<p>Cellocompmom, I would add the SUNY’s; Purchase, Potsdam (Crane School of Music) and Fredonia. You can also look at Aaron Copland at Queens College and the Brooklyn College Conservatory.</p>
<p>Graduating high school horn player. just got into oberlin conservatory. dciding between there are FSU. You have a S in Julliard?!?! that’s awesome!</p>
<p>frenchhornplayr, welcome. If your comment about a S at Juilliard is directed at binx, the answer is yes (BM & MM). You may also want to note that while this thread is active, the original post is from '06. binx still does grace us with her presence <a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/music-major/1117309-end-near.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/music-major/1117309-end-near.html</a></p>
<p>oh, my apologies, just joined CC, i didnt look</p>
<p>Hi all. I am new to this forum but I’d like to put in my bit about my D’s experience with auditions this year. She was accepted as BM Performance (voice) to Eastman, CCM, and Juilliard. She really liked all of these schools but was not blown away by the faculty, students, or the program overall.</p>
<p>When she had her audition at Curtis and Rice she was blown away by the quality of students that she got to hear sing. Both of these schools are unbelievably selective and unfortunately she was denied from both. She is very disappointed and (as of now) is hoping to improve and then transfer to Rice if she gets the chance.</p>
<p>Rice is an extremely high level program and, from what we have heard, is fast rising and gaining a reputation as one of the very best music schools (Shepherd School of Music) in the world. The professors are wonderful and the feel at the school is fantastic. Unfortunately, they only took 3-4 undergrads for voice this year so she knows it was a long shot to begin with but is still very disappointed. </p>
<p>Should she plan on transferring from Eastman or Juilliard or would it be best just to choose one and stick with it? Thanks in advance!</p>
<p>I think it would be rare for someone to enter Eastman or Juilliard with the intention of transferring out before they have had their first class. If need be, there will be time to consider a transfer after giving one of them a shot for two or three months. </p>
<p>I am not as familiar with Rice, but some departments at Curtis send a modified version of the standard rejection letter to a small number of applicants encouraging them to re-audition after they have spent a year somewhere else. If you got one of those, a transfer may not be out of the question, although the odds of getting in are still very low. She would need to win a spot against everyone else auditioning there that year. Depending on the number of openings available and the quality of the other hopefuls, it could be easier or harder to get in than it was this year. </p>
<p>Rice and Curtis combined admit fewer than 100 students per year total for all departments, and not that many of those are transfer students. Considering a transfer to one of them after not making the cut the first time around is more like buying a lottery ticket than having an actual plan.</p>
<p>musicmom84 - I just sent you a PM.</p>
<p>I would suggest to stick it out in the undergraduate of her choice PROVIDING she finds a teacher that she could learn and grow with. Don’t go to a school with the intention of leaving. She still has graduate school up ahead where connections are so important.</p>
<p>I agree with ABlestMom. Please read these <a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/music-major/862312-how-difficult-transfer-one-music-school-another.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/music-major/862312-how-difficult-transfer-one-music-school-another.html</a> and know the pitfalls.</p>
<p>musicmom – I feel your pain. S was denied three years ago from Rice (cello performance). I have another son who will be applying to schools next year as Voice Performance as well. We will be visiting the Shepherd School over the summer to try to have a lesson.</p>
<p>My son’s voice teacher recently gave him some very good advice that I think may apply to what you’re going through. He emphasized that as a singer, no matter how good you are, there will always be at least one competition, school, or job where it just doesn’t work out. No matter how many successes you may have you need to prepared to handle failure because it comes for EVERY singer. </p>
<p>Sure, Rice is said to be one of the best in the country for voice, but Juilliard is regarded just as well. A denial like this means nothing, it is just a closed door and nothing more. I am sure given the other schools that your daughter has gotten into she will do just fine. :)</p>
<p>I sent you a PM regarding some input I have about the other schools if you are curious. Congratulations on your daughter’s accomplishments!</p>
<p>musicmom, if you want to PM me with questions about Juilliard in general (I don’t know anything about voice), I’d be glad to talk about freshman life at the school.</p>
<p>Hi! I’ve been a ‘stealth visitor’ to the board since 2009. I’m the mom of a D who is a graduating high school senior. She plays the horn (French) and was accepted at IU/Jacobs (where she accepted their offer - really outstanding!), Carnegie-Mellon SoM, and SMU/Meadows. She was rejected by Rice. (We are not sure, but we think the 1 horn prof. there took only 1 undergrad this year.)
