<p>Thanks laladreams. My D got her airline ticket by email yesterday and got a new RUSH. They have to sing all five songs for the judges the day after they get there. She’s very excited. I really think it will keep her on the top of her game for auditions so we like the timing of it. I hope she meets some other singers there that are considering the same schools she is so they can have those conversations. Her most treasured relationships are with those people she has met at competitions, summer programs and performance opportunities.</p>
<p>Glassharmonica-</p>
<p>I’ve watched kids be selected and not selected to NFAA for many more years than I care count. </p>
<p>First, congrats to all who will be attending and to all who received honors or merits. It is an accomplishment. And - the kids generally have a great time.</p>
<p>NOw, as to string kids, selection or non-selection and order of awards is certainly no great predictor of future success or lack of success. One year, 2 cellists whose playing I knew welll were given “merit” awards. One of these was a far, far better player than the other - went to top conservatory and is now employed playing in pro symphony. Couldn’t ever figure out how that one missed attending the Miami program. The other cellist, quite solid but not outstanding in the mix of very fine players, had trouble being admitted to a conservatory and is still completing training. Couldn’t figure out how that got a Merit award! Point is only that, like all competitions, NFAA results are not conclusive of the future.</p>
<p>I’ve seen even more violin finalists, merit and honors winners (think I posted something about that in the past, if interested, try a search). The awards are certainly “all over the map” - but I have to remember that the NFAA judges see only one tape - don’t know the players abilities outside of that context.</p>
<p>Good luck to your D on her auditions. There will be many more experiences ahead of her!</p>
<p>Thanks for saying that Fiddlestix. Last year, when S2 wasn’t acknowledged by NFAA in ANY way, I really though that was an indication of how he “rated” in the US, and was really scared for his chances of acceptance into a conservatory. Obviously, it was absolutely NO indication. Not to take anything away from those talented students who were selected–it is a wonderful accomplishment–but for those who weren’t, just keep moving forward!</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.youngarts.org/pdf/NoScoreletter.pdf[/url]”>http://www.youngarts.org/pdf/NoScoreletter.pdf</a></p>
<p>My child entered this competition and didn’t get an award, which is fine, but when she paid the fee and entered the competition, she expected a score…no matter WHAT! Their new policy letter was ONLY posted in the “Educator” section of the NFAA website, and there was no reason for my daughter to have seen this when she entered on her own, without the direction of an educator. She is very dissapointed, and quite frankly, a bit angry, that they did not fully disclose this new policy for this year’s competition. I do believe NFAA was very misleading. It is also disingenuous to say that they will “no longer provide scores” when clearly those who got between an 8-10 automatically know their score by virtue of their award. She emailed the organization to ask for her score, but they won’t release the scores that are below an 8. They said they are concerned about damaging the student’s self-esteem etc… My child can handle bad grades, criticism etc…She is an artist and getting feedback, whether it be in the form of a low grade or negative criticism, is all part of the journey. NFAA should not be deciding whether it is good or not for the participant to hear his or her score. Most importantly, NFAA didn’t properly inform the applicants of this new policy. They also have this statement on their website: </p>
<p>“Letters notifying all applicants about their adjudication results will go out via U.S. mail during the third week of December, 2009.” </p>
<p>Misleading as well! My daughter got her letter saying she didn’t get an award, (dated December 11th but got it on Monday the 7th! ) She emailed them to ask them for her score, and they wrote back: </p>
<p>"I can appreciate your desire to receive a number score. However, per a clear directive from our President and CEO, Christina DePaul, as of YoungArts 2009 (fall 2008), we no longer provide scores. The line you pasted in below in red stating adjudication results does not stipulate providing a number score. Results of adjudications provide our national and regional (applicable in NYC) awards results along with notification to those who were not selected for a national award level. "</p>
<p>Is there anybody else out there who applied, and feels the same way? I’d love to start a petition to ask NFAA to give the students their scores, below an 8, and for which we equally paid a 35 dollar fee!</p>
<p>The process of applying to NFAA is a worthwhile experience, IMO, whether or not you get your score. I think feedback would be more valuable than a numbered score. What my D appreciated most about NATS and Classical Singer competitions was the specific feedback from adjudicators, as well as the audition practice they provide. It helped her see what she had accomplished, where her strengths were, and where she might focus on improvement. She always shared this feedback with her voice teacher, who could help her interpret the adjudicators’ comments, and point my D in the right direction for future work. A numbered score is not particularly useful to a performer, unless it is accompanied by specific feedback. If the NFAA judges took specific notes as they reviewed the DVD’s, then those notes would be very useful–the numbered score, not so much.</p>
<p>POTO mom, congrats on your D’s achievement, you must be very proud.</p>
<p>Congratulations to all who have received an award from NFAA! I do agree that the process itself was a valuable experience, and yes, detailed feedback is more useful than an actual number. However, that isn’t what this competition offers. NFAA only offers a number–a score–and to that end, that is what my daughter ultimately paid for and thought she was signing up for when she entered.
