As we navigated the college process, this forum helped me with those specific performance related questions that no one else knew the answers to. I would like to briefly recount our journey in the hope that it might help someone else down the road. My son will be pursuing horn performance at Northwestern in the fall. This is just my experience and in no way am I preaching gospel. I was inexperienced and fumbled the entire way. And I apologize for the length of this post in advance:).
Where to apply was daunting. In junior year we began our research. The hardest part was finding a school that was good for his specific instrument. A top rated music school might not have the best horn teacher, and a lesser known school might. Do your research before you visit. We wasted some hours on trips that could have been avoided with a simple web search. For instance, one school didn’t offer dorms which was a must on our list. Another mandated that you double major but the second major he would have considered wasn’t offered. Really do your research before you head out. As for finding “the best teachers”, we mostly relied on his current teachers for recommendations.
He applied to 13 schools. I needed some safely schools, both in terms of admission and in terms of merit scholarship. I knew we wouldn’t qualify for aid. You must fill out the FAFSA even if you don’t think you are eligible. You will need this to qualify for merit in most schools. I phoned schools and asked them silly questions like “how many students receive merit”, what percentage of the tuition to they give", etc. Some schools were very helpful, others couldn’t tell me anything. In the long run, I didn’t let cost get in the way of applying, because there was no way of knowing the outcome. He applied to Rutgers, Temple, Boston University, Boston Conservatory, New England Conservatory, Rice, Carnegie Mellon, Bienen / Northwestern, Julliard, Curtis, Manhattan School of Music, Mannes.Six of these required pre screening videos. Out of these, three he did not get an audition with - Julliard, Curtis, Rice. In the end he auditioned for the remaining 10 schools. To our complete astonishment, we was admitted into all of them. If I could have done anything differently at this point it would have been to find a way to apply to fewer schools. The auditions were too much. If we had more confidence about merit or admittance we could have narrowed this down more.
A note about conservatory vs university. Many of the universities’ music schools are very much like a conservatory. Not much difference except you have the funding and options a big university might offer. In the end, we found very little difference in the music programs at both. Differences in many other areas, but the music curriculum, rigor, expectations the same.
He did take lessons with most of the teachers. Some he knew from master classes. Some charged, some didn’t. One requested a donation for a horn specific fund at the school. One school we didn’t take a lesson at was immediately off the list once he auditioned for the teacher. A lesson in advance would have lead us to not apply to that school. Another interesting note, not auditions are the same. Some were run like a traditional audition and some more like a mini lesson so teacher & student got to know each other.
All of the schools came back with decent merit $ except Carnegie Mellon, MSM, & Northwestern with 0$. Boston University gave the least after that. Eastman gave the most. The absolute least expensive schools for us would have been Temple and Rutgers (we are in state). Of course those were the first 2 that my son declined. We successfully appealed for more $ at NEC, but it was a small amount they came back with. His top choice was Northwestern. I phoned financial aid and they “put us on a list now that they knew we were interested in receiving merit???”, and we would have to wait to see if anyone else declined. My son was corresponding with the horn teacher there and she knew he was waiting for an answer on merit as well. We were told that if funds free up because people decline admission they would be disbursed. He eventually got an email that he would get merit, almost equal to his other two top choices. (NEC & Eastman) In the end he chose Northwestern. Decision made! And that is our story. Hope it helps someone out there.
@laurasti Congratulations! Northwestern will be a great experience for him. Enjoy the next 4 years.
That was helpful and what a great story! Northwestern is a top choice for my kid but it’s a reach financially for sure and I doubt we’d select it without merit. Congratulations!
Congrats! We used to live in the Chicago area and my D took a few lessons with Gail and loved her. I’m sure your son will be happy at Northwestern!!
OMG YES!! it is great to hear all the horn stories out there as next year this will be me with my daughter.
Congratulations and welcome to Bienen!
I’m really interested to hear he got scholarship money late in the process – I had heard there was no money at the undergrad level and my S19 wasn’t even going to apply. Is this worth doing? He’s a sax player and would do music ed and possibly jazz performance.
@akapiratequeen we toured Bienen not too long ago and they did say there was merit money available for musicians at the undergraduate level. The distribution just depends on the needs of the music school at any particular time and the group auditioning. I have mixed feelings about my son auditioning but Chicago is within driving distance for us and he’s also interested in DePaul (and UChicago - but that is another story), so I will let him try if he wants since merit is possible.
I’ll just chime in that D also got a merit scholarship from Bienen, so yes, it happens, but perhaps not to the overall level it does at other schools.
@NYCMusicDad and @laurasti: Join the Northwestern University Parents Group on facebook as it is a tremendous resource. Parents will answer any question you can think of. @MusakParent: I can answer some questions about University of Chicago as one of my students graduated from there, but they were not involved in music.
SOOO wanted my S18 to apply to NU, but he flat out refused to apply anywhere cold! Great school. Good luck!
