Hello! My daughter is interested in music education. Her primary instrument is “voice.” She is a high school Junior. How many schools should she apply to and how competitive is it to get in? Does she need to apply to 20+ schools like a musical theatre major (if so, she may not do it - her older sister went through the MT process and she doesn’t want to do an intense audition season). As I understand it, music education does not typically require a prescreen. Is that right?
DD is a strong singer (soprano 1) and also very strong academically. Appreciate your insight!!
No, It’s not competitive like musical theatre is competitive! That one is insane. No you don’t have to apply to 20 schools. My son applied to four.
Whether a prescreen is required depends on the school, even for music Ed. Prescreens are common for voice, including in music Ed. My son is a choral music Ed major at UNT and they require a prescreen for all voice applicants, including music Ed with a voice concentration. But not every school he applied to required a prescreen.
The best place to start looking for schools is the state where your student wants to teach. Make sure you understand the licensure requirements and any reciprocity or lack thereof between states for teacher certification. Ask school music teachers what state colleges put out the best music teachers—in our state there was a clear front runner for future music teachers. Then expand your search to the rest of the country, looking for schools that have great music Ed programs and will also result in a teacher certification that works for your preferred state.
We live in AZ, my son is getting his degree in Texas, which has a well-supported music education system in the public schools and some great teacher training. He is required to student teach in Texas. We have yet to see whether that makes it harder or easier to get a job in Arizona.
Thank you!!! Four schools sounds WAY better than the 21 my oldest applied to for MT. Our state (Maryland) is pretty easy with reciprocity for recent out of state education grads as far as I can tell. She’s looking at UMD College Park and Towson, although she’d like to go out of state if possible (FSU). My kiddo’s chorus teacher is actually an FSU music ed grad.
One of my kids applied to eleven schools, trying to land a big merit scholarship, and it was so much work.
I think if you do some research now, most schools will still have this year’s prescreen and audition requirements up on their websites and you can get an idea of what will be expected for next year based on that. As you likely already know, it will help to have repertoire practiced and prepared well ahead of time to fit all the requirements. Although I seem to recall that if you have an art song in English and Italian you’ll be on the right track for voice. My son also auditioned on cello so we were tracking two sets of audition requirements for each school.
I’m a teacher and I have a music major son (jazz studies/guitar Fall '23 UNT). From the teacher perspective, I did my education in state and was able to start teaching right at 22yo…A lot of my out of state peers had to come back and get certified in state. MANY of the music teachers went out of state for music degrees and came cack to do a Master’s degree in state. My son has no interest in teaching or staying in CT so he looked out of state and to programs strong in jazz studies/performance. We had a pool of about 10 schools to start, applied to 5, and only wound up auditioning at 3…he got into his first choice and chose not to audition at the remaining 2. On the other hand, he has friends who applied to and auditioned at 15…we were exhausted by the end so I imagine 15 is ALOT! Good luck!
Thanks!! There’s no way she will
Want to do 15. My MT kid applied to 21 and auditioned for 16 and it was brutal. I have no desire to do that again!!! It looks like we should target about 5.
Go to school in the state(s) you want to teach in for the cheapest price available! Teachers in general do not make much, even in the NE states so you want to do it without loans if you can. We live in NY and my son chose 5 schools, each in states he would be happy teaching in (1 in NY, 2 in PA, 1 in CT, 1 in MA). He auditioned at all 5 on his main instrument and also auditioned at 2 of them in Voice as he is equally good in both but would choose band/instrumental if forced to choose. He has gotten into 4/5 (the last one he should hear from within the next 10 days). 5 was just the right amount, but he wishes he had cut one that he didn’t feel passionate about in the beginning. They ended up being the most expensive anyway!
The competitiveness of each school differs depending on where you apply!
Definitely don’t audition 20 schools and mostly likely once your daughter finds out places or programs/schools she is genuinely interested in. She won’t go over 10 schools. And even then: ngl, most people don’t actually need to audition to ten schools, especially if your daughter has string musicianship and great academics; she can narrow down her options based on school locations, class structure, course load, undergrad graduation requirements, the general vibes of schools-- and get down to fav 5-7 schools to audition at most.
Auditioning more than that amount of schools can exhaust you and your daughter and spend a lot of money and time on applications you def don’t favor as much. Goodluck to your daughter on her music ed adventures!!