<p>Has anyone over the past audition season done a regional audition?
If so for what school and where was the location?
Does anyone have knowledge as to which schools have regionals and which do not?
This info does not seem easy to come by on the college websites.
thank you</p>
<p>Oberlin Conservatory had regional auditions in 13 US cities during January and February. The audition is on video usually with the Director of Admissions present. Not all majors can do regionals. The Oberlin website is pretty clear as to requirements.</p>
<p>My son did the Oberlin regional audition. The disadvantage was that he did not get to meet the Oberlin faculty or get a feel for the department and had to arrange a trip in March (which was a very busy month for him as a senior) to Oberlin so he could figure out if he wanted to go there.</p>
<p>The audition occurred in the Steinway store in Downtown Boston. </p>
<p>I have to say that the person who was in charge of our son’s application and regional audition was wonderful about communicating with us and with our son. Overall the experience was very positive.</p>
<p>Most of the info sessions we’ve attend highly recommend in person auditions. Most have said that the school personnel are almost always non-music people and they are there merely record the audition.</p>
<p>Agreed. In an on-campus audition you play or sing before a panel of faculty in your department. Your program could be 40 minutes long, but you will be asked to play excerpts from the program, about 10 minutes’ worth. But in regional auditions, you could play up to your entire program on tape, or at least significantly more than an informed panel would have you play. The reason is that the administrators who record the audition want to capture as much as the panel, who later reviews it, might find necessary. So you face all the disadvantages of a recording session (not much of an “audience” to perform to, as the persons recording your audition are not the ones evaluating it and may not be particularly engaged in what you are doing) and none of the advantages (can’t do multiple takes if you are unhappy with a passage.) One of my daughters did college theater auditions and I was interested to learn that regional auditions are very different for them-- they do bring faculty with them on the road, and the regional (they call the “unifieds”) are not considered to be any less advantageous to the applicant than on-campus auditions.</p>
<p>This was a number of years ago, but son did a regional for Eastman in Chicago. He had visited in the fall and had had a long lesson with the teacher he wanted to study with. He was offered admission with a very nice scholarship. I think that the fact that he visited in the fall helped.</p>
<p>During our campus visit to CCM in March 2011, the admissions representative told us that there is not a difference in the acceptance rate for regional vs. on-campus auditions. She said they encourage on-campus auditions so that students will see the facilities, etc., but since we already were doing a campus visit prior to auditions, a regional would be perfectly fine (son did a campus audition anyway, since it was only a half-day drive). She told us that faculty do not attend the regional auditions, only admissions staff, who record the auditions and bring them back to campus for faculty to view.</p>
<p>Definitely go to the institution if you can. I went to Eastman for grad school. You def want to go there to get a feel for the place, plus there are a LOT of other things they organize during audition day - tours, welcomes, meeting with faculty etc. </p>
<p>They want to know YOU - not a tape of you.</p>
<p>This information is typically available on the college websites - perhaps it’s a bit early and they have yet to update for the next season. A few years ago, I remember U of Miami, Berklee and Oberlin (to name a few) had regional auditions, and all this info was on their websites.</p>
<p>But I agree that you should do as many on location as you can, especially your first choices.</p>