Music/Professor Fit vs. Overall College Fit

College Majors Music Major
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An interesting exercise, I think, is to look up the bios of the music teachers in your school district to see what their backgrounds are like. If he’s interested in teaching in a “high caliber” school, he can look up Grammy school winners and, again, look up teacher bios. It’ll give you a good idea on what those teachers bring to the table in terms of degrees, performance resume, etc.

We live in a public school district with a very strong music program and I think all of our high school music teachers have masters degrees in music, as well as surprisingly impressive performance resumes. They have a mix of music education and performance degrees, with many having one of each. A few have both degrees in performance plus a teaching certificate. I also see that many have different instrument focus in each of their degrees, such as trombone for undergrad and conducting for their masters.

I think if it were my son, my gut would say to get the performance undergrad and then, with a better understanding of your potential and more maturity about life goals, consider the education path at that time.

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@ScreenName48105 that is great advice! We also live in a strong public school district with excellent music programs so it wouldn’t be hard to Google the HS band directors here to get an idea of their background, my son knows most of their names.

@compmom thanks for the links - it’s helpful to see what would be involved in a masters degree route to teaching.

There are indeed a number of paths he could take after a BM in performance.

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On thing to keep in mind - music ed students coming out of college tend to work in elementary schools or smaller school districts where the need to teach at multiple levels (elementary, middle and high), before they get into larger schools. The instrument classes tend to be taught at the bachelor music ed level. Not sure that you you can typically take them in grad school, although there might be a path for that at some schools. In those classes you learn not only how to play all the other instruments, but how to teach kids to play them. Pretty important skills and somewhat different at each level.

I’m saying this as a precaution for the performance-first, education-later option that was mentioned. If your S hasn’t taken those classes it could limit job options out of college if he is thinking of teaching in public schools.

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Thanks @raellis123 - it is something to look in to.

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There are grad programs for music ed. Performance majors or BA grads alike can enter those grad programs and get certified to teach.

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My bachelor is in music education. I’m well aware there are grad programs for music ed. But my point was that those grad programs usually do not teach the basics of teaching band and orchestra instruments. That happens in the undergrad program. The grad program, like most master degrees, tends to focus on deeper study of education related topics. Narrower focus, deeper study, not basics. For teaching in public schools, someone starting in music performance as undergrad and music ed as master will be at a disadvantage at best. In some states you may not even have the requirements to get a music-related teaching certificate. If for music ed you are looking more at private teaching, or at the college level, you might be able to get by.

One other thing, you need to closely check the master of music ed admission requirements. Some programs require that you have a bachelor of music ed and a teaching certificate, sometimes even teaching experience. Others don’t. So depending upon the program you might or might not even be eligible if you don’t have the BM-MusEd.

If teaching in the public school system is the (college) student’s goal, you really should consider the music ed degree. When I went to school (granted it was many years ago) there wasn’t much of a problem with people double majoring in ed and performance. You must take lessons anyway as music ed, the performance degree just increases the number of units for the lessons (and related practice of course). Most music ed students already take all the ensemble requirements that would be required for a performance degree. I’m speaking to band/orchestra instruments, there might be a few additional requirements for piano.

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Hi @classicalsaxmom, I want to respond back on your original topic, both from my perspective having been a music student and since our son just went through this for performance (trumpet, not sax). I didn’t re-read this thread so sorry if this duplicates past comments.

The instrument prof is important. He needs to find someone he is comfortable with. However, keep in mind that in most schools he will see this person 2, maybe 3 times per week (lesson, master class, maybe a chamber group or similar situation). He will spend considerably more time not with the professor. He needs to to be comfortable with the university in general, the music school and ensemble conductors (if you can meet them or see them in action), students/vibe on campus, etc. He doesn’t have to love these things, but they should be tolerable at least.

So you might want to rate each school for each of these things on a 3-point scale (Love it - tolerate it - hate it). Any school with a ‘hate it’ rating for any reason (prof, weather, school setting, whatever) you probably should drop. No reason being somewhere where you hate some factor.

Also consider including slightly more schools in your target number at this point, 5-6 is a little low to start with. For our son the list shifted a fair amount but we settled on 8 schools. One fell out early in auditions but we added another later. As we moved through the auditions our son decided to drop another that was at the bottom of his list. He was incredibly busy during auditions and at the end decided to drop his last school, which was out of state and very competitive. I think he was tired and decided it wasn’t worth the effort, which was probably a good decision for him (also a school performance changed and made that audition difficult anyway). So he ended up auditioning at 6 schools. But if he had started at 6 he might have missed some opportunities. Just food for thought.

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Thanks for your comments @raellis123 - it’s all helpful! I like your rating idea. I’m not sure that any of his schools have any “intolerable” ratings or “hate it,” but I agree that would be a deal breaker. It probably will come down to both studio prof and overall studio and music school vibe.

We do expect to start with more than 5-6 schools on his application list, we just know that he probably can’t audition for more than that due to the fact that so many of these schools have overlapping audition dates, so there is one date in particular that is likely to be the only possible audition date for 3 or 4 schools. He will either need to send a recorded audition for some that are lower on the priority list or drop some from the list just because he can’t be in two places at once.

