Merit scholarships

tjc · September 27, 2009, 4:45pm

My DS will be applying at conservatories this fall for organ. Eastman is well regarded for this, but has a high tuition. We are in the middle class range that is too high to receive need based aid but we can't really afford $50k a year either, so I wondered if anyone out there has received merit aid from Eastman and how much a typical award is? It doesn't make sense for him to apply somewhere that he won't be able to attend. Thanks for any experiences you've had.

thumper1 · September 27, 2009, 5:05pm

I do not know Eastman’s financial aid policies. Music merit aid is awarded to students based on their audition only. Some schools offer academic merit aid as well, but I’m not sure Eastman does.

Duquesne, as an example, awarded my son a performance award based on his audition AND a presidential scholarship based on his academic stats.

Boston University offers both types of awards as well (but DS didn’t get an academic award from them…but did get a great performance award).

The Hartt School awarded only music merit awards based on his audition, and NOT any additional academic merit aid (and he was well qualified to receive some…including an alumni scholarship as his dad is an alum of U of Hartford).

So…policies vary. Perhaps others here have first hand experience with Eastman and the other schools on your son’s list.

violadad · September 27, 2009, 5:40pm

The collective wisdom over a couple of admissions cycles. There’s some school specific info as well.

Mezzo_sMama · September 28, 2009, 12:16am

Here you go: Scroll down to the section about Merit Aid
[Financial</a> Aid - Prospective Students - Eastman School of Music](<a href=“http://www.esm.rochester.edu/financialaid/prospective.php]Financial”>http://www.esm.rochester.edu/financialaid/prospective.php)

NJ_Jazz_dad · September 28, 2009, 9:35am

If I recall from the school’s presentation at the audition, if you are accepted to Eastman you will get a minimum of the $5,000 merit scholarship indicated on the site. There are two other levels of merit scholarships above that based upon need and the audition. The school was pretty open about the process so I’m sure a quick call or chat at one of the upcoming October college music fairs (highly recommend a visit to one if you can make it) would elicit the other two amounts.

Trumpet57 · September 28, 2009, 9:37am

It seems like the best you can hope for in merit scholarship money at a conservatory is to reduce the cost to the level of other expensive schools. That is a general observation and I know Oberlin is a different story but it does not seem very likely you walk in and audition and they say, we have to have you come here it is free for you.

I bet it has happened but so has getting hit by lightning twice or winning powerball. For the most part the big name schools are for the rich and those willing to mortgage their future on the very slim almost non existant hope that it will pay off in a spot in a major orchestra.

One thing I keep hearing and reading from those in the music industry, do not break your budget on a school. Do not go into big time debt to go to a big name program. If you are the fortunate few that have the funds, go for it.

Maybe I am just a bit put off looking at the cost of going to these schools in the magazine. Seeing how college costs like health care continue to rifle out of control despite no inflation in wages or other areas. The silver lining is that a huge number of people with success went to more affordable schools at least for undergraduate work especially in the jazz area.

thumper1 · September 28, 2009, 10:04am

Here is my opinion…music performance majors need to explore a wide variety of career options.

Music schools have a wide variety of costs as do other majors.

violindad · September 28, 2009, 7:58pm

“It seems like the best you can hope for in merit scholarship money at a conservatory is to reduce the cost to the level of other expensive schools.”

In my experience, most conservatories will give deserving applicants enough merit-based money to reduce the cost to the level of an inexpensive school (i.e. a public university): for example, San Francisco Conservatory, Juilliard, NEC, Cleveland Institute. The “deserving bar” may be high, but as other posters have mentioned, potential music performance majors need to seriously consider whether music performance is the right major for them. The amount of merit money they receive can help them determine their ability and the appropriateness of a music major.

