<p>After 2 years of research, followed by constantly nagging D to get her applications done, mountains of financial aid documents and stressful auditions winding down, we are now just WAITING.
It feels so weird not to be actively doing anything. Am I missing something?</p>
<p>Waiting is tough. When we were going through this, a friend sent me a copy of this Degas-----(a pastel of a parent waiting with her daughter after an audition) kind of sums it all up. <a href=“http://www.fineartprintsondemand.com/artists/degas/waiting.htm[/url]”>http://www.fineartprintsondemand.com/artists/degas/waiting.htm</a>
Even back then, parents waited and worried about results.</p>
<p>Plenty still to do. There’s nail-biting, pulling out of hair, wearing a path to the mailbox, checking on-line status every half-hour; your student may lapse into a period of brusque responses, mental or academic shutdown, even a musical shutdown. Lots of second guessing all around. And you’ll be fielding friends and relatives admonishments dealing with “A MUSIC MAJOR? HOW WILL THEY EAT???” or “THEY APPLIED WHERE???”. </p>
<p>Requests for an upgraded instrument may follow. </p>
<p>The list is endless.</p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/music-major/872066-waiting-letters-killing-me.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/music-major/872066-waiting-letters-killing-me.html</a></p>
<p>:)</p>
<p>Edit: and once you have the acceptances, there’s all the angst of deciding. But that’s another thread.</p>
<p>and…THEN there is Paying. Sometimes followed by Drinking.</p>
<p>I remember when I went through this phase with my D when she was a senior … and that’s actually when I discovered these forums. The waiting between now and April 1 is the hardest part.</p>
<p>“Plenty still to do. There’s nail-biting, pulling out of hair, wearing a path to the mailbox, checking on-line status every half-hour”</p>
<p>LOL violadad. </p>
<p>And there is also the false perception (or often false) that you will be done by April 1. Many are not done until May 1 (or even later, sometimes.) For us, the month between April 1 and May 1 was the busiest time of all, bouncing back and forth between schools, visiting teachers, etc. Enjoy the eye of the hurricane.</p>
<p>How about some thank-you notes from your daughter to teachers who have provided sample lessons or heard auditions, particularly if they have been helpful in any way?</p>
<p>My son is working on pieces to submit for a summer program. Plus he went to the guidance office and picked up information on 20 outside scholarships just in case his dream school comes through without a dreamy amount of scholarship money. So next week he is filling out scholarship applications. (He is also planning a skiing trip since he decided against skiing during audition season.)</p>
<p>well… I only check the online status every hour… You half-hour people must be crazy! ;)</p>
<p>And about wearing a path to the mailbox…I was actually thinking of calling our post office and asking them to just call me when THE LETTER arrives and I will drive down and pick it up… but then I realized… that would be CRAZY…</p>
<p>Best of luck to everyone! Glad I am not the only one going nuts with the WAITING.
:)</p>
<p>well i’ve been busy looking and applying for scholarships, also getting into extracurricular musical programs now that i have the time. and time flies, the longest anyone will have to wait will be april 1st. it’s on the horizion</p>
<p>Activities for Mom and/or Dad: </p>
<p>So long as you are fairly sure she will be going somewhere this fall, you could get a head start on searching for the “what to bring” checklists and watching for sales at Bed Bath & Beyond and similar stores. </p>
<p>You could make plans for what is going to happen to her bedroom while she’s off at school.</p>
<p>You could start recording things on the DVR (if you have one) to take the place of the evenings out you may have to forgo once you are paying for college expenses.</p>
<p>You could install one of those gizmos that alerts you when something is placed in the mailbox.</p>
<p>You could install a bigger mailbox in case all of those thick envelopes arrive on the same day.</p>
<p>You could hang out on College Confidential to commiserate with everyone else who is waiting. Oh, wait, you’re already doing that.</p>
<p>You could practice steaming open envelopes and resealing them undetectably in case the letter arrives when you are home and your daughter isn’t. (Just kidding, students. Your parents would never do something like that, now would they?)</p>
<p>You could figure out when parent’s weekend is at each college to which she has applied and make hotel reservations at all of them, just in case. Don’t forget to cancel the ones you don’t need.</p>
<p>Or, you could simply go back to doing whatever it was that you did in your copious free time before you had to worry about all of these applications and auditions.</p>
<p>Seriously, if there is anything that you can do now that you had planned for late March through May 1, do that. As slow as time is running now, it will run very fast indeed from when you receive the last notification until decisions are due.</p>
<p>Musica: The portrait is dead-on. Love how the mother looks way more worried than the dancer.