And while I realize a number is just a number–it’s better than not getting ANYTHING back from them.</p>
<p>I am genuinely curious…what do you hope to glean from a number?</p>
<p>I agree that numbers don’t say much–especially since assigning a number to a performance is so very subjective. But when they are judging on a variety of categories as listed on their website (i.e. intonation, technique, etc.) some type of written feedback would certainly be valuable. It would be so helpful to know what judges thought was lacking or needing improvement in a DVD performance, since the same DVD may be used again for other purposes by many competitors.</p>
<p>DD participated when they did send out scores. We never felt we were paying for a score, though. Knowing the score gave her enough information to know that she had just missed the cut off. She knew she was on the right trajectory at least. I can see their point, though. I have seen parents get into this argumentative state and wanting to dispute scores. This eliminates that. </p>
<p>We had a different experience with Classical Singer since she did not get any feedback from them. Just no award. Never really knew if she was close or what they saw. Maybe both changed the way they did things in the last couple of years. </p>
<p>Her voice teacher was not concerned, though. His opinion was that competitions were a one day snap shot of the opinion of a limited set of judges. He said the competitions looked for different things than the school auditions did, but they were helpful for performance practice. Since he was a college professor auditioning students we definitely gave more weight to what he said about her performances.</p>
<p>As has been said many times on this board, judging a vocal competition is such a subjective process. And different judges value different qualities. Whether it’s NATS or Classical Singer or any other competition, you can get the adjudication sheets back from a set of judges and have one sheet that says “amazing” and another that says “needs work”. We just went to a competition where the judges disagreed and one of the judges emailed me to tell me that he was not in agreement with the outcome. The choice of a singing education and career is going to be full of these types of experiences. Hopefully, the child’s self-esteem is strong and she/he can assess the variety of input they receive and extract that which helps them to improve.</p>
<p>We were always sorry that D had to forgo entering the NFAA competition. Finals invariably fell during her HS’s exam time and no one was permitted to miss exams for any reason, and the mere thought of putting “music over academics” sent them into fits as it was. This was truly beyond the pale!
allaboutart- while I can understand your dismay at not getting something you feel you paid for, I wonder if making big waves at this point in time- and I’m assuming that your D is applying and auditioning for colleges now-might not do more harm than good? I am constantly amazed at what a really “small world” the music community is and how great the memories of many of it’s participants are! You feel that you paid for a score and were not given one, but if your D is applying now or even next year, honestly, I’d let it go- it’s not worth having someone remember your D’s name in association with a negative connotation and since, like it or not, NFAA is “bigger” than you/your D and they are going to continue to take the stance they have. She entered, they viewed the DVD and they chose not to advance her. Maybe they just didn’t like the color of the dress she wore, or maybe they were exhausted and just chose to, well, we don’t know, do we? At this point in time, they may not even have the sheets with the notes on the youngsters whom they didn’t choose to advance. Let your D move on and put her efforts toward the next audition/competition. You can always get a couple little “worry dolls” and stick pins in them privately and no one will know! In fact, you could make quite a living if you could make them and sell them to the rest of us for those competitions that don’t go the way we think they should have!</p>
<p>Mezzomamma: “She entered, they viewed the DVD and they chose not to advance her”
This isn’t about not getting an award. As you said, there could be numerous reasons why she didn’t get an award, and honestly, she didn’t even expect to get one. This is about the fact that NFAA truly misled applicants into believing that we would pay 35 dollars and for that fee, we would get an abjudication score as done in previous years. The change in policy was definitely not CLEARLY spelled out. And no, I don’t think this request is “rocking the boat” …nor am I concerned about any negative connotation because I don’t think she is asking for anything unreasonable, nor is she trying to contest the results. </p>
<p>Singersmom07" She isn’t interested in disputing any score and she isn’t argumentative. She just wants to know the number/score as previous applicants in previous years expected and received. I bet there are other students out there who paid the fee, perhaps even in multiple categories, and are frustrated they can’t get their scores. </p>
<p>Musicamusica: This was …pure and simple…and opportunity for her to understand how she “Ranked” to others who engaged in this particular competition, albeit this is one snapshot and doesn’t define her as an artist. This was advertised as an opportunity to be compared to a large group of similar performers/artists/ and to understand where you stand among that particular group. For many, including my daughter, there was significant effort and she feels that given the cost of the application, and time spent on submission, the numerical score was expected and is reasonable to expect. It seems like the rules of the game were changed without truly informing the students. The only explanation of this new policy was in the educator section. </p>
<p>Sure the number comes down to mere ink on paper; nonetheless the score is what she thought she was entitled to get. The more I think about this, even from a theoretical and contractual perspective, the more convinced I am that NFAA is in the wrong for this year.</p>
<p>Allaboutart, I completely agree with you.
