<p>Indiana Bloomington–I applied for the 2/5-2/6 audition weekend but haven’t received an audition confirmation yet… my instrument doesn’t do a prescreening. Should I have gotten notified by now?</p>
<p>Sprstr-my S also has not heard; he requested Feb 5-6 with no prescreening. We’re hoping we hear soon.</p>
<p>Sopranorose - Congrats on BOCO! My D’s voice teacher was up there this summer, and really tried to convince her to apply there because she was so impressed with the program. Break many legs!</p>
<p>YAY. D got an invite to audition at Eastman. Just waiting on Curtis now. Sopranorose - I believe Eastman is the one where you had to write the audition date on the outside of the package - so the packages were sorted by audition date. With competitions and auditions, the travel calendar is FULL. I think I will sign up for a yoga class to try for some inner peace! The good news is we got the AWESOME recital dress. (RED)</p>
<p>D (voice/soprano) just got accepted for an audition at Northwestern! Now we’re just waiting on NYU/Steinhardt and frantically trying to schedule the audition dates.</p>
<p>You might want to call Steinhardt. I know that at least for jazz, they were emailed before the holidays (my son got his around Dec. 18th). I know of at least one student who didn’t hear, called, and found out their prescreen was missing.</p>
<p>Our experience last year with Peabody voice auditions is that they were very late (maybe the latest) with the prescreen results. (Of course,you should telephone them anyway to make sure that the application didn’t fall through the cracks.) Their website is so organized and the people answering the phone are professional, but somehow it falls apart when it comes to the evaluation of the recordings. By the way, that was also our impression when we went to the audition. The director of admissions gave a terrific talk but there was a disconnect between him and the rest of the process - really disorganized and behind schedule. Also, consider hiring your own accompanist. Most of the schools provided professional vocal accompanists (often their own faculty vocal collaborative pianists) who were great, both in the audition, and often beforehand. Peabody provided an accompanist who appeared to be a student, paid no heed to what applicants requested as to tempo, etc, and applicants felt that their auditions were hurt by him. I noticed a couple of applicants brought their own accompanists, and I didn’t see that anywhere else, so maybe they knew in advance that there would be a problem. I would start by looking on their website for the faculty voice coaches/collaborative pianists and talk to them about hiring them for the audition.</p>
<p>To those who got an audition at Eastman: did you get the second email yet, with the details regarding the audition date? We did not yet.</p>
<p>Tenor Dad - I just saw your post, so I’m sorry that this is such a late reply. No one knows for certain how selective the schools are in their pre-screening, and it probably varies widely, but I can share with you my impressions after going through last year’s auditions (8) with my soprano D, and talking to other parents, etc. Our experience was not with Indiana and Michigan but was with comparable level schools. Here goes. Most schools that we looked at last year had an applicant pool in voice of 500-700 students. I would guess that the largest group are the sopranos, followed by the mezzo sopranos. It was hard to tell in most instances what percentage of the applicants passed pre-screening, but I would guess that on an average it was 4%. My D got all of her pre-screenings (6) and I think that most of the applicants we met at the auditions got all or most of their pre-screenings. (That was not the case with string players and pianists that we know, who had much more varied pre-screening results.) On average, I think about 1-3% of the total voice applicants were admitted. So I guess the math is that depending on the school, that where there is pre-screening, maybe 1/4 up to perhaps most of the AUDITIONING vocalists may get in. This is very rough, and I honestly think the chances are better for males than females. I think one of the main functions of the pre-screen are to remove the applicants who don’t have a clue what is expected or required. You can see even in these forums that there are plenty of applicants who decide at the end of their junior year that chorus or the school musical or camp singalongs are fun and maybe they should take some private lessons, and these students make up some of the 500-700 applications. There are also some vocalists who are terrific musical theater belters, who apply and can’t cut it on the classical repertoire. While a few of these classically untrained applicants might have evident potential, I think in most cases they are eliminated at the pre-screen. Removing them obviously saves them travel expenses and avoids having the music faculty sit through painful auditions. Northwestern, through last year, really believed in not doing pre-screening, that it was more fair to give everyone that live audition chance, but finally it became overwhelming, and they switched to pre-screening this year.<br>
What you can find out from the head of admissions (call!) is how many voice applicants were admitted the previous year, or that they plan to admit this year, and also look at how many were enrolled. And sometimes they’ll tell you how many passed the pre-screen. I’m fuzzy on the numbers, but I think Peabody actually enrolls about 20-25 and may have brought in as many as 100 auditioners, whereas Cincinnati only enrolls about 5 (and I think only brought in about 20-30 max to audition). It’s hard to tell how many are being brought in because there are usually multiple audition days. However, in general (very general) I would say that the larger programs were bringing in to audition after pre-screening maybe 75 vocalists, and the smaller programs were bringing in maybe 30-40. I am sure, after going through this, that when the admits get down to under 10, it’s a lot tougher.
