Mythmom and anyone else...

Colleges and Universities A-Z Williams College
1

<p>Mythmom,</p>

<p>I have always appreciated your thoughtful posts, and I remember that your son is involved in music. I am wondering if you can provide some input to our situation.</p>

<p>My son is a bassoonist who has been in email contact with the bassoon instructor at Williams. He also met with a music director during our summer visit. DS thought the meeting was fantastic. Our son loves Williams at this point! </p>

<p>We are from a working class small city in the midwest. The high school is okay, but not fantastic. DS has taken many AP courses, will most likely be a NM Semi (awaiting official word) if not finalist and he scored a 34 on the ACT. Music is his primary extracurricular activity though. He is one of the best bassoonists in our sate. Does he even stand a chance? His SAT II scores were okay - not stellar, but he took them at the end of 10th grade. He must submit them in addition to his ACT score according to the info we received at Williams this summer. He is #1 in his class.</p>

<p>Do you have any thoughts on what else he could do to improve his chances? We are wondering if he should fly out to play for the bassoon instructor in person, or whether a recorded submission would suffice. </p>

<p>Thanks in advance to you and anyone else who can help us understand how he might stand in the admissions process.</p>

<p>akamom</p>

2

<p>I sent you a PM. Let me know if you don't get it.</p>

<p>And for anyone else reading this, yes, I do think your son has an excellent chance.</p>

<p>I am very impressed with Symphonic Winds. They play difficult and impressive modern music. I try to get to most of their concerts.</p>

3

<p>akamom, I would also agree that your son would be a person of interest to Williams. It sounds like he's doing everything right. I'd concentrate on putting together a knock-out application, especially his essays, recommendations and performance package. </p>

<p>My son (Williams 07) had several close friends who were (still are) musicians but were not music majors. It impressed me that in addition to their involvement in music and excellent academic standing, these kids also had other highly developed interests -- like sports, campus politics, environmental activism. </p>

<p>Williams likes multi-faceted kids, especially with artistic talent, so if your son has another area of interest in addition to the bassoon (which, by the way, is an A+ EC) then he should develop that as well in his application.</p>

4

<p>Williams would be interested in your son has interests in chamber groups, composition, singing, conducting. My S will probably participate in all of these, and has already spent his first year in both the orchestra and the choir as well as took lessons.</p>

<p>His arts supplements reflected all these interests. He hasn't done much conducted, but as first chair of an orchestra and a small chamber orchestra he did get a chance to conduct a bit.</p>

<p>Make sure you include all musical activities, even including musical theater if that's relevant. </p>

<p>This year the young woman playing Ariel wrote all the music for the student production of THE TEMPEST. She set Shakespeare's songs to her own music; the effect was electifying.</p>

5

<p>A question for the experienced moms of students: do you feel a student with a musical e.c. MUST submit a CD, or is it enough to write about the involvement in the application? Did your children submit recordings with their applications? </p>

<p>Thanks for any advice.</p>

6

<p>I can't speak about Williams directly, but I can tell you an experience a friend of my son's had.</p>

<p>He's the best violinist of their group -- he happens to be half Polish and half Israeli, not that that matters, it's just that those cultures seem to produce fabulous violinists.</p>

<p>He had the best stats of all of them. 2300 SAT or just under, I can't remember, and fabulous GPA. His dream was Columbia but he also applied to Harvard and I'm not sure where else. NYU was his safety.</p>

<p>He did not submit any audition tapes -- NONE. He was rejected everywhere but NYU. I think they saw a lazy boy.</p>

<p>He hated hated hated NYU. He found he couldn't transfer as a sophomore so he has to make the best of NYU. </p>

<p>The story has a very happy ending, lucky him. (I'm glad -- really nice kid.) He hates the academics at NYU so much (likes the location, school, just classes not challenging) that he auditioned and transferred into their very selective Conservatory and now he is a violin performance major. I'm sure he will be happy. Destiny has strange habits.</p>

