<p>Westminster CC offers a tuition stabilization opportunity for students who maintain a certain grade point average and meet other criteria. I’m not sure whether this provision is available only for scholarship students or all students. University of Miami also has a tuition stabilization program, but it involves averaging the tuition cost over pre-designated periods of time.</p>
<p>Thanks everyone for your feedback, and Violadad for the links (you are so good about that!! I knew I had read some of this stuff somewhere.). </p>
<p>Not great news from the School of Music at the school to which I was referring. S got “one of the highest” awards that they gave this year, 20K, plus 1K “Legacy Award” which we did not know about until today (my MS degree finally paying back :P). He got the “highest award given in his instrument” and we “should be very pleased”. </p>
<p>So, they said no. They encouraged him to apply for a Federal Loan but we don’t want him to come out of college with any debt if possible. Plenty of time for that for grad school, and life!! They quoted some figure that the average college student comes out with about 25K in student loan debt. </p>
<p>Looking on the bright side, this will not affect his decision and he does get more than 50% of tuition (this year) so that is good. We don’t want to push it too far, they were pretty definite in their answer. We are lucky that we have saved for college so that he does not have to take a loan. This will stretch his college account to get him through. His brother, 6 years his senior, was extremely lucky that his college account benefited from a good stock market and he is getting through his Masters degree on what we put away just for college (he did get 50% tuition for undergrad and grants for grad school too, not a music major but no job prospects either).</p>
<p>So, good luck to the rest of you who are still working on this aspect of the college decision. </p>
<p>And thank you to everyone for such a “wealth” of information on this site, I never would have gotten through this process without the Music Major board. I will definitely stick around to pay it forward.</p>
<p>Yes I agree! Thanks to everyone for this wealth of information on this forum. It is helping me through my recent anxiety attacks! I was glad to see there was this thread about scholarships. As for my bassoonist daughter, she received the following:</p>
<p>NEC: $10K in merit and she was fairly high up in the acceptance pool. We appealed, they couldn’t budge, for this year at least.</p>
<p>IU Jacobs: $10K merit. A lot cheaper than NEC but D wants smaller studio and city locale.</p>
<p>Mannes College of Music: $17K. Still left a lot over and probably no where near NEC or IU. Anyone have any thoughts on Mannes?</p>
<p>SUNY Fredonia: $500
and SUNY Purchase: $2500 merit a year - which is probably almost unheard of and a little more than bupkis! They are begging her to go there but she would be the ONLY undergrad bassoon. There is currently one grad bassoon who will be leaving next year. So despite the very low cost of education here, we didn’t think this would be a good environment for her.</p>
<p>And of course my D wants NEC, the most expensive. Ah, the things we do for love…</p>
<p>I’m pretty sure the awards last year would have been higher than this year’s. The fact is that everybody’s endowment is getting smacked around pretty badly this year. The upside of the situation is that, if you’re willing to refi the house, that money is about the cheapest I’ve ever seen.</p>
<p>Provided that you still have positive equity in your house and can find a willing lender, that is.</p>
<p>Josoon,
I don’t know about bassoon faculty, but Mannes does have excellent faculty for other instruments. But there is a lot of subway travelling involved–the dorm is a long way away and they recommend you do not purchase a meal plan because you won’t have time to travel back to eat in the dorm. Then you also have to travel for practice rooms–Mannes can only guarantee an hour a day in their building. I think $17000 is a decent award from Mannes, but there are a lot of additional expenses there, such as the monthly subway pass, restaurant meals and general city living. My daughter, a violinist, also would prefer a big city, but she is almost for sure going to IU and (is coming to terms with it)–she likes the teacher she would be studying with, and it is much more affordable.</p>
<p>Well…there is that, Bassdad.</p>
<p>Mannes is known as one of the most nurturing and supportive conservatory environments out there. RunningtheBasses has a grad trumpet son there, you might want to pm RTB for some info. Granted grad and undergrad are two different animals, but for general comments, it might prove useul.</p>
