I am wondering whether it is possible to be admitted to a university (not interested in conservatory) but not audition or declare a music education major until after enrollment (i.e. audition during freshman year)? We are exploring options to give my son an extra year of experience before auditioning, without taking a gap year. Thanks.
It depends on the university and the policies of the particular music department. Are there specific universities you’re looking at? A word of caution: music education tends to be a major with a lot of course requirements, because students usually have to take both performance courses/lessons/ensembles and education courses. So if your son wants to graduate in 4 years (or 5, as some mus ed programs require), he should make sure his freshman year schedule is still helping him make progress in the mus ed major, even if he’s not technically in the major yet.
As @musicnstuff said, the class sequence will be the challenge. All music degrees, and especially education, have a pretty set pattern. Music courses (like theory) start freshman year. In my music ed degree many years ago, our music ed classes started sophomore year, but there were other required music classes as a freshman. But now many schools are starting ed classes freshman year too. So you would really need to check with each specific school.
The other challenge is that these degrees almost always require an audition. If you have already enrolled at a school you are really limiting your options because you might not pass the audition. On the other hand if you can take lessons from your major instrument prof during that undeclared year it could give you a leg up on the audition process.