University of Delaware would be a good option!
Also keep in mind that right now band is everything…but it may not be in college. I would still have her visit some Ursinus type colleges even if they don’t have the band thing. They have practice twice/week
for 2 hours so this would not be a super intensive marching band.
Check out Case Western Reserve University…they appear to have a “pit” and are great for pre-med.
Most of the private schools will probably be $20-30k even with merit. Our net prices were right around $20 k with need based aid figured in, but your D’s stats are higher too.
There is nothing wrong with doing premed at West Chester and there are plenty of other majors there if she should change her mind.
I would let your D visit IUP if she wants to (and not tell her about the ex bf/professor), because I think the music opportunities might be great for her. She might end up not doing marching band, but something with the percussion ensemble there.
We had someone in the IUP music department willing to meet with us in the summer when we went for a weekday visit and tour. He was teaching a class that day and I asked if we could meet and he said sure, and even took us on a tour of the music building. Everyone we met has been so nice there.
Your D can reach out to Vickie Morganti, the dept chair secretary. She is a sweetheart.
vickie.morganti@iup.edu
As I’m reading all of these posts, I’m struck by just how huge of a time commitment marching band will be, and I’m wondering how that fits with doing all the things you have to do to get into med school. When I briefly looked into this, my takeaway was that in addition to the time consuming lab science classes, you also have to do X# of hours of shadowing a doctor, X# of hours of research, and X# of hours of patient interactions, with the total number of hours being considerable. I’m sure it can all be fit in if you aggressively plan, stay on top of scheduling, and put in a lot of hours. But you might want to plan for a little wiggle room if the stress gets to be too much. So you might want to calculate in cost of summer school, a 5th year of college, or a gap year between college and med school in order to get everything done.
You might also want to find out how often the marching band requirements result in students missing class, and the school’s attitude towards that. I have a niece and a nephew who played college sports. My niece’s school treated this as excused absences and supported the kids. I think that the classes were videotaped and available to the kids on-line. My nephew’s school treated this as an unexcused absence and one of his teachers said that if he missed more than 3 classes, then his grade would be lowered, and there was no videotaping or audiotaping of the class so he had to get notes from a classmate.
@melvin123 , you are right. My D was a pre-pharmacy major and took both chem and bio with labs the first year and it was very time consuming. She did work a few hours a week in her second year when she took ochem, but she didn’t have to take physics and had AP credit for Calc.
I would ask how many hours of time commitment a week marching band would be.
I was drawn to this thread! It seems like marching band in D1 would be a huge deal, so researching the different sports divisions would be worthwhile. Also, good advice to talk with the band directors - why not try? My S18 is a swimmer and wants to swim in college - D3. We contacted coaches starting mid-junior year, but tried to keep the swim program out of the final decision because you never know what can happen in four years.
You can be in the marching band and be a med school wannabe. Many…many folks do this. Your kid won’t be the only kid in any marching band who aspires to attend medical, dental or vet school…all very difficult professional school admissions.
You don’t have to give up marching band or equvilant to eventually apply to medical school.
Oh I didn’t mean to imply she cant do both.
As promised, here are the results of my marching band/pit research. These are in no particular order - I basically looked up schools that had good premed programs or good merit or were geographically desirable or cheap or were mentioned by D19 for some other random reason D19, then looked up whether they had a marching band/pit, and put them in the appropriate category.
BANDS WITH PITS/FRONT ENSEMBLES
Moravian (Bethlehem PA)
U Delaware
Tulane
Vanderbilt
U Virginia
Miami of Ohio
West Chester
University of New Haven
James Madison University
U Mass Amherst (plus marimba ensemble)
Boston College
Boston University
Oregon
Cornell
U Conn
Chrstopher Newport University (VA)
Coastal Carolina (Myrtle Beach SC)
Towson University
Slippery Rock, Kutztown, IUP, Susquehanna, Millersville (PASSHE schools)
University of Cincinnati
University of Alabama at Birmingham
Furman University - Greenville SC
Lebanon Valley College – Annville PA
Mansfield Univeristy – Mansfield PA
California Univeristy of PA
University of New Hampshire – has “electronic front ensemble w/ electronic mallet instruments”
College of Wooster (OH)
Wilkes University (PA)
Elon (electronic mallet kats)
Appalachian State
Western Carolina
MARCHING BAND BUT NO PIT:
Temple
Pitt
Suny buffalo
Syracuse
Case Western
University of Toledo
University of Dayton
Penn State
Ohio University
University of Maine
Stony Brook
University of Rhode Island
Lehigh University
Wright State University (OH)
Wake Forest
Otterbein (OH)
Villanova
Old Dominion (VA)
West Virginia U
Northwestern
ATHLETIC/PEP BAND - NO MARCHING:
William & Mary (VA)
Hofstra
Georgetown
American University
George Washington University
University of Richmond
McGill
Franklin & Marshall
U Rochester
Tufts
Virginia Commonwealth
Drexel
Johns Hopkins
Providence College
Union College (NY)
Rensselaer
University of Hartford
Marquette (Wisconsin)
Anyone know anything about the University of New Haven? That one seems to tick a lot of boxes (premed program, pit, seems like they have potential for good merit aid, not too far away) but I don’t know anything about them or anyone who has ever been there.
