<p>We, like many other families we know, are in that zone where we make too much to qualify for financial aid but not enough to afford the best schools for our deserving kids. For us, it's either merit scholarships or the local community college. Can you steer us to the best chance for qualifying for scholarships, before we miss necessary deadlines or opportunities?
Our son is a high school freshman, tenor sax, in the Bay Area in California. When I found this forum last spring I realized I had to get serious and I secured for him the two best teachers in the area. He made the "A" Jazz ensemble (rare for a freshman to do at our school), first tenor. He has made the 3 area Honors bands he's tried out for. He has attended jazz summer sessions the last two years, rising to higher-ranked bands each time. Not straight "A"s, but high honors, with STAR tests in the 97-99% range. His teacher believes he has a huge upside, so we want to try for the best schools for him if we can.
What are we missing that we need to know about? Are there deadlines a freshman needs to be aware of? Summer schools not to miss? Are there good schools where scholarships might be easier to come by, given his instrument? He loves jazz but also enjoys classical and made the Honors Wind Ensemble band in our district. Whatever you can recommend to us will be helpful. Forgive me if this has been covered in another thread. I did a non-exhaustive search before I posted.</p>
<p>If he applies to schools other than conservatories, there may be cutoffs with regard to scores for academic merit aid. The websites will give you that info. They will say point blank that if you have a certain GPA and certain SAT scores, you get a certain amount of scholarship money and it is not insignificant. He should aim for a GPA of 3.5 and above and should do what is necessary to maximize SAT scores. As he progresses, he will want to take sample lessons at the schools in which he is interested.</p>
<p>Just from my experience with a now-Senior jazz musician who wants to go to a top music school, scholarship money seems to be given for talent demonstrated at the audition. Period. Maybe national level achievements might also make your child recruitable, too. If you are competing for a spot at one of the world-class conservatories, the scholarships are harder to come by than at a liberal arts college music program, where the pool of kids might be more average in talent, haven't been to Conservatory prep schools, etc. You will be able to gauge (as we have) where your son falls in the talent range, and aiming him at a school where he is the top of the heap will give him more of a chance to become one of those "top performers" that the school wants to woo, and so they give him whatever merit money they have to offer. I haven't yet seen anything near a "full" scholarship for a jazz musician, but someone else here with more experience might be able to comment on that. I haven't actually tried researching exactly how much money is offered by each school. My son was offered a Talent Award from UMass Amherst for Jazz Studies. We have asked to have him considered for whatever merit money is out there, and all other auditions are still to come. (six of them!)</p>
<p>You will notice, if you read admissions websites, that a student's best chance for being considered for merit money comes if he applies as early as possible. Some schools will have a cutoff date for consideration for scholarships, but it's common sense that they have more money earlier in the audition cycle. So, I would say picking your earliest audition based on how much money might be available is a good move. Also, if your child is an academic all-star, having him apply to liberal arts schools where he is at the top of their statistics will increase his chances of getting merit money simply for academics. So, if there is a good music program at a university or college that fits that gpa and sat statistical bill for you then that is another way to get money. My older son was offered full scholarships to all sorts of places (of course he wanted the expensive private school anyway) simply because of his academic profile.</p>
<p>I have blathered on like I know what I am talking about! I am really just telling you my experience. I hope others can give you some advice, too!</p>
<p>Jazzzmomm, forgive my ignorance, but what are Conservatory prep schools? Full-time schools offered by the individual conservatories themselves? When did you start the process of applying for your son? Does he play an in-demand instrument?</p>
<p>Hi, there are a number of jazz programs your son might consider, when he is ready. This is information I have posted in other threads, but I can't remember which. These competitive programs draw nationwide, so the benefit is that not only will your son receive mentorship and instruction from outstanding musicians, but he and you will know where he stands in the applicant pool. First some summer programs: the Berklee six week summer program, the Brubeck Insitute and the Vail Institute. Berklee offers scholarships to the summer program, and college scholarships to seniors, including full rides. The Grammy Ensemble-participation in this group can yield automatic admission to top conservatories and significant merit scholarship. The Next Generation Jazz Orchestra, part of the Monterey Jazz Festival, can also yield a student hefty merit scholarship. There is a new group called the Jazz Band of America, which I don't know much about, but I would check out. The Betty Carter Jazz Ahead Program. The Steans Institute of the Ravinia Festival in the Chicago Area. Finally, when he is a senior, a finalist placement in the NFAA competition could result in a substantial merit award.</p>
