<p>My son just submitted his EA application. His main strength, music, is very strong and this is -hopefully- reflected in various parts of his application. He didn't submit a tape, but has since heard that his music friends applying to other schools have submitted them. So my question is, does submitting a music tape really help or not?</p>
<p>I believe that the general recommendation is that only very serious musicians who plan to continue playing at college should send musical tapes. When a student sends a tape, the admissions officers do not evaluate it themselves. They forward it to the music department for a ranking. They get some really outstanding tapes, and mediocre tapes don't help an applicant's cause. Also, if a student is admitted based in part on the strength of the tape, attends, but then decides not to participate in music, the music department will be understandably unhappy. So if your son is really accomplished, send a tape. Otherwise, he should just list his music activities without sending supplementary materials,</p>
<p>Yale gets about 900 tapes a year. By all means, if he's really good and serious, (even if he has no professional intent) send a tape. But if he's only competent, don't bother.</p>
<p>Thanks, WJB and Fiddlefrog. I appreciate the feedback. I guess it's too late now for the Yale EA, as we already sent it in. I guess he should make one for his other applications, which I'm sure he'll be submitting, based on what I've read on this site!! I'm not sure how he would rate compared to other musicians who apply to Yale but he definitely wants to continue piano studies at college. He was accepted to play on NPRs 'From the Top' in piano duo so I guess he must be considered pretty good. It's hard to believe that the music faculty has the time to listen to 900 tapes per year.</p>
<p>Andi: If your son appeared on "From the Top," he should definitely be sending in a tape. Congratulations! Maybe he should e-mail Yale to see if there is time to send the tape in. Has he prepared it yet?</p>
<p>Wow. As andi said, if he got on to "From the Top," he should definitely send a tape. Hell, if he has some music ready and you have some primitive recording equipment, make one tonight and mail it tomorrow.</p>
<p>He's scheduled to be on the show in January 2005, so he can't send that recording obviously. Maybe we'll just record something and send it in now anyway. Shoot, someone had told us not to bother-- wish we hadn't listened. This whole process seems to be a lot of groping around for the right answers as to what to do.</p>
<p>Hi Fiddlefrog,
I just noticed on another thread that you've applied to Yale ea. Did you send in a violin tape? What sort of music to you play? Good luck- I hope you get in!!
andi</p>
<p>Yes, I did send in a tape, with the Adagio and Fugue of the Bach Sonata in G minor and the first movement of Mozart's 5th Concerto. I also sent the score of one of my compositions, a string quartet.
Good luck to your son, too. What's he playing on From the Top?</p>
<p>Andi</p>
<p>I have posted a similar, more detailed reply in the supplemental information thread and in another Yale thread so I won't repeat it all here. In general, Yale admissions frowns upon supplemental info including tapes, videos etc. They are on record as saying that the "thicker files go to the bottom."</p>
<p>My suggestion, if you feel absolutely compelled to send tapes, would be to send them to the Chair of the Music Department or to a professor of reknown in his field of musical study and let them do your bidding. My fear is that not only will tapes sent to admissions not help him, but they may also hurt his chances. In the four Yale info sessions we attended over two years when my son was applying they were very to the point about supplemental anything...don't send it!</p>
<p>Fiddlefrog, for the audition tape they (he and his piano duo partner) sent in a tape of Dvorak and Stravinsky. At this point we think they'll be playing Dvorak but we're not definitely sure. Unfortunately the producers have so much work that they can't plan ahead very well. Somewhat annoying to say the least. He loves chamber music and would love to get involved with it at Yale---of course there's that minor matter of getting in, which I'm trying not to think about. (That's why I keep reading this web site ha ha , well at least I'm keeping my stressing out about it to myself and not putting it on him). Maybe all the musicians here on CC will end up playing together at Yale. That would be a happy ending indeed.</p>
<p>Eadad,
interesting. I'll check out your postings on the other thread. His music teacher had told us that same thing, which is why we didn't send in a tape in the first place. But when all his music friends seemed to be submitting tapes to their ea choices we started to second guess our decision. Fact is, we don't already have a tape that is that well produced that we'd want to submit it and it's too late to get our act together now to produce one. But I'm very happy to know that we didn't just make a huge tactical blunder! I'd hate to see him get rejected and then be having those 'what if' thoughts.
Thanks.</p>