Music program NOT music major

College Majors Music Major
1

<p>I am the mother of a kid who goes to an arts magnet high school, plays 6 instruments. He loves music but does not want to major in it - he does want to play in either a jazz ensemble or orchestra though. He is bright, but not a natural academic whiz (top 10% but he works hard at it). Music, however comes naturally to him and he has won many awards, competitions etc. He has gotten advice that he would have better chances of getting into an excellent college if he applies to schools that either are trying to beef up their music dept. or could use his instrument in an ensemble.</p>

<p>The question is, how do you go about finding such a school? Does he blindly contact the music departments of any and all schools he is interested in (that aren't obvious music schools like Oberlin and Northwestern) to assess interest? He has already been contacted by colleges based on All-State Band results and such, but these are not good schools.</p>

2

<p>I have very limited experiance, my son is currently applying for college, but from my experiance the situation very much differs from school to school.</p>

<p>Some schools just seem to need “bodies” regardless of talent or experiance, others may only want serious music students. Regardless, in some cases it is definately possible for a music professor to actively try to help your student be admitted. I have found out at other schools you have to be accepted academically first, regardless of any special abilities. </p>

<p>I think you would pretty much need to pick out the schools based on academics and the major that your son is interested in, and then check out the music situation for each school. </p>

<p>You may want to start by simply looking on their websites. Most of the sites that I have looked at did a fairly good job of explaining what performance opportunities are available. All or almost all of the colleges that we considered encouraged non-music majors to play in ensembles, and almost all of them offered music scholarships or stipends of some sort for non-music majors who would commit to ensembles, although for scholarships you typically audition pretty much exactly like you would if you were a music major. </p>

<p>At some colleges some of the ensembles didn’t require auditions for some ensembles (mostly marching band), and every performer automatically gets a small stipend, but many have had a “previous experience required” statement. At one of the larger schools that we looked into they have multible concert and orchistra ensembles, some of them were open enrollment, some were by invitation or audition only.</p>

<p>At one of the schools my son auditioned at, the professor flat out told him that they would be admitting more students for his particular instrument than normal because that instrument was needed in almost all the ensembles. </p>

<p>At another we were told that they were only looking for four students for that instrument. </p>

<p>At a third college I overheard one of the music professors talking on the phone to someone in admissions, basically begging them to admit a student who was “musically talented but very weak in academics.”</p>

<p>At the forth college that my son is auditioning for, they won’t even let you audition until after you have been accepted academically - so essentially even if you are an amazing musician you can’t get in based soley on music ability.</p>