University of New Haven? Well…you need to visit. It’s on New Haven which doesn’t appeal to a lot of students.
Personally, I think there are better schools on her list than University of New Haven.
Are you instate for PA? Or where?
Yes in state for PA. Been searching here for info on U of New Haven and while information is sparse, what is here doesn’t look very good. I think West Chester, U Delaware, Towson, and UMass Amherst are probably her best bets. Maybe add IUP and look at some of the privates that were mentioned (Mount Holyoke? Miami of OH though I don’t know about the distance…that’s a mighty long car ride). At any rate, thanks for all the feedback - you’ve given us a lot to think about!
Here is something I would look at. It’s fun to continue to play in an ensemble you like…but it’s MORE fun to do so if there is an audience. Find out about attendance at events where this marimba group plays.
Also, is your kiddo planning on taking a regular marimba with her to college? Or electronic…or what? She needs to find out if one will be available for her for practice. Sometimes these are reserved for music majors.
At IUP ensembles are open to anyone I think, although some of them might require an audition.
Slippery Rock’s music department was smaller than at IUP. I don’t know what they have for someone interested in percussion because we were looking for voice.
Mansfield is also supposed to be great for music and is a public LAC, but its location seemed kind of remote.
Millersville and Kutztown are on the NASM list.
Messiah is also supposed to have good music, and they have engineering so science should be strong there too.
Of these the ones with * might be more likely to give merit.
BANDS WITH PITS/FRONT ENSEMBLES
Moravian (Bethlehem PA) *
U Delaware
Tulane
Vanderbilt
U Virginia
Miami of Ohio *
West Chester *
University of New Haven
James Madison University
U Mass Amherst (plus marimba ensemble)
Boston College
Boston University
Oregon
Cornell
U Conn
Chrstopher Newport University (VA)
Coastal Carolina (Myrtle Beach SC) *
Towson University *
Slippery Rock, Kutztown, IUP, Millersville,
Mansfield U, Cal U of PA (PASSHE schools) *
Susquehanna *
University of Cincinnati *
University of Alabama at Birmingham *
Furman University - Greenville SC
Lebanon Valley College – Annville PA *
University of New Hampshire – has “electronic front ensemble w/ electronic mallet instruments”
College of Wooster (OH)
Wilkes University (PA) *
Elon (electronic mallet kats)
Appalachian State *
Western Carolina *
I know someone who received a scholarship at Furman to play in band even though wasn’t music major. Furman has a good med school admittance record and Greenville is great town. But that merit won’t go far in covering the cost there and don’t know if stocks other merit Aid but worth a look
Yes, Furman is one that I don’t know anything about.
The issue is that at the privates and some OOS publics merit will only go so far and still leave a big pricetag.
But if an instate public costs around $20,000 and you get some merit, it might get closer to $15,000
University of New Haven has a couple of specialty programs which are highly regarded- public/fire safety, labor relations, a solid MBA program for working professionals, things of that ilk. The campus is arrayed across a busy main street (Route 1, the Post road in CT dating back to Colonial times) with buildings on both sides of the street. It runs shuttle buses to various malls in the area- it sits in a somewhat depressed neighborhood with liquor stores, check cashing places and some discount furniture stores. I would not describe the weekend life as particularly vibrant- a lot of kids go home.
Furman is a great school. However, it is really expensive (about $64K/year). I believe they will allow a department scholarship to be stacked with a merit scholarship, but you can’t stack merit scholarships.