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Eastman sounds like a perfect fit for your son @classicalsaxmom, based on everything you’ve said here!

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Also, my son was able to do 8 auditions and it wasn’t terrible. Actually, we enjoyed ourselves. He was pretty sick of his audition repertoire by the end though. We would have possibly eliminated 2 of the schools had we visited but that’s hindsight. We’re in the northeast so travel was pretty manageable too.

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@drummergirl ah, yes, Eastman is at the top of his list right now, the tricky part is getting in! Even if Eastman turns out to be a perfect music fit, though, the urban setting away from the main U of Rochester campus still would be a compromise relative to his preferences, but he knows by now that a “perfect” fit on all criteria is just not likely. He will be there this summer for a week so he can see for himself.

Audition scheduling will be a major issue, if 2016 dates are similar to 2017 dates. There are 8 schools of interest that are likely to have the exact same 3-4 audition dates. Two of those are our in state financial safeties which we cannot cut from the list. That leaves 1-2 dates for 6 schools, none of which are geographically proximate to each other and only one is close to home. None of those 6 require a prescreen, either, but all are likely matches according to DS’s private teacher but easier to get into than the tippy top programs. FYI those 8 schools are not the only ones he is thinking of applying to, just the ones with conflicting audition dates.

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The whole audition process requires a computer spreadsheet program! The Jazz audition schedule was spread out and it seemed as if competing programs staggered auditions so you didn’t have to choose. There were a few schools that even had “early” options (Oberlin, Berklee).
I am lukewarm about an OOS public although it sounds like some of those schools have higher performance standards than your in-state option.
But also looking back, my three were all attracted to small/medium size schools. It not only ruled out many schools, they landed in very supportive and personal programs. Or maybe I just hoped they’d have a completely different experience than mine*

*huge state school with a culture preoccupied by the football program!

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Ah, yes… the audition dates Sudoku puzzle! We did the Excel spreadsheet, then mapped the dates on a calendar and worked it out sudoku-style. But we didn’t worry about audition dates when choosing schools; we just assumed that they would somehow work out, and they did. My son did do one early (December) audition.

I wouldn’t let the audition dates dictate whether you apply or not.

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Here is along update since I last posted. Summer visits/sample lessons may not be ideal but DS did quite a few and they yielded a lot of good information about programs, professors, merit money reputations/considerations, etc. DS has now seen enough schools and enough profs that his preferences and priorities are becoming more clear. He also completed two highly regarded summer programs and had great experiences at both, though they were very different.

DS now knows for sure from sample lesson feedback that he is a competitive applicant for top programs, which is a very good thing to know before applications go in. However, DS personally has met and worked with more than half a dozen kids this summer who also are rising seniors at a roughly comparable skill level (as far as he could tell based on one week), and there will of course be other talented applicants he has not met, so he knows admission to a specific program that is shooting for an incoming class of ~ 4 is far from certain. Even though he already knew that intellectually, playing with your potential competition and knowing any of them could have a good or bad day on audition day makes it hit home.

Some of the profs DS had lessons with this summer were quite chatty - very candid about their own programs, about the musical life for a saxophonist, and even (unprompted) about other schools - though naturally DS is taking comments about other programs with a grain of salt. They gave him a lot to think about. DS also was able to talk to several rising college freshmen at good schools who just went through the process. He already has dropped several schools to the bottom of the list and probably will remove several of them completely before application time. Some schools have moved up in DS’s personal rankings, others have moved down. There have been a few surprises – top programs that might not make his final cut, one school that was only vaguely on DS’s radar before his teacher pushed it is now probably his #2 pick after a visit/lesson, and he is warming up considerably to another school that he initially had felt wasn’t a great fit on the non-musical side but where he really felt good about the prof and music school. "

Despite being in a good position musically, DS is close to ruling out three top schools on his instrument. One is going to be unaffordable (little or no merit given and we would be expected to pay > 70K at this CSS profile school)). DS believes the prof/studio at another would not be a good fit for him. A third is a strange case…DS’s teacher, who is very well connected both locally and nationally, has been teaching for 25+ years in a metro area with very high quality music programs/students and has never known anyone who made it past the prescreen, even top students who later matriculated at other big name programs and did very well. That experience is echoed by some anecdotes I’ve read here on CC. We don’t know why, perhaps the prof is looking for something very specific. Based on his previous “best of career” students’ lack of success getting auditions there, DS’s teacher does not think this school is realistic so we have not made the significant effort required to travel for a visit or to have a sample lesson, and DS doesn’t think it’s worth applying.

So DS now has 9 schools on the current list. Four are certain to stay on the list (two are solid in state safeties, the other two are his top picks), plus 5 maybes from which he is close to choosing 3-4 after considering fit factors. The maybes are generally a notch below the big name programs, but still very highly regarded. There is a second list that contains schools that he has considered seriously but has ruled out for a variety of reasons, but one or two could get bumped back on if he ends up cutting too many “maybes.” Fortunately, all but a few of the schools have released audition dates and some have changed their dates enough vs. last year that there shouldn’t be as many audition conflicts as I expected based on last year’s dates. DS is definitely planning on an early Dec. audition at his safest safety, and at least two other schools offer auditions before Jan. 1, which he may consider. By the end of the summer he will have had a sample lesson and/or summer program experience with all but one of the professors on the latest list of 9, and that one is within easy driving range. We plan to visit that one in the fall when school is back in session.

