Peabody financial aid

<p>Hi,</p>

<p>Peabody requires all international students fill out a form due for Feb 1. What concerns me is whether if Peabody is need blind or not, and whether one can be "too poor" - so poor that they'll reject you? Or - will they take you solely based on talent and then worry about money afterwards? Or, will P give you and edge because you "overcame challenges" by being so destitute and still excelled so much in music?</p>

<p>Also, I was wondering if someone could also answer to the following:
1. what's the average amount of aid people get from Peabody?
2. If one's family income is like <$20,000 CAD/annum, is there a chance to still be accepted?
3. More insights on Peabody's aid/ scholarship system and how it works?</p>

<p>Any more advice on how to complete the 4 page form? Note: my family is extremely poor (see above) because of challenges after immigration (language barriers in the case of my parents) but they are extremely hardworking people who have saved everything - ie surviving on a bowl of rice for the whole day at times, so that I can have the means to have an uninterrupted and wholesome music education. However, now has come the time when even that kind of diligence and conservation of resources can't pay up for my undergrad education... and the weighing game of trying to get in to a good college and trying to not go into too much debt comes in. I really really want to get in to Peabody and willing to take loans or something from other sources if it comes to that if doing so will get me in and not doing so will not allow me admission.</p>

<p>Thanks!</p>

<p>A friend of my daughter’s is on 100% scholarship at Peabody for music performance. This friend is an outstanding musician–she and my daughter met at BUTI last summer–but she also comes from a poor family. I would think that there would be only a few of these types of scholarships.</p>

<p>I hope that you have applied to schools other than Peabody. While you may indeed get sufficient financial aid to enable attendance there, there are factors beyond your control: for example, the calibre of other applicants this year, the number of openings for your instrument, the number of graduating students who had large scholarships that will now be available etc…</p>

<p>Given that you have expressed your family income in Canadian dollars (which are now worth more than American!), I assume that you are Canadian. There are certainly some excellent Canadian schools that are a fraction of the cost of Peabody and which give scholarhips covering full tuition or more. Without knowing what instrument you play, it is difficult to advise as to which Canadian schools would have teachers and studios at the same level as Peabody.</p>

<p>If you are good enough to get a very large award at Peabody, then you should be able to get generous awards at many other comparable schools. Do not put all your eggs in one basket–awards are too unpredictable for that.</p>

<p>I am not familiar with the Peabody form, but most of these forms ask for potential sources for funding your education. Be certain to include the amount of the students loans that you can get from your governments (presumably Canada and Ontario or your home province). Fill out the form honestly. You can append a note explaining your family’s financial situation, their sacrifices, and your strong desire to attend Peabody. I know that most schools will read and consider such notes.</p>

<p>^Assuming you’re Canadian, PLEASE do not overlook some of the much more affordable and highly ranked programs in your own country. McGill’s Shulich school of music is a comparative steal, and Montreal is a great scene.
Also remember that a) technically, you’d have to prove to immigration that you have sufficient funds to be granted a student visa and that b) American lending institutions, plus specifically the federal aid program (FAFSA), do not generally lend money to non-citizens, so you’d be relying on OSAP and Can Fed loans, which are not designed to cover the kind of very high tuitions of US schools.</p>

<p>So while you may indeed get some kind of scholarship assistance from Peabody that in theory could resolve your concerns, it would be prudent to ensure you’ve applied to top Canadian programs as well. Sometimes even with a scholarship, Canadian schools are the better deal for Canadian students, especially at the undergraduate level.</p>

<p>The debt load for Peabody (without scholarships) would not only be staggering for a young person with no means (That’s $48,000 a year just to cover tuition, room and board, so we’re talking $192,000 MINIMUM); it might also NOT be possible to BORROW enough to attend considering your family’s lack of assets/income to secure such loans. The payments over 10 years to service that kind of loan would be more than $2,200 a month – that’s more than your family presently EARNS in total.</p>

<p>So I’d worry less about the acceptance at this point (they need to know exactly what your capability is because you can truly only attend if given VERY generous aid) and more about ensuring you have fiscally viable alternatives.</p>

<p>(Sorry for redundancy – for some reason didn’t see violindads earlier post, just the last!)</p>

<p>Thanks for the advice violindad. Yes - I’ve also kept that in mind, and have applied to a few Canadian schools as well. I intend to pursue piano performance - are there any particular schools you’d recommend to be comparable to Peabody that are also in Canada?</p>

<p>Thanks again, violindad - a very important point about writing the letter outlining the sacrifices etc… I see that you’re from Canada as well; I’m from Toronto, Ontario. Which government agencies/other agencies would I be able to approach to apply for grants or loans? I have applied to a few scholarships (like the TD bank community leadership scholarship or the Loran award) in Canada and have been given the chance to interview for some of them but they are only redeemable if the individual is to stay in Canada for his/her undergrad education. Would you happen to know of any schoalrships/loans/bursaries/grants that would still be effective if the person were to continue education in the US instead?</p>

<p>Government student loans for Canadian students can be used at any recognized college/school in the US and Peabody would certainly be on the list. However, as kmccrindle notes, the Canadian government loans are designed for tuitions that are the size of Canadian schools which are a fraction of Peabody’s. </p>