Also, it may depend on whether there is a teacher who wants to teach your child. It is essential for your son to have sample lessons with teachers at the school who seem appropriate for his voice - - he should start right away looking them up online and sending emails or phoning to set up a sample lesson either before the audition date, or during the same visit. (Usually these sample lessons are free.) Sometimes the teachers judging the audition are asked on their evaluation sheet if they would like to have the auditioner as a student, and if someone wants to teach that student (especially if they had a wonderful sample lesson with the student) , the chances of admission are much improved. Sometimes there isn’t a teacher at all who is experienced in the auditioner’s voice type - good to find that out before auditioning! It can happen that all the voice teacher judges like the student, but there’s no one there to advocate for teaching that voice and saying they want the student. During my D’s audition at a school where there were two soprano specialist teachers, WHILE she was singing, one of them complained loudly that she wouldn’t teach her, and made faces - I’m not kidding, this happened. But my daughter was accepted, because the other teacher wanted her. (Fortunately, my D actually found the situation amusing.) (It is controversial whether you need to be taught by a teacher who has the same type of voice that you have - my D thinks it’s necessary for her but in any event your son should have sample lessons with teachers he’s interested in, for whatever reason.) I cannot emphasize enough that vocalists, just like other musicians, should find a teacher, not a school - great if you can find both, but the teacher really really matters. I’ve spoken with many voice majors who didn’t do this going into college, and found that the assigned teacher was not right for them - and it’s awkward and difficult to change teachers. After acceptance you can ask the teacher for a commitment to teach you. I would also look at faculty depth - if your chosen teacher becomes unavailable - moves, takes a leave of absence, etc, is there a reasonable backup? Depth should not be a problem at the bigger programs. But I’m getting far afield. Hope this helps, bring a travel humidifier if you’re staying at a hotel, and best of luck.</p>
<p>JUST heard back from NEC! It’s a yes =) (I’m applying for piano, undergrad). So that makes a yes for Peabody and NEC! Still waiting on Juilliard and MSM - have auditions for Rice, Vanderbilt, and Northwestern already scheduled.</p>
<p>really, really excited!</p>
<p>Joining late, but glad to see that there are others in the same boat as we are. POTOMOM, we are waiting to hear from Curtis too. S was accepted EA at Oberlin for VP and passed prescreens at MSM, CCM, NEC. Still waiting to hear from Peabody, too. The waiting is the worst part! Please post when you get Curtis results!</p>
<p>Woohoo! Got my MSM results today too; invited to audition there as well! Now just waiting on Juilliard…</p>
<p>We did not get the second Eastman email yet (with the details). My D is out of town this week (Miami) so I have to wait till the end of each day when she checks her emails.</p>
<p>Good discussion going. Here is my D’s experience. She has a classically trained voice and good repertoire under her belt, AP theory, studied at Interlochen, etc., and has studied in the precollegiate division of an elite conservatory and YET did not pass any prescreenings except with schools where she had had sample lessons. So I am not sure about most of the non-passing “prescreens” being somehow unprepared.</p>
<p>Were we to do it over again, we would start early in the junior year and go for a sample lessons at various conservatories, maybe again early senior year, since these young voices change so much during that time period. </p>
<p>A faculty friend from the string department at Eastman says the faculty listens, as stated above, with a notion of “Do I want to teach this person,” and sometimes more importantly, “Do I have space in my studio to take this person.” Highly variable year to year. Maddening to applicants. Good luck to all.</p>