There are three OOS publics among the 9. We do have good publics in our state but the reason these are on the list is due to an excellent prof on the instrument with a great reputation as a teacher and successful former students, so on that important factor they are better than our own publics. Since saxophone isn’t an orchestral instrument, a good number of private music schools and conservatories don’t even have a classical sax prof/program, so many of the better profs are at OOS publics. One school is a music powerhouse, and the other two could turn out to be of similar cost or even cheaper than our in state publics due to merit at one or a possible (but not guaranteed) OOS tuition waiver at another.

A prof at one of DS’s summer programs gave them all a talk about the not so rosy realities of a career in classical sax, and strongly recommended that they consider a Music Ed degree, which DS already was very seriously considering. Since then, DS had sample lessons with four other profs, all of whom said some version of the same thing. All have their own strategies for helping their students find a realistic career path but all strongly support getting a Music Ed degree if the student has any interest in teaching. We are coming to realize that the boundaries between MusEd and Performance tracks are more fluid (at least on sax) than we expected. There are MusEd graduates going on to top grad programs in performance, top performance profs/soloists who have MusEd undergrad degrees, and performance majors who later get a MusEd degree. At least we know DS is unlikely to be closing any doors whichever route he takes.

He is now focused primarily on schools where it is either common to major in both Performance and Music Ed OR where you can get a Music Ed major with a performer’s certificate, OR where the prof treats all studio members as if they were performance majors regardless of their major. In other words, he wants to be able to study Music Ed at a place where the performance standards are still quite high. Fortunately, the majority of the schools on his list fit into that category, and most of those also claim ~100% placement rates for their Music Ed majors.

He has been writing and editing essays for the past few weeks as well as doing summer homework for an AP course. Marching band camp started this past week, but none of us are quite ready for the senior year roller coaster to begin!

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@classicalsaxmom just found this thread and see many similarities in my DS’s interests. He is a year behind your DS. I am curious as to the summer programs you recommend. My DS did a summer program at major university in our state but would like to branch out next summer. I feel like he needs to compare himself to a broader group of musicians to have realistic goals/plans.

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And in ranking schools a very important factor should be outcomes of students from that studio / professor

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@saxcomo - another sax parent! I will send you a message about summer programs.

@ClarinetDad16 that was a big factor in compiling our list initially so all the schools except our in state safeties fare well on that front (but our state schools do very well on Music Ed outcomes, at least). DS’s rankings of the schools that remain are strongly influenced by student success to the extent that we’ve been able to get that information. Student outcomes may be a little harder to judge on classical sax, though - you can’t say “Professor X’s students regularly get orchestral jobs” because there are no orchestral jobs for saxophonists. You could look at whose PhD students are getting academic jobs, but there are not many of those jobs, either, and most are adjunct positions, not tenure track. Very few classical saxophonists can make a career as a soloist, even part time, and the ones that do are usually the professors, not their students. So we have been looking at the prof’s teaching reputation, if the prof regularly has student finalists/winners at major competitions, if students go on to top grad programs, if former students are represented in the elite military bands, visiting web sites of former students, that sort of thing. DS has talked at sample lessons with many of the profs about the types of careers their students are creating for themselves. In most cases if they are not public school teachers they have a variety of income streams. Any other ideas of how to assess student outcomes?

You can see why Music Ed starts to look more and more appealing, and why we are determined that DS do this w/o student debt…

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Makes sense as orchestral jobs is typically the way to measure outcomes in classical clarinet for example.

If the career path needs to be entrepreneurial, perhaps look at those programs that add in a solid entrepreneurial training component.

If the career path is military bands, look on those websites and see where those students were educated on saxophone. And if recent, who the teacher was. (If the placements were many years and professors ago it doesn’t help with the situation today)

Are their BA options where your son can double major if performance (BM) isn’t critical for next steps?

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@ClarinetDad16 DS definitely wants a BM not a BA - honestly, if he never had to take another math or science or English class again he’d be happy! and he’d need a BM for the Music Ed route anyway. Some of the schools really do emphasize the entrepreneurial training component, but even if they don’t, the sax profs try to because of the realities of the job market for saxophonists.

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One note about yields, be very careful of how you do that, keep in mind that what was true 20,30 years ago is not true today with orchestra jobs, it was a lot easier to get a fairly decent orchestra job back then. My take is to look at graduates within the last 10 years when looking at ‘yield’, and also think about what that means, too, to you personally. The other thing to keep in mind across the board is that it is highly unlikely someone will come out of school and get right into that high level orchestra, openings are scarce, so I would look at things like what kind of things the students did before they got into that orchestra job (if they did), and does the program, for example, teach about things on how to keep going if for example getting into an orchestra is your desired goal.