<p>NFAA provides a mailing list to music schools, so we’re also aware of all the participants. The list is quite detailed, breaking things down by specific instruments, not just the categories. NFAA sends us updated lists at each point in the process as well, so we know who’s a finalist, who ends up winning the presidential medal, etc. My guess is many other schools take an interest in NFAA to some degree or other, even if it has no direct bearing on their own admission/audition process. </p>
<p>Having said all that, it should be mentioned in any applicants’ resume under the honors/awards category, or if you’re still not sure of your status, at least mention you’ve applied to it, knowing that an updated results list does get sent out.</p>
<p>Congratulations to your daughter! Well, that probably means that I didn’t make the cut (I auditioned for classical voice, as well–contralto). But I’ll try not to beat myself up too much; I know I wasn’t feeling well when I made my audition tape and, more important, that this is an incredibly prestigious competition. (All the more reason why you should be proud of your daughter’s talent!!)</p>
<p>As an apparently very out-of-it mom who didn’t know of NFAA or any of these competitions, with a son whose son’s HS jazz director doesn’t “believe” in competitions (although his school’s department is amazing itself), my son has a big fat blank nothing under competitions and awards. He’s always been very busy gigging, though.</p>
<p>Oh well/yikes/too late to worry about now, I suppose.</p>
<p>Don’t worry - it’s the audition that counts above all else. The competitions are nice for experience, but it sounds like he has performance experience. There are plenty of kids in the most competitive programs who never did any competitions.</p>
<p>One advantage to competitions is the prize money. I don’t know how it is in the jazz guitar world, but for us, every little bit the kid could earn one way or the other was helpful. Sometimes the local less known musical societies have the best financial reward, and the competition may be less fierce than the national competitions. I would certainly recommend that all seniors, and college students apply whenever they can. It’s really more like applying for outside scholarships than anything.</p>
<p>For us, it was mostly about getting the repertoire ready early. To do the submission everything had to be performance ready before Oct. It showed she was serious and had the kind of repertoire needed to be a performance major. The rest was extra.</p>
<p>POTO Mom, Congrats to your daughter!!! What a fantastic accomplishment. How do you know that all calls were to be made by 11/30. The website says the third week of December. Also, were all categories notified?</p>
<p>jazz/shreddermom, don’t worry about your son’s resume. A lot of the competitions require a large financial outlay on the part of the kids (and their famlies), which, especially with today’s economy, can be difficult or impossible. Colleges know that and they realize that not everyone has the same opportunities. List those jobs and gigs though-that shows he’s been busy!</p>
<p>laladreams. My D got a phone call 10 days ago and then an email with all the deadlines. The finalists had to commit to the Miami event by Nov. 30 with a phone call. Then there are a number of forms that have to be completed and returned by Dec 7. Like everyone else, we were working on getting the pre-screening materials recorded. I just happened to run across the YoungArts scholarship the day before we recorded. So we just had to record one more piece to fit a criteria. I was just lucky to find the opportunity by googling. It seems there’s not a lot of talent-based scholarships out there for vocal high school students. (that aren’t school-specific) My D is just 17 so we don’t fit into the 18-24 category for National Opera competition. And, despite my efforts, I can’t get her to write any more essays for scholarships.</p>
<p>also, jazz/shreddermom, there are fewer competitions for jazz in general. My son had NO awards for his playing prior to applying to music school, seriously NONE on the resume, and he did fine. Then he got a couple of nice honors, including a national award, after he was accepted–which would have been really nice to have on the resume!!!</p>
<p>Thanks Poto mom and mfelvity. I’ll keep my fingers crossed for my D on the honorable mention/merit front. Best of luck to Poto mom’s D in Miami.</p>
<p>I just found this thread VIA google, wondering when others heard. My daughter got a letter yesterday with a small merit award (and a W-9 form.) She’s pretty deflated since other kids from her teacher’s studio went in past years and apparently had a great time. We did not realized that others had heard weeks ago. The early deadline was hard for us, and she ended up sending in 2 older clips and 2 new ones. I am secretly relieved she won’t be going to Miami in January because that would be time away from prep for auditions.</p>
<p>Congratulations to your daughter, Glassharmonica. The Honorable Mentions and Merit awards are a pretty select group of young artists. You’ll see that there are usually, in any category, only 5-7 kids in the country chosen for all the levels of the awards combined. She can be proud to be recognized for her talent. No need to be deflated!</p>
<p>^That’s actually not quite true…for each category there are about 20 finalists, around the same number of honorable mentions, and a slightly larger number of merit awards, depending on the category, for a total of about 500 awards given.</p>
<p>This is not at all meant to downplay the significance of an honorable mention or merit award, which are both INCREDIBLE accomplishments. I just don’t want any 2011 entrants to read over this thread, get the idea that succeeding with youngARTS is virtually impossible, and decide not to apply!</p>
<p>Congratulations to everyone who won something. I’m sure it’s great news to hear, now that you’re heading into the thick of the college admission/audition season.</p>
<p>I’m sorry I don’t agree. For disciplines yes. But not when it’s broken down into categories like cello, violin, flute, bass, jazz piano, percussion, tap dancing, modern dancing, baritone etc. One or two finalists only, two or three Honorable Mentions, one or two Merit awards for each.</p>
<p>I think students should know how competitive and how long the odds - but that should not stop them from entering, just make them feel a real sense of achievement if they are honored with any of the awards, even “Merit.”</p>
<p>It’s important to remember that the numbers of finalists are not set in stone. The panelists don’t sit down and say, “Okay, so out of the 20 music finalists, we need 3 clarinets, 3 cellos, 5 violins…” and so on. Students aren’t judged against one another–they are judged against a “standard of excellence” in their art. So chances are good that the number of finalist representatives for each specific category within a discipline are going to represent the proportion of applicants in that category within the discipline. That is why there are more finalists in piano and violin than there are in classical percussion and viola. It doesn’t mean that the violist is somehow better than the violinist because of the lower number of viola finalists.</p>
<p>Theoretically, the panelists aren’t even supposed to consider proportions. Take writing, for example. There are going to be 20 or so finalists. If the 20 top writers are all poets, the panelists are not supposed to care–they will name the top 20 as finalists and there will be a lot of poetry readings at the writers’ showcase. But that just doesn’t happen, because the proportions of entries tend to be represented in the numbers of finalists.</p>
<p>The numbers (5-7 per category) that were cited apply to only the rarer of disciplines. There may be only 7 winners in Classical Indian Dance and 46 in Musical Theater, but that does not make Classical Indian Dance a more or less competitive category than Musical Theater.</p>
<p>The big exception to all of this is in the Jazz discipline. For whatever reason (I think it’s because it works so well in workshops and the showcase) they always seem select a full jazz band of one finalist per instrument to bring to Miami.</p>
<p>I hope all of this makes sense. I am exhausted and I don’t want anybody to panic next year thinking they’re shooting for 5 slots out of 6,000 entries.</p>
Well, that probably means that I didn’t make the cut (I auditioned for classical voice, as well–contralto). But I’ll try not to beat myself up too much; I know I wasn’t feeling well when I made my audition tape and, more important, that this is an incredibly prestigious competition. (All the more reason why you should be proud of your daughter’s talent!!)</p>