Mezzo_sMama · September 28, 2009, 10:11pm

I have to take issue with those who keep putting down conservatories in one way or another- this time it’s cost. If music and performing is what your youngster truly lives for, then following their dream is what they must do. To generalize by saying that " big name schools are for the rich and for those willing to mortgage their futures…" makes no more sense than to say that “state schools are for those who couldn’t get into anyplace else”. I would never think of saying the latter and I would appreciate it if those riding the anti-conservatory wave would think before posting something that is inaccurate and hurtful to someone else.Trumpet57, I don’t know if you have a youngster who is going to be auditioning this season, but what works for you may not be right to someone else. You say you are put off by looking at the cost of schools in a magazine. That seems to me like choosing a mate from a catalogue- what’s on the page is one dimensional. Put the publication down and go visit some schools- watch the kids going from the dorm to the music building, talking about the acting class they have that morning, walk around the halls of the practice rooms and hear all kinds of music pouring forth, and if you’re really lucky, you’ll be there right before a studio class and you’ll hear one girl begin to sing, then another takes a harmony line before the guys join in. Or listen to an opera rehearsal at night- kids who have been in class since 7:30 that morning, suddenly discovering new energy when they begin working with the orchestra. Those are the things you can’t quantify with a number. And stating that Oberlin is "a different story? Careful of hearsay, please. Oberlin too, is subject to the constraints of today’s economy- they are known to be willing to enable international students to attend their conservatory, but the kids I know who attend Oberlin haven’t received anything different than those at other schools. (One general exception is, for guys in VP, the FA awards may be larger to entice them into the program).
Jazz…well, maybe that’s different- I hope that someone else here will offer their experiences in that area. And of course the number of "people with success (who went to) more affordable schools, is larger- there are more of those institutions, while conservatories are smaller and can be much more particular in whom they accept.
violindad, you’re on the right track but there are other factors which come into play. Although merit money can be an indicator of “prospective talent”, I caution against getting hung up on that idea. Often budgets and numbers of admitted students can be different within departments and among instruments-a deserving student might be denied admission if there are 4 openings and she/he is number 5. There may not be a great applicant pool one year, so with a class of 30, all might receive great offers. The next year, a lot of really terrific applicants show up and an unexpected 70 accept the admission offers, so the monetary incentives are smaller. It’s a crap shoot every year and we parents aren’t privy to the “inside info”,however much we might wish to be. An offer of acceptance from a top school can be a better indicator of the perceived talent and the relative ability of a student as compared to others who are in the applicant pool.
We are heading into another audition season and it would be great if we could be supportive of all on here and not let personal preferences cause hurt feelings.

KeyofH · September 28, 2009, 11:01pm

Hi TJC – there was a thread from last spring on the Music Major site where students and parents actually listed their scholarships. I used to have the thread bookmarked but somehow it disappeared when I changed computers (sorry) – one of the other posters may have it. I systematically went through that thread and picked up information about voice performance majors and the value of their scholarships. It’s not difficult to see patterns in scholarship reporting. Of course this thread reflects a skewed population – people tend to report only those schools from which they received scholarships, not the schools where they didn’t get scholarships. However, I think it’s something worth looking at. If you think my listing of voice scholarships (the one I extracted from the thread) would be of interest, PM me with an email address and I will send it to you – it could help you identify (sort of) more generous schools from less generous schools. Also, I found by studying the music school sites, you could frequently get a sense as to whether there is money “lying around” for merit scholarships. Another approach, simply call the school and talk to the admissions and scholarship folks. When I first began this process I was afraid to call, but I overcame those feelings and found many of the admissions people to be highly approachable. Remember they are in the sales game, too!

My daughter applied to seven schools. She was accepted to all except one – Northwestern. The 3 private schools where she was accepted gave merit scholarships that brought the total cost of attending down below the cost of the public universities, with one exception. Public universities offered comparatively little. Everybody offered something. The one exception mentioned above was the University of North Texas-Denton, with a very high quality program and unbelievably low tuition. The small scholarship they offered really didn’t matter because the tuition was so low to begin with. I don’t know the school’s reputation in organ.