<p>The good thing is you have plenty of time to check into these programs and others. Many colleges, both public and private, have merit aid to offer. The programs above are just some of the nationally competitive ones I am aware of. I, too, am the parent of a tenor saxophonist, now in his second year at conservatory But all of here on CC know how overwhelming this all can seem, so we are happy to point you in whatever good directions we can. Good luck!</p>
<p>Wow, that's a lot of interesting jazz programs there, spelmom. You are lucky, Chazmire, that your son is a Freshman and knows he wants this. Our son didn't really get this picture until Junior year, at which point he started at a Conservatory pre-college program--this is Saturday music school for experienced young musicians, a day of theory, ear training, private lessons and ensemble rehearsals. When my son decided he wanted this, it was like planting a flower in the right soil. He thrived, and made great progress. All those jazz festivals sound great, and I know for a fact that Grammy-band participants get automatic acceptances to some of the best schools! So we have heard. </p>
<p>Yes, good luck, and try to have fun with this! I loved doing all the research into music schools for my son.</p>
<p>Talent based scholarship money at a strict conservatory is normally allocated based on the strength of the admissions audition... the better your results within that year's pool of applicants, the more talent aid you are offered.</p>
<p>More is a relative term however. NEC tends to pretty tight with their awards in general for example.</p>
<p>For conservatory level programs within a university setting (Indiana, Michigan, Rice as examples) it takes a deep reading through the scholarship webpages to determine if the program allows a combination of a talent based award with a merit award for academic credentials. Some schools will allow it, some won't.</p>
<p>Another option could also be a strong school within your own state system, where he could take advantage of in state tutition, any merit aid based on academics, and audition based talent aid. I'm not that familiar with the strength of music programs within the California system with the exception of USC/Thorton, which I understand is a tough admit musically and academically.</p>
<p>Just some food for thought if there's a viable option within your own state system that meets the musical requirements.</p>
<p>Just a couple short notes. First, Indiana University apparently DOES allow music students to receive the merit scholarships that other majors also receive, although they did NOT when our son applied, unfortunately. Univ of North Texas is a good place for a jazz student to consider, and the Texas universities waive out of state tuition fees for any student who receives any kind of university scholarship, no matter what size (according to what I have heard).</p>
<p>Just a note...USC is not part of the California public university system, but is an expensive private university.</p>
<p>This forum is a gold mine of information. Thanks to all who responded and to any who may yet respond. I've already downloaded the application for Monterey. Much research still to do!</p>
<p>Just a head's up, to add to Spelmom's terrific and comprehensive list...</p>
<p>Some of these competitions are real scholarships, which involve all expense paid trips (Grammy, NFAA, Brukeck) for the winners. Some (Jazz Band of America, maybe others, but I know we looked at that one) require winners to pay their own way (and the festival weekend is during a big conservatory audition weekend anyway) and some (Vail, for example) are not purely talent based, nor blind admission (like NFAA) but based also on family need. </p>
<p>The pool of elite high school jazz musicians is actually quite small. When you look at the list of Grammy, NFAA, Vail and Brubeck winners, for example, there is a large overlap of names. </p>
<p>One other important competition for jazz kids is the Downbeat Magazine awards...but they only give one all around solo jazz award I think, and one for a combo and big band Vocalists are considered separately. I am not sure how many honorable mentions, etc.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.downbeat.com/sma_application.pdf%5B/url%5D">http://www.downbeat.com/sma_application.pdf</a></p>
