Music Ed with clarinet, Academic Requirements and what I should look for in a college

Hi! I am a high school sophomore looking to major in music Ed, and i was wondering what academic courses I should take, like would taking higher level science courses get me more scholarships towards college and financial aid, what math courses ETC, also what level I need to be at to audition for music school and any good muisc schools in NE Ohio Western Pa, thanks !!

Welcome @clarinetplayer23. Does your school offer AP Music Theory? You will want to take that if you can. Otherwise, my suggestion would be to take the highest level courses you can do well in but put most of your focus on your music. Auditions count more than just about anything in getting scholarships to music school. You can get academic scholarships on top of the music awards, but there’s more competition and (at least from what I have seen) the music scholarships are bigger.

With this in mind, my son actually cut back on the AP classes senior year in order to prepare for his auditions. He also only took the SATs once, since most of the schools didn’t require them and those that did were more interested in his playing. (He plans to double saxophone and music ed.).

Hope that helps!

P.S. Music schools in your area might include Carnegie Mellon in Pittsburgh and Oberlin near Cleveland (really competitive), Baldwin Wallace and Cleveland Institute of Music in/near Cleveland – I am sure I am missing some!

I’ve seen just the opposite in the midwest. Academic scholarships were much larger than talent scholarships. While some schools may give a free ride to a student who plays and instrument that they need, a lot of instruments are a dime a dozen. Another thing to look at when your looking at schools is how long their music ed program is. Some condense it into 4 years and others 5. Do you start spending time in the classroom your freshman year or not until your senior year? IMO, spending time in the classroom your freshmen year, gives you a better idea of exactly what it is like. Some change majors then when they find out it isn’t what they thought it would be. Also the amount of experience you have in the classroom outside of student teaching, looks better on a job application. Mine ended up with grade school, middle school and high school experience besides student teaching.