A score is just a number on a piece of paper BUT, getting an entry ready for NFAA is so much hard work and getting that number gives you at least a feeling of ‘closure’, imo.
And your daughter deserved at least that much for her hard work.
But I guess there really isn’t much you can do about it so it’s best to just forget and let go.
Best,</p>
<p>Hi, everyone. I haven’t checked in a while and didn’t realize there were so many posts. One of my daughter’s friends did get selected as a finalist and we’ve got our fingers crossed for her (although I suppose the actual competition has been decided by now.) I</p>
<p>But I wanted to respond to the issue of not receiving feedback for adjudication. My daughter has received very sporadic feedback over past years in various competitions and we have always felt it frustrating not to get any sort of feedback. A numerical score isn’t that useful, but at least it is something. Sometimes in a particular competition you will receive feedback one year, and none the next. Competitions have many uses, such as getting you up before a live jury and seasoning a piece. But the NFAA is a recorded competition in the first round. The cost of the the application is the least cost-- you need to pay a pianist, book a hall (often at cost), and make a recording. You don’t get to meet the other contestants or play before live judges, and the deadline is much earlier than college pre-screening deadlines. So I agree that it’s frustrating and unproductive to receive no feedback. My daughter received a small merit award that will just about pay for the cost of the pianist, but she also received no comments or score. I’m not aggrieved, but I understand why the other poster feels so disappointed.</p>
<p>My D just came back today from Miami. It was quite intense, very long days. She made tons of friends and is in the other room facebooking them already. It was interesting to hear about the conversations. She said that the panelists in vocal said it was the toughest competition they’d had in classical voice. Getting back to the money issue - this is just an expensive endeavor - from accompanists, to hotels, to dresses, lessons, airfare. There’s just nothing cheap about it. There’s no team bus, or school equipment, and much of the time, you’re on your own. I appreciate CC.</p>
<p>I really don’t know much about the NFAA awards but just saw the list of Presidential Scholars. Of the 19 Presidential Scholars, 8 are from Texas. I am from Texas—so, “Yay, Texas!”—but what is going on here? I can’t believe that nearly half the winners are from one state–even when it is my state!</p>
<p>Just thought I would clarify the last post, I got confused reading the presidential scholars website.</p>
<p>There are 141 presidential scholars. I think what Anne is talking about is the ones for the arts (each state has 2 academic winners, or 100 total, of the 141). For the arts, there are 20 winners, of which, as she pointed out, 8 students won awards from Texas (no other state had more then 2 as far as I saw).</p>
<p>I also went back to the raw data, which showed roughly 60 candidates entered the process (not sure how the 60 get chosen).</p>
<p>The largest candidates by state were:</p>
<p>1)Florida (12 candidates)
2)Texas (10 candidates)
3)NY state (5)
4)South Carolina (4)</p>
<p>Other states that submitted had maybe 1 or 2, a lot had no one (in the arts). </p>
<p>That still is impressive, that 8 of the 10 kids from Texas ended up winning. Florida, which had 12 students entered, had one 1 student in the arts final. </p>
<p>Case anyone loves raw data, it is here: <a href=“http://www2.ed.gov/programs/psp/awards.html[/url]”>http://www2.ed.gov/programs/psp/awards.html</a></p>
<p>Thanks for those links, Musicprnt. I might just be dense, but looking at the candidate list I don’t see the name of my daughter’s friend who was a finalist at NFAA. My daughter was a merit winner (not a finalist) and her name doesn’t appear, nor do the other names of kids we know who were NFAA finalists or merit winners this year. I wonder what this list represents.</p>
<p>Of the NFAA finalists, only 60 names are sent on for Presidential Scholar consideration. From that list 20 are chosen. Your friends may not have made the 60. Merit awards that were not finalists and finalists not sent in the 60 would not show up on the ED site.</p>
<p>I didn’t even know that the NFAA fed the presidential scholars, ya learn something every day:).</p>