<p>My son applied to ten schools and submitted 3 CD's at each plus written copies of the scores of the music he'd written. It was like a factory marking them all -- Name, SS#, DOB, names of pieces. </p>

<p>His CD's were: a string one -- two violin pieces, one viola piece. A piano CD and a CD of his compositions being performed, one by the faculty at Curtis, very good interpretation, one by his own wobbly solo playing at Stony Brook Arts Center.</p>

<p>Must have worked because his record of acceptances was impressive.</p>

<p>And in retrospect, he was accepted at the schools that were the best fits, or at least the ones he was most interested in, and rejected at the others -- some cosmic insight. </p>

<p>We did not have to pay for recording time, which, I believe is $75 an hour, because S's piano teacher has his own professional recording studio.</p>

<p>Nothing sent was perfect. String teacher and piano teacher said that was good because it showed that the playing was unedited and really done by the student.</p>

<p>Hope this helps.</p>

7

<p>WOW! I really appreciate all of the feedback. Our son has participated in a variety of musical activities in addition to his bassoon. He is a capable pianist and accompanies the Jazz Band and Show Choir at his school, plays on a five person piano team (amazing, if you've never had the opportunity to hear a piano team!) and has assisted the band director with younger band classes.</p>

<p>Should he send a bassoon recording only, and list his other instruments (he also dabbles in percussson and sax) on the fine arts supplement, or send an additional piano recording?</p>

<p>He would like to apply ED, which is ok because we know he won't qualify for a great deal of FA. It will be a stretch for us, but after seeing the campus on our East Coast college tour, he feels it is the place for him.</p>

<p>Mythmom, thanks for your PM. I have read your other posts and I am glad to hear your son loves his Williams experience. We were at WIlliams during the summer, so there were only a few students there, but my son worked with a Williams student at his summer camp. We a debating going back when students are there, but the expense/schedule conflicts would make it tough.</p>

<p>One other question that wasn't clear in the info session: Are students required to spend all four winter terms on campus? </p>

<p>Thanks so much -</p>

<p>akamom</p>

8

<p>Definitely send a recording; if the music dept. decides not to "tip" your application you're no worse off than when you started. They care mostly about all-state level players, so a piano recording wouldn't necessarily do much if he's not at that level, but it can't hurt to send it anyway just to show variety. I don't think there's any need to play for the instructor in person. I didn't when I applied and I was told by at least a couple of schools that the music department liked my recording enough to tip my application (for reference, I was probably one of the top five players of my instrument in my state, but my recording was far from perfect). </p>

<p>Freshman are required to be on campus for winter study. Upperclassmen can do off-campus projects, either independently (there's a process for proposing independent study projects for winter study; you basically just need to promise to write a ten-page paper about whatever you plan on doing and get it approved by a professor) or as part of a college trip (for example, several of the major campus music ensembles are traveling to Argentina this year). You do need four winter study credits to graduate, so you can't just stay home for the month.</p>

<p>mythmom: does your son's first name start with a 'D', by any chance?</p>

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<p>jeke: D asked me to ask you what instrument you play.</p>

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<p>Okay, I have a question about this music stuff...I'm a decent violinist, concertmistress of a not-incredibly-competitive orchestra, but I still have been considering sending in a CD, just in case it ends up helping me out. My question is, if I want to do my regular application at CommonApp online, then how do I attach my music sample? Can I just send it to them in the mail, or do I have to perform some sort of computer miracle to get it to them?</p>

11

<p>Just send it by snail mail with a cover letter. Send it to Admissions with a letter for Admissions and a letter directly to the Music faculty.</p>

<p>Be careful. Check the website. The music supplement is due before the general application. If I remember correctly, it was somewhere around Dec. 10th.</p>

12

<p>akamom98: It sounds like there are a lot of similarities between your son and mine. My son is a current student at Williams who participates in multiple music groups. He sent in a CD when he applied. It was rough and not real professional, but we believe it may have been important in the admission decision. He also plays multiple instruments and included selections from each on the CD. Good luck to your son. He sounds like a good candidate for admission to me.</p>