@momzhood my join request to the FB group has been pending for several days. Imagine they have gotten a few requests lately.
akapiratequeen - I don’t have an answer for you. It may have been specific to the needs of the department. We were told it “might” happen so were very surprised when it did.
You can post a separate thread with this question if you want more answers…
Conservatories and schools of music that are part of a college or university, as opposed to freestanding, might count GPA and other stats a bit more, if the applicant has to be admitted to both the music program and the larger academic institution, but even that generalization may not hold up if you look at specific schools.
@laurasti – First of all, congratulations and thank you for your post. I really appreciate the thoughtful insights from folks like you who are ahead of us on the timeline.
I will completely understand if these questions are too personal, but would you mind sharing your son’s: 1) talent scholarship amount from Northwestern, and 2) GPA/SAT/ACT stats?
My reason for asking the first question is, like you, we are in that uncomfortable middle range of not qualified for need-based aid, but not well off enough to not care what college costs. Every kid’s college list needs a few longshots. Northwestern is a truly wonderful school and is worth the effort as a longshot, but we have tried to only have longshots that have at least some precedent for awarding the level of merit/talent aid we need. My daughter has had some state (Texas) level music competition success, but we are realistic enough to know that good music schools are not going to break their talent money mold for her. It would be great to have a data point to for what is actually possible at Northwestern – which I know must come with the caveat that talent level, instrument need, and a dozen other factors can change the results – still any actual result is better data than the blind guessing we are doing now.
My reason for asking the second question is that my daughter’s stats are okay for some schools (1360 SAT on the first try with 1400 being my guess at a reasonable expectation after superscoring a few more tries and 3.75 UWGPA and 4.2 WGPA), but she would not be near a realistic candidate for admission to Northwestern (where 1500+ SAT kids are routinely turned away) without a talent element in the mix. My concern is that if she were granted admission, she may have used up her talent card, and Northwestern may understandably feel that the music school has done her favors enough in getting her admitted. Our process for our son (currently a rising sophomore at USC with an academic scholarship) was greatly helped by the CollegeConfidential admission decision posts where we could find kids that looked like him on paper getting (or not getting) the level of merit aid he needed. The music/talent aid process is a bit of a reset for us and is a much smaller community with a lot fewer data points to work with. Knowing how alike or different your son and our daughter look on paper would be a great help.
Again, if this seems to be prying, I completely understand a reluctance to share further, and I’m thankful for the information you have provided so far.
@MeritHopeful I think it is also helpful to know the instrument. Each one gives different … Her son was on French horn which I understand gets more financial help… that and Bassoon. I am also in a similar boat to you… my D19 has a 4.2 GPA, 3.8 UW and 1390 for SAT. The thing I find daunting is how many colleges there are out there and where to narrow your focus. Is 12 colleges too many to apply to? 6? 10? all of the flights to those for auditions seems oppressive as well. I was told that if you are serious about those colleges, it is important to go to the college itself to audition and not do regional ones. The colleges award more scholarships, as they view this as being serious about their college.
@mperrine You are absolutely right on the importance of the instrument. I consciously didn’t list hers (vocal soprano) to avoid the groans. I know vocalists are comparatively a dime a dozen. I plan to adjust whatever data points I can find accordingly for that (down) and other factors, like her URM status (up, some places). She is looking for a school with a pretty campus, in or near a cool/cultural city (which she judges first by its art museums), at least a decent music program, with a music education program, where hopefully music ed doesn’t mean giving up all performance major opportunities. Northwestern is the highest ranked school that checks all those boxes, though we aren’t certain yet on the music ed/performance opportunities point yet. We are looking at eight auditions next fall and spring, without Northwestern, all but two involve air travel. I don’t mind buying more plane tickets for a longshot where the payoff is a school as exceptional as Northwestern, but I’d like to avoid a math mathmatical impossibility on the required merit aid front.
DePaul has a great music school. The horn section plus others from the legendary group Chicago all attended DePaul!
@ProfessorPlum168 Nice add. I think we passed over DePaul when my daughter was focused on very small schools. She’s recently expanded to allow for larger schools, and we need to take another loiked at DePaul. Thanks.
@MeritHopeful , welcome! So, it sounds as if your D would need strictly merit aid, and wouldn’t likely qualify for any need based aid? I would caution that at certain schools (like NU and Oberlin, perhaps) where they attempt to meet need for all admitted, merit aid is certainly probably available, but I think a huge award would be unlikely (for a soprano…sigh)… and COA is pretty high at both programs; it will just depend upon what you’ll need financially to make it work if you can get an admit. Maybe try reading through @GoForth 's thread and @SpartanDrew 's …in your spare time ;). You may get a sense through those journeys of what might be available, and where. My overall point is that for YOU and your D, perhaps including some non-meets need programs with a history of juicy merit awards may be a good strategy. I’m certainly not suggesting NOT applying at NU, and similar programs! Just be sure to include some NON-meets-need programs on your D’s list for maximum bang for the buck.