Good luck to you.

fiddlestix · September 29, 2009, 9:10am

As Mezzo Mama suggests, I wouldn’t make broad generalizations about conservatory merit aid. How talented is your student? How much above the crowd? I definitely know violinists - and there is no general lack of very, very talented, accomplished violinists applying to conservatories - who have received full tuition scholarships to major conservatories…

Merit aid is probably one area where generalizations can be made, but then each year, there are exceptions - yours might be one! Good luck!

slovesviola · September 29, 2009, 10:00am

tjc,

My S is a current freshman at Eastman. As NJ Jazz dad stated, last year they told us all on audition day that they give all students 5K. Then the merit amount increases above that amount, all the way up to a Rogers Scholarship which is a high merit talent / academic scholarship. There are other amounts in between. Academic strength may or may not play in to the total amount offered.

Eastman was my S’s dream school and we were pleasantly surprised when he got a generous offer from them. It was equal to his “safeties”. All schools offered something. The lowest offer was from an out of state public which gave academic merit but no music merit. Peabody has the reputation of giving only small amounts of merit money and we found that to be true.

As others have said, don’t discount applying to a private Conservatory, U, or LA because of price tag. These schools can be generous with merit money which can bring the cost in to the range of Public U tuition. Making connections, visiting, taking a lesson, will all help find the right fit for your S. It will all fall in to place.

NJ_Jazz_dad · September 29, 2009, 11:00am

Totally agree with that. In the end once scholarships are taken into account a lot of public schools, private schools and conservatories ended up the same amount out of pocket for us. I encouraged my son to ignore price until the very end when all the inital offers were in and he had asked for counter offers where appropriate.

musicamusica · September 29, 2009, 11:10am

“In the end once scholarships are taken into account a lot of public schools, private schools and conservatories ended up the same amount out of pocket for us.”

<pre><code>D had similar experiences as an undergrad. We got the impression that they knew what other schools were offering. As a grad student, since it was mostly fellowship money, the offers were more varied.
</code></pre>

musicprnt · September 29, 2009, 1:18pm

With the contacts I have had with high level students applying to music programs, conservatories and music programs within universities, I think it is very difficult to make blanket statements.For example, Juilliard has the reputation of not being good with merit and other financial aid, but I have known students who have gotten decent aid, including merit,up to a full scholarship. A student my son befriended at a summer music festival is a violinist, and has a full ticket scholarship to Peabody which I believe is mostly merit based (I could be wrong, some could be merit, some financial aid). I would muse that it might be easier to get merit scholarships in music programs then it is in academic ones, what I hear in the academic world seems to be that unless someone is Einstein, most aid is based on need…

And others hit the nail on the head, it also depends on the instrument you are playing and your level. If you are a terrific bassoonist, and a program needs solid bassoonists because a bunch just graduated or decided to be in a punk rock band, you could get a lot more merit aid then let’s say a violinist who is technically on a par or above you, simply because there are so many talented violinists out there so their pool is larger and with a lot of high caliber talent.

I think the real answer is you don’t know which way the wind is blowing until you actually get out there under sail i.e you don’t know until you try. Yeah, I have heard a lot of the same things about conservatories, that they are basically just bastions of the rich, that a talented kid has no chance of getting merit aid and so forth, and while I am sure there are grains of truth in that, some of it could also be kids who thought they were the greatest thing since Paganini on the violin for example, was told by their local teacher they were the greatest, made all local, all state, all universe, etc, and then they applied to a high level program like NEC,Juilliard et al, and on the talent scale they were in the middle of the pack of people able to be accepted, but didn’t stand out, and they make the assumption that they didn’t get merit aid because the school doesn’t offer it, rather then realizing that perhaps what they thought of themselves was highly overblown…(I know of one person directly like that, a girl who was pretty talented on the violin, played in the same youth orchestra my son did, did the competitions, etc…and then applied to some big conservatories, got in some, but didn’t get much merit aid…and I can tell you that in terms of proficiency, despite being concertmaster of all state, etc, she would be at the bottom end of things at a high level pre college program, which tells you roughly how they would place in college audition level…and she pretty much said it was because they don’t offer merit aid)…

violindad · September 29, 2009, 4:02pm

The following data on average indebtedness at graduation (gleaned from the College Board’s website) may be useful in comparing schools:
Juilliard: $26000
New England Conservatory: $32000
Mannes: $16000
Manhattan School of Music: $16000
San Francisco Conservatory: $22000
Indiana University: $22000
University of Michigan: $27000
University of Florida: $15000
University of Southern California: $28000

These are just the first schools that I searched for data on (except for the schools for which there was not data on average indebtedness at gradution: the Cleveland Institute of Music, Peabody, and Eastman), so I have not attempted to skew the data at all. Probably the students attending more expensive schools are from wealthier backgrounds and this reduces the average debt at graduation. In any case, I don’t see a clear demarcation between the conservatory debt (the five schools I chose have an average of $22,400) and the university debt (the four schools I chose have an average of $23, 000).