<p>Allmusic is correct with respect to Vail, the website does state that the program is need based. However, I don't know that that is necessarily the case, in fact. My son's teacher wanted to nominate him and explained to me that while the program started out as a need based program, it has evolved into a primarily talent based one. I do know personally one of the kids who attended last year and that kid would not be considered needy. We ended up deciding against pursuing it because my son had already graduated hs and was not too keen to go. If you are interested, I would recommend checking it out regardless of need. The student has to be nominated by a teacher. Also regarding DownBeat, the materials say that scholarships are offered to winners. In each category, from jr. high through college, there can be multiple winners. My son actually won a soloist award last year for work he had done in his senior year of high school, but because he was already in college by the time the award was announced, we don't know anything about how the scholarship aspect works. I would definitely look into it though. Recordings are to be submitted by Dec. 31 each year, and the awards are announced the following June.</p>
<p>Chazmire, is your son involved in the SF Jazz program? I have read that it is a high level program that attracts a lot of talented players in your area.</p>
<p>When you say that you do not qualify for need-based financial aid, have you seen actual numbers from the schools of interest or are you making an assumption based on something else? For example, I was pretty surprised by the statistics at Oberlin</a> College :: Office of Financial Aid :: Overview that indicate that more than 70% of those whose parents earned more than 100K per year qualified for total financial aid of over $14k of which over $10K was in grants. And that was back in 2004. </p>
<p>Oberlin is building a state-of-the-art facility mostly for use of the Jazz department that is slated to open in September 2009. They also offer pretty good merit aid.</p>
<p>***"Every student who demonstrated financial need, regardless of parental income, was given an award that met 100% of that need." *<a href="from%20Oberlin's%20Financial%20Aid%20page">/B</a></p>
<pre><code> Can someone explain this to me?
</code></pre>
<p>My husband does not think (& he hopes he's wrong) that we will qualify for any need based financial aid. We haven't worked the #'s just yet however.</p>
<p>.</p>
<p>Many schools leave a gap in their financial aid. That is, they do not provide sufficient aid above the calculated Expected Family Contribution (EFC) to meet the total cost of tuition, fees, room and board at that school. Others, including Oberlin, have historically offered aid to all who qualify in the full amount of the difference between the cost of attendance and the EFC. Such schools are said to meet 100% of demonstrated need.</p>
<p>Another term you will hear thrown around is "need-blind" admissions, which is something else entirely. That means that all admissions decisions are made without consideration of how much the applicant and their family are able to pay. Oberlin has not been need-blind for many years.</p>
<p>calculating EFC is a complicated process. Some schools use only the FAFSA (Federal Methodology), others use the combination of the FAFSA and their own reworking of numbers obtained from the CSS Profile (Institutional Methodology). Unless you are in a very high income bracket, it is hard to say without doing the calculations that you will not qualify for any need-based aid, particularly in years in which more than one member of the family has college expenses.</p>
<p>There are quick and dirty financial aid calculators that claim to be accurate in calculating EFC by the Federal Methodology to about $500 give or take using only a small subset of the data required by the FAFSA. One such can be found at FinAid</a> | Calculators | QuickEFC</p>
<p>The other "dirty secret" about financial aid is that loans are counted by schools AS financial aid. So when a schools says that 90% of its students get financial aid, some of them may only have had loans offered to them.</p>
<p>That one really gets my goat. When S was considering a school, he was offered a loan. I never acted on the loan since the interest wasn't great. Anyway some lackey from the financial aid office started chiding me for not getting the loan. I shut her up really quickly when I said, "The only reason you want me to get this loan so you can inflate your BS numbers on how many students get financial aid, don't you?" Needless to say she didn't reply to that.</p>
<p>I'm from the old school, it ain't "aid" unless it's a grant, period! Did you ever consider your mortgage financial aid?</p>
<p>Spelmom, that was a great suggestion about SFJazz. I logged on just now and found that the players are the same he competed with when he made the County Honors band this weekend. So he can definitely hang with them and we will look into it. Thanks so much!</p>
<p>ImperialZeppelin you're right. And some are downright deceptive about it, too. DD was so excited with the package she got from NYU until she read it to me (I was on travel) and we realized all but a minuscule amount was loans. I don't think of $40K a year in loans as financial aide.</p>
<p>Great, Chazmire,</p>
<p>Sounds like you are now on a roll. I also wanted to mention the Stanford Jazz Workshop as a summer program. That one always looked good to me, but I couldn't get my son to venture that far away from home.</p>
<p>My son knows two musicians who did Stanford Jazz and really enjoyed it.</p>
<p>There are actually a lot of great programs out there.</p>