<p>With your family’s low income, you would be eligible for nearly the largest possible loan, but it would not nearly cover your Peabody expenses. It might be possible between a large Peabody award and a large student loan to cover the Peabody expenses, but I, like kmccrindle, would not recommend that sort of debt load for an undergrad in music, particularly when there are much more affordable alternatives available.</p>

<p>There is an online student loan calculator for Canada student loans. It will give you an approximate idea as to the size of student loan and any non-repayable grants you could expect. You will have to input approximations for you family income, family size, tuition fees etc…</p>

<p>The three Canadian schools that I would recommend for piano are McGill (Laimon is highly regarded there; she taught at Yale for years), Glenn Gould School (Marc Durand is superb; Leon Fleisher is a guest faculty member and as I’m sure you know, is associated with Peabody; and John Perry is awesome and is also on the faculties of Colburn and USC), and UBC (Jane Coop is the best known there). At Glenn Gould you get an automatic scholarship that covers most of your tuition if you are accepted. Canadians tend to think that everything is better across the border, but we do have a few excellent music schools that are comparable in quality to Peabody/Eastman/NEC etc… </p>

<p>We all like to get away from our home city and are disinclined to believe that its grass is as green as that elsewhere, but it is tough to beat the calibre of teacher that you could get at Glenn Gould.</p>

<p>If you speak French, U de Montreal also has a fine music program.</p>

<p>Thanks Violindad - would the link for the calculator you were talking about be this one: [Student</a> Financial Assistance Estimator - CanLearn.ca](<a href=“http://tools.canlearn.ca/cslgs-scpse/cln-cln/40/sfae-eafe/sfae-eafe-0-eng.do]Student”>http://tools.canlearn.ca/cslgs-scpse/cln-cln/40/sfae-eafe/sfae-eafe-0-eng.do) ? </p>

<p>It’s interesting to know that McGill and UBC are of comparable quality to Eastman/Peabody/NEC etc. My composition teacher has however warned against the “musically conservative” What do you think?</p>

<p>You are right about GGS - I’ve gone to several of Perry’s/Durand’s lectures/master classes (seeing as I study at the RCM myself) and they I’ve also heard Fleischer play a few times and obviously he is something more than great. I can say from personal experience practicing there every night that GGS is really, truly, a wonderful place to study with very talented and serious students and phenomenal faculty. Incidentally, what’s your opinion on the building right beside it - that is, UofT’s Faculty of Music?</p>

<p>^FWIW, Scholaro, a few years back I met a composer who was the product of both the McGill and UBC programs (undergrad and grad) and the phrase “musically conservative” just doesn’t in his case fit :wink: But I also suspect you’ll encounter a mix of traditional and non-traditional composers and performers in most robust programs. My son is at University of Michigan, a larger program, and there is certainly a wide range of (sometimes grammy-winning, fingers crossed :wink: composition going on.</p>

<p>PS That particular composer was very supportive of my son’s decision to attend U of M, but also noted that Canada offers unique opportunities in terms of working as a composer – that sometimes the work is more “distributed”/accessible than in the states, where but a few dominate the field.</p>

<p>SCHOLARO.2: Yes, your link is to the site I have used.</p>

<p>I don’t have any strong opinions on U of T’s faculty of music since, strangely, I rarely run into either its students or faculty. It is a large faculty and certainly it is at least good and possibly excellent in quite a few areas. If you got into Jamie Parker’s studio at U of T, you would be very fortunate. Glenn Gould has a much narrower range of student than U of T (i.e. all the GG students are very good, but U of T being much larger has a wide variety of abilities in its students). U of T’s environment is very different (not necessarily better nor worse) from GG’s or Peabody’s, given that GG and Peabody are both conservatories intensely focused on music.</p>

<p>McGill’s Schulich School of Music is not conservative, and in fact is probably more progressive in many areas than most North American music schools. It has strong emphases on avante garde new music, on electronic music, on recording technologies, on new jazz, music perception, etc., and seems to be on the cutting edge of many developments in the music world. </p>

<p>McGill seems more flexible in course requirements than many other schools. It does have a very tough required core of theory and musicianship courses. Its student body and faculty tend to be socially and politically more liberal than their equivalents elsewhere. I can’t conceive of why someone would think of Schulich as conservative, except if they equate an incredibly strong baroque/early music program with conservatism (which is odd, given that early music has seen such a resurgence in the last couple of decades and is associated with progressive performance practices rather than the regressive 1950’s ideas that still hold sway in some other places). Or possibly, it is McGill’s somewhat stronger connection with Europe and its ideals that has some thinking of it as conservative which is probably ironic, as well.</p>

<p>I should mention that the best Canadian music schools are as good as Peabody/Eastman/NEC in terms of the calibre of their faculty and of the overall educational experience they provide, but some are not as good as P/E/N in terms of the average calibre of student.</p>

<p>Don McLean, the outgoing Dean of Music at McGill (not the American Pie guy), is the new Dean of Music at U of T. McLean is widely credited with the rise of McGill’s music school in the past decade.</p>