP classes get you in college. In terms of my daughters overall education though, I’m glad she’s had exposure to calculus.
We home school. My child will not be taking AP Calculus. Senior year will include either statistics or precalc, and financial literacy, which will be much more useful than calculus for my child, who plans to apply to conservatories and who has no interest in a double major. Friends and colleagues who are interested in double majors or in being accepted to Ivies are taking heavy courseloads, while some friends who are interested in music only plan to home school senior year in order to focus more on auditions.
Those who are committed to music, including homeschoolers, and don’t do calculus, may have a better chance at Ivies than those who take calculus and don’t do music.
I don’t think there’s a one-size-fits-all answer about what kind of academic rigor is best when applying to music schools. Stand-alone music schools and conservatories definitely focus on the auditions. With a few exceptions, I think they do care about grades, as an indication of motivation and commitment/maturity in a student. But, at least in our experience, I don’t think they focus on the rigor of classes, or which math classes were taken, whether it was AP/Honors. That’s not to say that a transcript full of AP’s and all A’s wouldn’t catch their attention; just that it’s not used for admissions criteria.
My son took calculus and physics his senior year and first semester was a struggle. The classes were a challenge for him to begin with, and then add the pressures of preparing application pre-screens and then auditions, writing application essays, trying to research which schools, which teachers, audition songs… it was rough.
I think my recommendation would be to be careful about taking “reach” classes the second semester of junior year and first semester of senior year. Keeping in mind what is a reach for one student may be routine for another. And I think parents really need to be honest about their kids’ academic abilities. I know most of us feel that our sons/daughters “could get all A’s if he/she wanted to” and while that’s probably true, it’s important to look at how much time and effort that “want to” would actually require.
Also, one aspect that may be overlooked. I realized that when he was struggling with school work and his grades slipped, it affected his music. For kids who are conscientious about school and grades, not being able to do it all can affect their self-confidence, and I think that self-confidence is vital in successful auditions. So, even if you take the challenging class, thinking it’s OK if your grades slip, it doesn’t always work out. The lower grades can be really distracting and demoralizing for some.
I just want to chime in with those who pointed out that instrumentalists can and must put more hours in the practice room than vocal majors (who can and must learn academic subjects like the languages used in opera, IPE, etc.) It’s the physical limitation on their voices that prevents vocalist from over-practicing. And this is also one of the reason that young instrumentalist (I’m mainly referring to strings and pianists) have a danger of ending up with tendinitis and other overuse injuries.
I totally agree with @ScreenName48105, and second not taking “reach classes” so the decks are clear for auditions and applications in senior year. In general, worry less about what classes music schools “want to see” and encourage the student to assemble a schedule that allows them to have fun, explore, and keep up their grades without a boatload of work! But if your student loves math, go for it!
A few thoughts on this post:
1: My musician summed it up quite well when he said to us, “One thing I have learned by focusing on music and practicing is I have the ability to learn anything I set my mind to.” Learning to play an instrument at a high level is not just about hours in the practice room, it is also about learning how to practice effectively and how to focus and acquire knowledge. It is about discipline and the awareness that even if you are blessed with natural ability, ability only takes you so far and what really matters is dedication and time pushing yourself to improve and learn and get better. Those are the same skills it takes to master a foreign language, learn higher level math, prepare for the LSAT or for Medical School. Math and Science are not going to go away and if your child wants they can always take an online course from ED-X. Ed X works particularly well for mathematics classes.
2: Adolescents need SLEEP. Sleep is just as important for the brain and for mental health as studying and pushing yourself. If you deny your adolescent the time and freedom to sleep you are putting them at risk for mental health and other health issues.
3: Life is not a race. Teach your child to pace themselves and be comfortable with learning at their own pace in their own time. If you do you will be giving them the gift of being Happy with themselves.
4: Forget what others think or may say. Chart your own course.