Violadad: Nail-biting? Yes! Brusque responses? Yes! Pesky relatives? YES!
glassharmonica: “Eye of the hurricane”. very scary.
18karat: You are so very sunny all the time. Thank you. I wish you every success!!
and BassDad…I am speechless. (Doesn’t happen very often.)
Thank you everyone. I will now go back to the piles of work I have been avoiding. Right after I practice steaming open some envelopes…</p>
<p>BassDad, were you spying on me back in '09???</p>
<p>Now that you no longer need to nag or worry about auditions find time to do some fun things with your D. She will be gone to college too soon.</p>
<p>I really wish that we only had the waiting left now! D still has 2 auditions to go- one at the end of the month and one towards the end of March! Hopefully no snow storms will appear for those out of town trips! 4 down- 2 to go!!</p>
<p>All of you parents/students are such an encouragement for me right now! And I agree with kmcmom13- BassDad (and the rest of you) is a/are great mind reader(s)!</p>
<p>We have treated each audition venue, city and campus, as an adventure- visiting old friends, meeting new ones, having students from previous summer camps give us personal tours, eating at some neat restaurants, etc. I will look back on these audition travels with fond memories.</p>
<p>I am into the “look at course work/catalogs at each school” phase. We will have a better idea what each school has to offer when April comes.</p>
<p>Most of the snow has melted this week making trips to the mailbox less perilous and much quicker!! :)</p>
<p>Yes, digging deeply into the course catalogs is another thing that can be done at this point. The idea is to try to put together a curriculum that satisfies all the requirements for your major and degree. Bonus points if you can find online class schedules from the last four semesters so that you can tell whether the curriculum you have constructed is actually possible to execute. That exercise can be very helpful when deciding among schools.</p>
<p>To add to BassDad’s earlier list:</p>
<p>You can watch the weather reports and breathe a sigh of relief that you get to stay home.</p>
<p>This forum not only was a lifesaver when S2 was applying to school for the Fall of '09 but it also gave so much information that has crossed over to grad school apps for my older S1 who is now applying for PhD programs in Poli Sci. I was able to use much of the advice to pass on to S1 (some he listened to, some not, but it was all helpful).</p>
<p>Grad programs notify everyone mostly via e-mail but it is not consistent even within each school’s department. I have stumbled across a forum called GradCafe and the intensity of the angst of waiting is about 10x what it is here, partly because they begin notifying in February. A real eye opener! It is making me totally crazy since the students are posting their decisions on that board. Luckily my S1 was accepted to Yale (yippee!!) so that has made the waiting for the others a little easier, but still stalking the mailman to receive the formal offer / stipend offer.</p>
<p>Unfortunately the Grad Forum on CC is not as supportive or complete as the Music Major forum, especially in the Arts and Social Sciences. </p>
<p>The purpose of this post is just to say “thanks” again to all, and I continue reading and feel at home here although I do not post very often. Good luck to all who are still auditioning and waiting to hear. Time is passing slow now but April will fly by. </p>
<p>Again, if anyone wants any info about the Eastman / Rochester experience, I am glad to share.</p>
<p>I continue to ask around about schools everywhere I go. I have gotten information about the schools my S has applied to from some unlikely sources. Most people want to know what your student’s plans are and they can be very forthcoming with knowledge about the schools and communities. I also have spent some time on their websites doing virtual tours (especially of dorm rooms since we didn’t see many on our campus visits), helping my S look for and apply for scholarships, and reviewing the faculty at all the schools to make sure he has at least one potential mentor. </p>
<p>We also put together a chart of all the schools we are considering, with columns for tuition, room & board, scholarships, housing, student activities, location, curriculum, and size of music school. Once we fill in all those numbers we will assign a 1-5 rating for each criterion and try to arrive at the school with the highest score. My S loves all four schools in different ways and doesn’t have a “dream” school at this point, nor do we. Money may be an ultimate decider, but he already has one substantial scholarship offer and we hope for more so that costis ot the deciding factor.</p>
<p>If I knew then what I know now…</p>
<p>For the holidays last December, we gave my daughter a sheet music and a cd for music she wanted to learn, that is definitively NOT part of the classical repertoire… And, periodically during the months preparing for auditions, she’d work on it… as a ‘break.’ Which was good. </p>
<p>I wish I had another selecction, ready for her upon the milestone of completing all the auditions, to pique her fancy during the waiting… I think i’ll ask her teacher for a suggestion…</p>