Because these figures are just averages (actual indebtedness will vary from $0 to probably around or over $100 000) and because there are many factors which determine one’s indebtedness, one must be careful not to read too much into or out of the figures.

schleen · September 29, 2009, 5:14pm

To tag onto Mezzo’sMama’s post, I didn’t see the comments earlier in the string as anti-conservatory. This whole business of figuring out where to apply–and being realistic about cost–is a big part of the consideration process at this time of year.

My DD is a sophomore VP major at Peabody. So, we went the conservatory route, though not without A LOT of soul-searching and tough discussions about cost. We were fortunate enough to be able to send her to a conservatory even though the cost is astronomical. And, although we experienced many of the beautiful and inspirational scenes at Peabody that Mezzo’sMama described and were very taken by them, we came quite close to choosing our state U’s music program because of cost. The more affordable programs she was admitted to had many wonderful things going for them as well. A dream can be pursued in many different venues, and a dream can ultimately be squashed by crushing debt. We chose the conservatory after sifting through many, many considerations…studio and teacher, location, general atmosphere, learning style, academic oversight, music opportunity…and decided to bite the bullet on cost. So far, we’re good with the decision.

So, I don’t see the struggle and consideration of cost as being anti-conservatory, but as being part of the very complicated decision-making process that goes into finding the right fit for studying music.

Trumpet57 · September 29, 2009, 7:17pm

I wonder if the average debt means anything at all. Without knowing a ton of factors they are hard to read. Certainly the difference is not just the merit money given the student. You probably have much richer parents avoiding the need for debt sending kids off to conservatory than to a state school.

You also have in state v out of state for state schools. I doubt the average UF in state UF student leaves with that much debt. If they do, they probably had no help from parents.

Interesting that NEC is way up there. From what I have heard NEC and CIM are among the worst giving money.

Trumpet57 · September 30, 2009, 10:26am

Department of Education has a nice site that you can search by college and it gives dollars and percents of aid by grant and loan etc.

I would give the link but I gather it is against the rules. But it is the national center for educational stats.

As an example they give for MSM that 69% of students get aid. 47% of the money they get is in the form of a grant and it breaks down the loans fed and other etc. Average grant $14,362. And of course it gives the cost of the school $49,805 and other facts

like enrollment 967 with 547 grad and they break it down by age, ethnicity, sex etc.

84% retention 68% grad rate

If you are into stats they have plenty

If you want to better understand the numbers violindad posted about debt the info there might help you.

No meaning behind using MSM, just randomly picked a school people would know.

Juggling_Mom · September 30, 2009, 9:53pm

I agree with a lot of the comments here. There are several steps that I think can help improve your merit aid package.

<ol>
<li>Good targeting of your schools - matching student to school. Important to this process is getting out and visiting and meeting with faculty and doing trial lessons. This helps you calibrate where you stand. The faculty will let you know. Build contacts at desirable schools so that when your student auditions they know who you are.</li>
<li>Develop more than one alternative that your student would be happy to be at AND that seems to be a good fit, NOT taking finances into account. I think you need at least two to three schools (and maybe more if you are in a highly competitive category) that are very interested in your student and that you are equally interested in.</li>
</ol>

These two strategies should help you get admitted at several schools with merit packages. If your top choice school does not have the best financial package, including merit, your student should then go back to the top choice school (as described in various other CC music board discussions) and petition for a better package given your other offers, explaining the situation and providing the documentation. With any luck your top choice school will match the offer or come close. It is absolutely key that you have more than one acceptance and merit offer to be able to calibrate and negotiate with your top choice school.

Hope this is helpful.

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