<p>I'm thinking of doing two live auditions in one weekend. It would be a Friday audition, a 5-hour red-eye plane ride, and another one on Saturday. There's also the added wild card of that crazy East Coast winter weather.</p>
<p>Musicians who have gone through the audition process: would you go with this plan, or are audition days so stressful and unpredictable that I should work something else out? Has anyone attempted this?</p>
<p>This sounds like something to do only out of desperation. Do you not have any other choice? How good are you at playing with no sleep, and stressed? Or would it help with your nerves because you’d be so focused on your crazy schedule? And, yes, the weather that time of year is unpredictable and you are chancing missing your second audition.</p>
<p>My D did two auditions on consecutive days, but it was an hourlong flight between schools. It made sense for her to do those schools back-to-back as every audition trip she took entailed a plane flight across the country. So the schedule was mid-afternoon audition - evening flight (like 9pm) – then a late morning audition. Not ideal in terms of touring the campuses or sitting in on classes, but it worked out fine for auditions.
No red-eye flights were involved, no flights were delayed, and the weather was good.
Try to set yourself up for as much stability, space and predictability as you can so that when the inevitable curve-balls are thrown, you are in a state to handle them.
Also, some auditions are day-long affairs, where you are expected to arrive early in the morning, attend a talk directed to all auditioners, receive your audition time, take theory tests and sight-reading, practice, and do your audition. Other auditions you can literally walk into at your pre-set time and then waltz out after your audition is done. So you might find it helpful to know what the schools require of you. </p>
<p>We are worried about scheduling more than one audition in the space of a day or two (vocalist), but we also aren’t really keen on driving across Pennsylvania multiple times in January, either. I would die if I was on the proposed schedule, and I don’t think my daughter could do it, either, but you would know if that’s something that you could handle, elpiano. </p>
<p>Doing auditions on consecutive days is not unusual, so it is the travel and sleep challenges that make this hard.</p>
<p>Are you generally able to sleep on planes? And are you a person who needs a lot of sleep or is 5 hours okay? Given nerves or excitement, once you land in the location of the second audition, will you be able to sleep for a bit? Would you get a hotel room? What time of day is the second audition? Could you function well without much sleep if the audition is early in the day? (Sometimes sleeplessness doesn’t hit right away and adrenalin can carry you.) If the audition is in the afternoon, would you be able to rest as well as practice before going in?</p>
<p>Perhaps you could get the second audition moved one day ahead so you can stay in a hotel and rest in between.</p>
<p>Overall, better to do this than not do it I suppose, if this is your only option and it is a school you are really interested in. But usually schools will schedule you with other auditions in mind.</p>
<p>We have to do this. Im NOT Driving 12 Hours AND Cannot Afford flying multiple times. So we’re driving down once and getting area auditions within 2 to 3 hours of each other done in one week (a little over).</p>
<p>Does this mean folks have heard back about pre-screens? Isn’t it a little early?</p>
<p>@listenmissy - here’s the thread from last year with prescreening results: <a href=“Prescreening Results - Music Major - College Confidential Forums”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/music-major/1586238-prescreening-results-p1.html</a>
It will give you an idea of when folks tend to hear from a particular school - although, even with one school students on different instruments often hear at different times, and there are always outliers, too - students notified earlier or later than everyone else. Take a deep breath - this is just the beginning!</p>
<p>Listenmissy (I love that screen name), depending upon the school, often they give you options for audition dates as part of the application. So you make your plans as well as you can and then hope to be invited to audition, AND hope that they give you your preferred audition date. We had to figure out most of the audition season schedule before the applications went in. I’m assuming that is probably why people are thinking about back-to-back auditions already.</p>
<p>@elpiano - when my son was applying, he had auditions on consecutive days in the same city, which was obviously doable but which he found tiring. I don’t even want to think about how much harder it would have been to throw in a cross-country, overnight flight in the middle (not to mention the risk that interposes in the event of bad weather). I agree with compmom that, if there’s really no other was to do both auditions, and you’re seriously interested in both schools, better to do it than not do it. But if there’s any choice in the matter, I think you’d be better off if you can put some cushion in between. I think most schools have multiple audition days for classical piano, and do try to honor scheduling preferences for those days, so hopefully it will be possible to set up a slightly saner schedule.</p>
<p>@Listenmissy not all schools or all instruments require a pre-screen. No need to panic 
@elpiano I would schedule the school I most wanted to attend first, just in case for some reason (weather) prevents you from making both auditions.</p>
<p>Thanks, @scubachick! No panic. My d’s a junior 
- I was just a bit confused because I thought it was a little early to hear back about prescreens, but I think I misunderstood, and the OP was more about planning. And of course, I should have thought of the fact that not all schools require prescreens (or not for all instruments). Long week. Bad head cold. I’ll bow out till I’m rational ;)</p>
<p>Thanks, everyone! @listenmissy , sorry to confuse you - I’m planning which audition date to request, much as lastbird wrote. I live very, very far, so this all takes quite a lot of planning! </p>
<p>Back on the topic, my other option is to schedule the two in consecutive <em>weekends</em> (as in, a week apart, not a day) - but that would involve missing an entire week of school. I know, it’s my long-term future vs. one week of school (in which case, long-term future definitely wins), but I’m a nerd, so I wondered if I would have been able to avoid it. Looks like it’s the best choice here, though, since I’m no superhuman :P.</p>
<p>Oh, and yes, both these auditions are full-day affairs, and these happen to be my top two schools. More reason for me to abandon my original plan, I suppose.</p>
<p>If you take the whole week off, you can spend a couple of days at each school and have sample lessons and sit in on classes. Don’t worry about missing school. It will be worth it. Work it out with your teachers in advance.</p>
<p>Also if you bomb one audition, you can move onto the next one without agonizing over it for 2 weeks. Itscheaper too. We scheduled auditions that didn’t require prescreens. Thank god. Between essays and act, prescreens would have been over the top stressfull. We have 2 prescreens due regionally on the 15, not too bad .</p>
<p>I agree with SpiritManager - if these two schools are your top places, then go for the weeklong trip. Practice in the practice rooms, meet with the teachers and students, and feel what it may be like to be a student there. Keep us posted!</p>
<p>D missed a week of school to audition at 3 schools. She took her laptop and did homework at night and on the plane. She graduated with Honors so no harm done.</p>
<p>We were planning to take a week off, but my daughter got the female lead in the spring musical, and she can’t miss a week of rehearsals. Back to the drawing board!</p>
<p>Thanks, everyone!</p>
<p>May not be for everyone but for my d she specifically did not do any shows from Jan - March so that she could do the audition circuit. We are from California and she only applied to east coast schools. She did 9 auditions in 12 days (2 full weeks of independent study). It was a stretch for her public school because they weren’t familiar with applying for vocal performance degrees. Took a lot of pre planning and a little sacrifice, but in the end it was well worth it.<br>
Ps…The day we returned she was called and cast in a show by a director she had previously worked with so it all worked out. Than again…this is the same girl who never attended a high school dance or prom, because she ALWAYS had a show or recital. </p>