For those who may not know, IU/Jacobs has just broken ground on a 84,000 sq ft faculty offices/studios state-of-the-art sound facility that should be complete before D graduates in 2015. Anyway, of all the schools, all were amazingly welcoming during lessons she took in her junior year visits and during auditions…except Rice.
Rice had NO warm up rooms reserved for the students, NO students to help direct you to the locations of anything. You checked in at a small front door desk area, they handed you a map, and you were on your own…and they even charged for parking. There wasn’t even a place to BUY a bottle of water, let alone for parents to sit in the Alice Pratt Brown Hall - or maybe there was, but who knew where? Shepherd has an amazing placement success in orchestras…but the world’s orchestras all have IU/Jacobs grads in them, too.
IU/Jacobs, CMU, and SMU were all welcoming, helpful, had current students look after the visiting students. All of them has refreshments, coffee, water, people for the parents to speak with…chairs to sit in (!) while waiting. It was clear at these three schools that you were wanted, valued, and appreciated for your talents and time given to apply and audition at these schools.
Go Hoosiers! It is an incredible Arts Center in Bloomington, IN - the quaintest college town I have ever had the pleasure of visiting.</p>
<p>cg521,</p>
<p>Welcome. I have included your daughter’s acceptances over at the <a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/music-major/1045522-master-list-music-school-acceptances-fall-2011-a-59.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/music-major/1045522-master-list-music-school-acceptances-fall-2011-a-59.html</a></p>
<p>If you would care to provide more detail on any scholarships, we will be happy to list them. If not, that’s fine too.</p>
<p>cg521–I am so sorry you had a negative experience. I on the other hand applied for voice and found quite the opposite. Parking for us was free and right in front of the music building. There was a nice big atrium where we were greeted by two masters students and directed to practice rooms reserved for applicants to warm up.</p>
<p>My mom sat in the courtyards just down the hall from the recital hall where I auditioned. There were plenty of water fountains as well…You may have come on a bad day but I was approached by numerous music students who introduced themselves and were GENUINELY interestd in me and were more than willing to sit and talk with me. </p>
<p>Overall, I found Rice to be absolutely AMAZING :)</p>
<p>operaluvr & cg521: Yes, everyone’s experience at a school is unique and that’s why it’s great to have so many different people post about their own experiences (and why it is good to read as many posts as possible and talk to as many people as possible). </p>
<p>My son loved Rice when he auditioned there a year ago. He found that the students everywhere on campus (whether in the music building, in the dorms, in the cafeteria) were very warm and welcoming, especially compared to most other schools where the students often seemed preoccupied, stressed, or distant. The person that auditioned him arranged to have two of her first-year students skip a class to talk to him and give him a personal tour. She asked my son and wife back to converse at lunch time. The campus is beautiful–no other music school of comparable calibre comes anywhere close to having as wonderful a setting. Despite having endured numerous flight cancellations and delays the day prior to his audition and arriving in the wee hours of the morning prior to an early morning audition, my son had a awesome day at Rice. It was easily his first choice, but finances intervened (Rice has small merit awards because it meets full financial need for all admitted US students–alas we are Canadian :().</p>
<p>We visited IU a couple of summers before auditions. My son chose not to apply to IU. We had expected a beautiful college town but discovered a cross between hillbilly decay, suburban mall sprawl, and concrete 60’s college architecture gone mutant. I know many people love Bloomington. Jacobs is an excellent school and my son is looking forward to studying with a Jacobs teacher this summer.</p>
<p>Audition day structures and atmospheres can change considerably from year to year (and even within a single day). What doesn’t change quickly is the quality of the instruction and the overall atmosphere of the school. Of course, it is harder to get a good feel for these factors.</p>
<p>Violindad, I chuckled at your description of IU because it is exactly how my daughter and I felt about that campus. But many people we know – friends of my daughter, friends of mine-- absolutely love it. It’s as though we were given a different set of funny glasses to wear during our visits.</p>