<p>sprstr, got confirmation from Indiana-Jacobs School of Music today via email (for Feb. 5-6); also got date/time confirmation from Juilliard today.</p>
<p>Eastave, I found your D’s experience fascinating. By the way, I don’t think most of the prescreening rejections are unprepared, I just think that the applicant pool includes many who are not prepared, which makes the total number of applicants a little less daunting. But anyway, it seems like your D was doing something wonderful in the sample lessons - or do you think there’s another explanation?<br>
I agree with Eastave that the time to start sample lessons is junior year - I think it’s important to find out early if there are any technical problems to be addressed, or if you need to change teachers, etc. I think that high school students get very attached to their voice teachers, and some of the teachers are great at convincing the students and their families that they are the best voice teachers on the planet. It can be very hard to determine if you’re being taught proper technique without an evaluation from a solid university level teacher.</p>
<p>I called BoCo to schedule an audition, but I never got a hold of them… left a message with my name and preferred date, as well as the number to my school’s guidance office. Anyone else try to schedule but was unable?</p>
<p>Bobbi:</p>
<p>I’m still here. Thanks for your informative post. My son and I are very much neophytes in this world. He’s been taking private lessons for almost three years, but his exposure to high-level summer camps, competitions, etc. seems less than most on these boards. I am a university professor, but am not a musician so have a lot to learn. He applied to a fair number of schools because (1) we were unsure as to how many audition invitations he would receive and (2) unsure as to how the auditions would turn out. Also, we have not had a chance to visit most of the schools to which he is applying so that may also eliminate some schools. Finally, there is the issue of financial aid, scholarships, etc. So far he has received audition invitations from USC, Northwestern, Texas, Michigan, Indiana and Colorado. I’m sure it helps that he is a tenor. Altho it did not help enough at Cincinnati - he was not invited for an audition. We are also waiting to hear back from a couple of other schools – one of which we are very interested in (Lawrence). Because we have not visited many of the schools, we have not been able to act upon the advice of “find a teacher, not a school”. He has been told by a number of fairly knowledgeable folks that he has the “pipes” but also that he “needs a lot of work”. I am much more worried about this process than he is. He is the ultimate casual, “hakuma matata” kind of guy — “what will be will be”. Although it is an incredible “time sink”, I am kind of a university “wonk” and am looking forward to visiting some of the schools and campuses. Our first road trip is this weekend. I hope it goes well – but our relative inexperience leaves me very uncertain.</p>
<p>Tenordad - It still may not be too late to explore the “find a teacher” advice. (Because it’s good advice) See if you can meet with a couple of teachers post-audition. Sometimes a lesson might be available, sometimes it’s just a consultation or discussion. However, some interaction with a teacher is better than none when you are trying to decide if this is someone you could work with for the next 4 years. It helped my D weed out some schools (and teachers that had been recommended). If your son can sit in on a class or talk to some current students there - that is very helpful, too. Often the teachers will give you the names of some of their students that you can email. It helps you to understand their teaching style, philosophy, expectations, etc.</p>
<p>One thing to consider about focusing solely on a single teacher: he or she may move/retire, or you may find that things just don’t work out as you expected. You can change teachers, even though it is difficult. I’ve known three voice majors who successfully changed teachers; one (now in his third year at a major conservatory) is on his third teacher, and he feels this is finally the right one. He did not give up, and he was not timid.</p>