<p>Marc Goldberg is on the faculty of Mannes and SUNY Purchase, as well as Hartt, so if he were the instructor of choice, Purchase may be a cheap very viable option. I’m not too crazy about only one bassoon student being there, as you lose peer interaction, but on the other hand, it is individualized instruction an attention, plus d is assured of getting ALL the bassoon work. Son has played with a couple of Goldberg’s students while at Hartt, and they were top notch.</p>
<p>I don’t know if your d has had lessons with any or all of the faculty at IU and NEC, or Mannes, but they are all strong performers with great credentials.</p>
<p>I’m currently a student at Mannes. Voice Performance, and I’ve visited many friends in other conservatories. I’ve noticed yes that due to subway travel, no cafeteria, getting an apartmetn after freshman year, and the opportunity to go to carnegie hall, the Metropolitan Opera, the new york phil every night money gets spent a little too quickly. However the opportunities within new york are certainly amazing and when well known orchestras play at carnegie hall, you’re given tickets to see them and then the principal bassonist will typically give a bassoon masterclass. along with a percussionist giving a percussion masterclass etc. etc. Also you’re entering a very intimate setting with about 300 students (includes grads and undergrads) so everybody gets to know each other and everybody actually tries to work together, unlike what i’ve seen with the backstabbing at far too many conservatories. An despite the high costs I currently have a private alexander instructor once a month, a voice coaching every week, a voice lesson every week, a dictation coaching once a week, a theory coaching once a week, and i perorm in a masterclass every 6 weeks or so. That gives me many chances to be alone with instructors all the time. A lot of schools i’ve noticed dont’ do that and so it certainly makes it worth the extra cost.</p>
<p>My son is also looking very hard at SUNY Purchase but so far they have not offered any money. He really likes the teacher who will be there next year and it is only 40mins from our house but he would be the only student at Purchase for bass trombone. He has a nice offer from IU and that may well end up being the cheapest/best choice unless Purchase can find some money or they cap increases for out of state students. Have they announced the increases yet?</p>
<p>Who will be teaching bass trombone at Purchase and Indiana?</p>
<p>Paul Pollard (Met Opera - Bass Trombone) is taking over at SUNY Purchase and Dee Stewart at IU. Dee is a seasoned and well regarded educator/player and Paul has just returned to the states after five years in HKG. Both excellent choices so a very hard decision.</p>
<p>I don’t know why, but I think Purchase has a bit of a revolving door for bass trombone faculty. I think when my son was in h.s. and we were starting to learn the names I think that Dave Taylor may have taught there. Later I heard that Rojak was there. The website today lists Markey and they have Pollard lined up for next year. </p>
<p>Dee Stewart is a legend. And you know he’s there to stay!</p>
<p>Which way is your S leaning?</p>
<p>Seems that way but they are all great teachers on the list. My son is leaning towards Purchase as he loves the atmosphere on campus and feels Pollard will be there for a while as all the other bass trombone teaching slots in NY are taken. However, he had a great lesson with Dee at IU last week (and now thinks Dee is the best educator he has met) so that is making the choice very difficult. I of course, would love him to study with a legend and as Dee is from Indiana I agree he is there to stay.</p>
<p>Regarding scholarships awarded at CIM, does anyone know if these are need or merit based? I was told that CIM does not hand out merit scholarships. If this is wrong, can someone enlighten me?</p>
<p>BTW, I was told the same thing about Northwestern and Peabody (that they have no merit scholarships for music). Does anyone know if this is true or untrue?</p>
<p>The definitive answer as to whether or not Northwestern gives music merit aid:</p>
<p>My son received three different types of aid from Northwestern - a need based grant, a music scholarship and an academic scholarship.</p>
<p>SpiritManager: Congratulations to you and your son and thanks for remembering the great debate.
You should be very, very proud.</p>
<p>I am proud. He’s a good kid!</p>
<p>That is great - congratulations on your son’s acceptance and accomplishments! Gives at least a ray of hope to other (potential) students . . . . Thanks for taking the time to respond!</p>
<p>Peabody gives up to $10,000/year merit aid, i.e., without any financial forms being filed.</p>