HI My daughter is a violinist and has excellent academics standing. She has dedicated the last 8 years to music and is a talented musician. however she realizes the difficulties and hardship pursuing a career in music. She wants to continue playing but would like to explore other fields. My question is does anyone know what colleges offer scholarships for music students that are not majoring in music. She would like too continue playing in college and pursue a major in the medical field.
A number of smaller schools offer music specific scholarships which can, depending on the school, be “stacked” on top of other merit awards. Skidmore has an audition based scholarship, as does College of Wooster. At a number of these schools, a student may be awarded up to about a 50% tuition merit scholarship just based on stats and resume, without having to write essays for a competitive scholarship etc. Then there could be music scholarship of up to 8-10k on top of that. I do not know of a convenient way to identfy these schools, we researched merit awards for my current senior, and crafted his list based on that. For him, NESCACS – which do not offer merit awards, only financial aid – as well as Franklin & Marshall, which does not do merit anymore – had to come off the list. Good luck to your daughter.
Our focus has been on LACs, so that’s what I know about, but here are a few other schools, in addition to those mentioned by @Midwestmomofboys, that offer music scholarships to non-majors:
St. Olaf (they give out a ton of music scholarships, something like 60/yr to incoming students)
U. of Puget Sound
Gettysburg
Luther
Concordia College
Furman
Trinity U (TX)
Rollins also gives out a lot of music scholarships, but I’m not clear on whether or not they’re available to non-majors.
All schools on the above list (with the possible exception of Trinity), not only give out music scholarships, but have very strong and active classical music programs with a substantial number of majors and strong ensembles.
Most of these awards are <= $12K/yr, so we’re not talking about free rides here, just some help. Note also with the Skidmore recommendation above, they only give out 5 Filenes scholarships, so it’s very competitive.
Also, consider Lawrence University in Appleton, WI. Lawrence has a Conservatory but there seem to be more opportunities for non-Con students to participate in all ensembles than at some other schools (such as Oberlin, which we also looked at with my musician-athlete). All ensembles at Lawrence are open audition, including open to non-Con and non-majors. There are music scholarships up to, I think I’m remembering, $7k or so, on top of other merit. Also, for non-majors, you can get “ensemble scholarships” which pay for private lessons with Con faculty if you are a non-major in an ensemble. A musically rich environment for a student who does not want a career in music.
@Midwestmomofboys, while everything you say about Lawrence is true and it does seem like a fine place to pursue classical music interests at a high level without having to commit to a music major, their significant music scholarships are, I believe, only available to majors. My list didn’t include any of the many schools that offer minor scholarships to non-majors on the order of $1K/yr to cover privates lessons, etc.
@rayrick – I stand corrected. I thought the larger awards were available to music minors as well as majors in the College as well as Con students, but it all blends together in my mind after a while.
Lawrence does award significant merit scholarships, so a strong student who wants to pursue music in a non-Con or non-major way, can get close to 50% tuition in a merit award, which is not specific to music students.
I also recommend Furman University.