5: Remember learning should be fun!!! If you try to race along the HS railroad tracks thinking you are going to end up at some golden finish line with trophies and awards and $$$$, that is one thing. But for the rest of us…all we have is ourselves and our brains and our if learning becomes toxic then that is something your kid might never get back.
I think @StacJip offers valuable advice in this post. My child is focused on music and is immune to pressure to join the academic rat race, despite having a very high-achieving peer group. If anything, I feel the pressure from other parents when I try to explain why my child is not taking on an AP-heavy workload. But that’s my issue to deal with, not my child’s.
Thanks for the reminder @StacJip . Singers ESPECIALLY need sleep. Lots of sleep. They need to keep that instrument healthy and sleep is most effective.
Great advice. It is so easy to get caught up in feeling one is putting ones child at a disadvantage if the other students are taking all these AP classes. When I went to school back in the stone age, there seemed to be so much more time to hang-out with friends and relaz.
The world has definitely changed, but one thing that people forget is there is no magical formula for things, and the idea that for example you have to do 8 ap classes and so forth to get into a good school, and that isn’t necessarily true, it all depends on the school and what you are majoring in, among other things. For a conservatory ie a stand alone music school, taking that heavy work load of academics likely won’t do anything for you, while I think it is important for kids to do well in school, you don’t have to take the crushing load. Likewise, in music schools in colleges, you don’t have to take the killer courses necessarily, they judge music students differently. It can be important to get good grades and test scores if the school offers academic merit aid, but they are not going to judge a serious music student against the person applying academically, they make allowances. There were music kids I knew from my S’s experience at Juilliard pre college, who were up there musically and also were doing the hyper academics, and in the end one of two things generally happened, either their music fell off because of the demands of academics or they tended to get really burned out, many of them ended up dropping music entirely when they got to school. I think parents and especially the schools in their mad dash to be ‘elite’ have totally ignored what they have done to kids, I would love to see the Ivy league and other elite schools come out with statements saying that how many AP classes you take won’t matter in admissions but rather would see a student who displayed they took classes to want to learn, rather than gaming the system, likewise make it so EC’s don’t count so much since in effect they are meaningless these days, both are signs of gaming the system more than any passion…but I won’t hold my breath. When the dean at Stanford made the statement that low admissions rates were not something to be proud of, it reminded me of Louie in Casablanca, with his “I am shocked, shocked to find out gambling was going on here”…“Your winnings, Sir”
^^ One of my favorite lines/scenes. But as you said the fact is that those competitive schools do want to see those classes. Or at least for kids to take the most stringent classes offered. And while it doesn’t matter as much academically for the artistic kids, in the regular universities (i.e., not conservatories) those classes can make a big difference for the academic scholarships as well as admission.
And it also depends upon each kid. Our S is very smart and needed those higher level classes to be challenged. It got rough during audition season but he also enjoyed “competing” academically against his friends. But that’s not for everyone and no one should feel like they “have to” take these classes just to keep up, especially if not suited for your kid. It will be interesting for our youngest kid (not in HS yet). He is smart but traditional learning environments don’t seem to suit him. Not sure if he will do well in APs.
To the original question, it probably doesn’t matter that much which class they take. Take what interests them and can do well in. For music majors the audition is all that matters for most schools (yes, there are exceptions, but true for most).
My D is not an elite math student and stopped with Pre-Calc in her Junior year. She took a very valuable Personal Finance course Senior year and used the available slot to take AP Music Theory and had room to take Computer Design for a little fun.
I think @StacJip raised an important point that not everything is a race and every student is different. I’m glad my D was able to focus on her music education which she loves and had the time to take her foot off the gas a little and take some fun classes.
I just want to repeat that for musicians who want to apply to “reach” type colleges, as opposed to conservatories, it is still true that a certain level of music can compensate for less rigorous courses in high school.
Practically speaking, this means, for instance, that if a student has not been on the calculus track, but doing a lot of music, and then changes his or her mind and wants to go to a BA program (in music or something else), it can still work out fine.