<p>Hi! My youngest (of 3) is a HS sophomore and is interested in majoring in music. Thanks to all of you for all the information on this site! It is very helpful, although I am feeling kind of overwhelmed. He plays percussion (8 years) guitar (3 years) and piano (1 year) and says he is interested in a program with “modern music” so not classical or jazz. Since he is only a sophomore he has some time, but it is good to look at all the information. This summer he is going to a workshop at Cornish (Seattle) – has anyone attended any workshops there? I’m sure I will have questions later as we work through all of this</p>
<p>I posted this in another thread, so if you’ve read this already, I apologize for the double post. But I wanted to make sure parents (and students) at the beginning of the search and application process heard this story.</p>
<p>We knew when my son was a freshman that he was likely to major in music. So, over the course of the first three years we made sure to fit in visits to local schools with good music programs or, when travelling, other music schools. So, we visited Northwestern, De Paul, Roosevelt, Columbia (Chicago), Elmhurst (can you tell we live in the Chicgo area?) and St. Olaf’s in Minnesota. By the time his senior year rolled aoround, he had narrowed his interest in music studies to either music production or composition. </p>
<p>One disadvantge to the search process is that neither my wife or I are musical, while my son is passionate about it. So, we didn’t have the advantage of knowig from experience or intuition a good music school from a mediocre one.</p>
<p>This past fall, as a senior, we visited Southern Illinois (our research indicated it had a good composition school) and Ball State in Indiana. He also, through school, talked with representatives of Oberlin, Ithaca, Berklee, and a couple of other places. His choir director at school counsled against applying to the music school at UofI in Champaing/Urbana.</p>
<p>He ended up applying to DePaul, Ball State, Ithaca, SIU, Berklee, Ithaca, and Drexel (which was one of the first schools he ever expressed interest in, because of its music production program). This was around Xmas. After he applied, he realized that he was really gravitating more toward music composition than music production (it was interesting to see how these programs seem to be evolving – some production programs were heavily weighted with science classes, which turned my son off. Others, like SIU, had programs that were slanted toward business marketing. Ball State’s written materials showed a science-oriented program, but when we made a campus visit one of the music professors told us that for the 2011-2012 school year the production program would be evolving to more of a marketing program.)</p>
<p>Almost as soon as he applied, I could tell that his interest in both Drexel and DePaul had waned. He never even auditioned at DePaul. And, we never heard anything back from Dexel.</p>
<p>In the end, he was rejected from Ithaca, wait-listed at Berklee (which I think had become his first choice), and accepted at SIU and BSU. He was awarded some money from SIU but nothing (so far) from BSU (aside from the option of taking loans). (I’m negotiating with BSU.)</p>
<p>He has no desire to go to SIU.</p>
<p>So, one of the frustrating things about this process is that he applied at one safety school, which he ended up not wanting to go to. Of course, it would have better if his safety school was one he really liked, or if he had applied to a couple of them.</p>
<p>Because of the no-money-from-BSU situation, this is where he basically is – we (his parents) can afford to provide about $12,000 for his education freshman year. He can take out about $5,000 in Stafford loans. Which leaves him about $18,000 short for his freshman year (that’s including the cost of a new computer and some beer money for weekends . . .) He does have applications in for some local scolarships and he can continue to apply for scholarships.</p>
<p>I, at times, micromanaged this process, to make sure he was meeting deadlines and contacting people for references. But I feel I really blew it in a couple of ways. I didn’t make him apply at more than one safety school. I didn’t make it clear from the beginnng of the process the dollar amount my wife and I were willing to pay. And I didn’t do enough to guide him to learn more about student loans.</p>
<p>I also didn’t come to this site soon enough (I joined in 2008 but didn’t pay much attentiion to it a few months ago when it really could have done me some good).</p>
<p>So, I’m disappointed, at the moment, with how things have turned out. I’ve tried, more than once, to get him to think differently about SIU (from a purely mercenary/monetary perspective). But, he has never expressed a desie to go there since we visited – he liked the music people he met but was turned off by the rest of the campus, and there are only about 200 music students at SIU compared to a student body of 20,000. I think he would have a fantastic experience at Berklee, but I don’t see that happening – even if he got accepted off the wait list, there probably wouldn’t be near enough money for him.</p>
<p>I know that ultimately this is all up to him – he is the one looking for training as a musician and, frankly, if he is going to be successful in that field, he has to be aggressive and entrepueneral (sp?)</p>
