<p>My S applied to 3 schools as a Music Business (maybe Vocal Performance) major. He has auditions scheduled at each. His first audition is next week at his "safety" school which is a few hours drive from home. He recently got into the music business program at Belmont, Belmont his his 1st choice school and he is auditioning there in January in case he wants to double major, but an audition is not required for the music business major. He also has an audition coming up in early December at University of Miami as an audition is required there for music business. Since he is pretty sure he will not be going to the safety school, do you think he should still audition for the experience? Also, if the safety gives him a good scholarship, can we use that to negotiate with the other schools? </p>
<p>Is the safety close by? And will it be very expensive to attend the audition? If not, I’d go for the experience. Playing for your family or teacher is not the same as playing for judges and excess tension can affect intonation and everything else. . I say go. I do not have any experience with scholarships. And we decided to not have a safety. We have kind of have one but only if financial aid works out. Otherwise my son will do a gap year if the money and/or the auditions don’t work out.</p>
<p>Usually one can only use offers at other schools for negotiations if the school is on a par with, or higher than, the one you’re negotiating with. A safety usually will not be helpful in that regard.</p>
<p>I agree with spirit manager, a good scholarship at a safety/second tier school would probably not influence a more top tier school. There is nothing wrong with doing the audition if you want to do it for experience, if it otherwise is not a bother or cost, why not? Some might argue that that is ‘wasting’ the time of the school, but given that schools often audition kids when they don’t have an open slot (or rather, don’t know if they will have a slot), or otherwise make it seem students will have a chance who probably don’t, I wouldn’t worry about ‘wasting’ their time, I would simply make sure it doesn’t make your life any more hassled.</p>
<p>My S auditioned at a school he had no interest in attending. His private teacher was a graduate and he was invited by the studio professor of this school for a free lesson/ tour/ professional orchestra concert. He had also worked with the professor and was known by him before hand. We made him take the audition knowing these two teachers had been so very supportive of him. On the other hand he was contacted by another school he visited in his junior year of high school and asked to please come for an audtion. He outright denied them as he had no previous experiene with them and they refused to wave the audition fee. I spoke with admissions and said “you contacted us we didn’t contact you, he’ll come if you wave the audition/application fee”. It would have been an expensive trip and the application/ audition fee waived would have helped pay for the trip. Their response was no. All said he is very happy with his first choice which is the school he had dreamed of since he was 12. </p>
<p>I have to say YES to this question. When I looked at the offer a certain school offered us, boy I wish I had a competing offer from another school, even if it was one we weren’t considering, for leverage to get a better deal. But it’s apples to apples. If you are looking at top tier institutions you have to know what schools they consider viable for bargaining. Having a great offer from What’s A Matta U isn’t going to get you any traction with a top tier conservatory. </p>