<p>If the money thing works out (he is NOT going to borrow $18,000 for his freshman year) I think he would thrive at BSU. It’s more rural than he wants, I think, but he has been impressed by the facilities and the professors both times we visited. I’m just afraid that the money thing WON’T work out, and it will be July or August before we realize that – and then I’m not sure what plan B would be – gap year or Columbia (Chicago).</p>
<p>He did tell me the other day that if he had been more sure in December that what he really wanted was to study composition, he would NOT have applied at some places and applied at others, like Lawrence.</p>
<p>@PTC</p>
<p>I realize that this is probably too late, but why not consider NIU in DeKalb? I spent my Freshman year there many years ago (xferred to Ithaca - French Horn Performance) but my roommate was a comp student and had a great experience there. Upon graduating, he began his masters in composition at Iowa then Doctorate at Michigan. Lo and behold he was then hired by none other than NIU where he currently teaches comp and theory and travels around premiering his works as well. You should probably PM me if you have more questions. I’m not nearly an expert on things NIU these days, but I think it’s important that you at least have an idea as to how a compostition career might evolve.</p>
<p>As for the money thing, yikes! I haven’t a clue! I’m putting all my chips into Curtis as it’s free - being delusional has it’s upside!! 
</p>
<p>Sorry for this post on this thread. My wife and I are both band directors, our kids: D - Freshman in HS studying flute at Manhattan School of Music PreCollege (attending Tanglewood this summer) and S - 6th grader studying Horn and Piano at same place. Suffice to say, I’ll be reading these posts for the next 6-7 years. What a fantastic resource!</p>
<p>I’m mom of D who will start this fall at Roger Williams University as a math/theatre major. So what am I doing here? Well… it’s been quite a rollercoaster Every year through high school, she knew what she wanted to major in – right up until she changed her mind. In freshman year, she was going to major in musical theatre hoping to become a Broadway Diva. Sophomore year it became a double major in music and finance. Junior year it was psychology with a music minor. And senior year, she decided on being a math major. It was clear that she needed somewhere with a wide variety of programs so that she could change her mind yet again. Roger Williams had everything she had mentioned an interest in, except for musical theatre, so it looked like a good fit.</p>
<p>And now, quite late in the game, she has decided she wants to double major in math and vocal performance. RWU doesn’t offer vocal performance. Her current plan is to attend RWU and be sure to take at least one music theory class. My prediction is that, by the time she finishes that course, she’ll have changed her mind yet again. But you never know… So I’m doing some preliminary research in here as a way of pretending to be at least a little bit in control.</p>
<p>Her background: she has performed in community theatre since she was 7, and taken voice lessons with highly-regarded voice teachers since she was 11. Her experience at All-State this year was a turning point. She <em>adored</em> the director and discovered that she really loved classical singing. (Her high school choir only rarely performed a classical piece, and her voice lessons tended to focus on Broadway tunes.) She changed vocal coaches at the beginning of this school year, and her new voice teacher was very encouraging. He believes that she will develop into a coloratura soprano. (She is currently working on extending her range. She has a solid high C, and can sing through to the E above that with a strong voice though her pitch tends to wander a bit above the C). When she asked him about her potential as a vocal performer, he warned her that it was a tough road, but that he had only seen one other kid come through his studio who had a range as high as hers along with her clarity of tone. He also mentioned that he has sent more than one kid directly from his studio to Broadway. I got the impression from him that coloratura sopranos are somewhat rare, so perhaps that is in D’s favor…</p>
<p>I myself am a truly gifted amateur trumpet player who occasionally passes for a rather mediocre professional. I continue to play in a community band and play several times a year in (semi-professional and paying) pit orchestras. I fear that I am knowledgable enough to be dangerous, but not knowledgable enough to be truly helpful. I didn’t even minor in music – just played in bands, orchestras & jazz bands throughout high school and college, and took private lessons for ~18 months before entering college. I know almost nothing about singing, conservatory programs, etc. I mostly wish D would participate in music as a passionate hobbyist rather than a professional, but I recognize that she needs to choose what to do with her life. </p>
<p>I <em>really</em> appreciate the wealth of information posted to this forum.</p>