Congratulations @mezzomiss, that’s quite an accomplishment. Juilliard uses the callback system for their jazz auditions as well, and it really seems like a brutal process. If you get a callback, it’s an exhausting day. But far worse, if you don’t get a callback, the instant rejection is devastating. You should really feel good that you’ve given it your all, and I hope you get good news at the end of the month!
There’s so much talent on these forums, I’d just like to point it out. Everyone on here is so talented regardless of where anyone has gotten called back to or accepted to. Everyone on here (or their children) is so dedicated and fulfilling their dreams in such a difficult industry. Right here on this forum are the musicians of the future, people who may someday be the next Pavarotti or Puccini, or Yo-Yo Ma. This is the youngest talent of today, and I just wanted to applaud everyone for their past, present, and future achievements.
I am saying this to everyone now that I think audition season is over. It’s been a hectic past few months and everyone here deserves to know they’re appreciated. Have a nice night everyone.
That’s very nice of you to say. I didn’t know of this forum when my daughter went through undergrad. It’s kind of a miracle that she got in as we did a few things wrong… I tried to think grad school would be easier than undergrad…and it is. EXCEPT for the fact that everything is soooo much later! She still has one more audition left. For undergrad she had all her acceptances by now, a studio offer and had decided on her school. I’m not traveling with her for this final audition (wish I were) but she has two friends from her school auditioning with her so it’s fine. I will be relieved for her when the travel is all over.
@bridgenail best of luck to your daughter on her final audition. Didn’t know that Grad students had later auditions! I’m sure she’ll do great, so don’t worry about it. She’s gotten this far, and she’ll get farther 
Going into this whole process was uncharted virgin territory for us. There is no authoritative list telling you the best and worst schools for Vocal Performance. You don’t know if you want to study Musical Theatre or Voice, because you love them both. You do not know if you want a straight conservatory, a conservatory program within a university, or a university school/college. You end up going with your gut, what the voice teacher does or does not tell you, and what you think makes sense for you financially. And there are lessons you learn along the way.
We started by listing schools she thought she was most interested in. These were Julliard, Eastman, Indiana, and Curtis. After doing some research and talking to people we trust (since we were ignorant on such matters), these schools fell off the list because the consensus was that these schools are great for grad studies in voice, but not so much for undergrad because grad students get the focus/performance opportunities.
So we started looking some more and we found that you could study voice and get a BM, a MFA, a BA, etc. Each program has quirks and a different slant. And we also knew that she had to apply to a lot of schools because there was so much competition for limited seats. So, trying to strike a balance between VP and MT, the initial list she applied to was Oberlin, CCM, SMU Meadows, Webster, UGA Hodgson, FSU, and UNC Chapel Hill. When other schools started making very generous scholarship offers ranging from full tuition/fees to a full ride, the list expanded and she added Arizona State, Arizona, and the University of Kentucky based on recommendations from our trusted advisors.
Now we had to figure out auditions. How do you cram so many in so tight a window, especially when a lot of schools overlap on dates. So we had to decide which schools absolutely had to be visited for a live audition, which ones should be visited, and which ones would accept video auditions. This latter is a crapshoot because we have heard that schools did not like to take people from video auditions because if the student was really interested, they would find a way to visit the school and audition live. This we found to be largely a myth. But we also had to figure out which schools required pre-screening videos, the rep required, and when they were do. That meant mastering/tweaking the multiple pieces and finding a time to record them. Of course each school has their required reps which often times bore little or no resemblance to each other, but we finally found four pieces that would satisfy them all (as some schools required two videos, and one required four).
Pre-screens were sent to Oberlin, NYU, CCM, CMU, & SMU. NYU, FSU, & CMU were tagged as full audition videos because there was we could not schedule live auditions.
Sadly, she did not pass the pre-screen for Oberlin & CCM.
She did pass at SMU Meadows and that was the first live audition scheduled in Dallas. It was here that she learned the value of networking with faculty before audition. A friend of ours received a Masters there and her voice teacher was still on faculty. She connected this professor and my daughter, and they had a lesson the day before the audition that actually helped her in the audition. The dreaded part of the audition was the music theory test and sight-singing. This was lesson two: the sight-singing exercise is not about if you can sight-sing or not, or how well/poorly you can sight sing. It is about how you handle yourself when faced by the challenge and how you respond under this pressure. One thing that makes SMU stand head and shoulders above other programs we visited is that they tell you up front that you are not just coming there to study your instrument. You SHALL takes classes in areas such as Arts Administration or Music Education so that you have a job to support you while you pursue your musical craft. And if you can get into SMU, do it for a simple reason beyond the excellence of their program. The school is in the wealthiest zip code in Texas and financial support for the arts is huge. You will make well-healed connections through your classmates/in the community that will serve you well throughout your career. One downside (aside from the cost) is that it has the reputation as a preppy rich kids’ school and you have to decide if you can fit in there or if you would be miserable.
Next up: UNC Chapel Hill. She applied there because of the excellence of the University/the reputation of voice program. Of course there is a gotcha. By law, 82% of the Freshman Class at UNC has to be from the state on North Carolina. The remaining 18% (about 750 total seats) can be students from other states or countries, and this includes out of state athletes (football, basketball, etc). You do not apply for the music program, you apply to the University, and the program gets who they get from the pool of students who are accepted to the University. The only chance faculty get a say is in the allotment of 24 special admission requests (much like sports gets an allotment) that spreads across the whole music department. So when you are auditioning, you are competing with ALL music students for one of these 24 golden tickets. If you do not get one of these and do not have a 2300 SAT, 4.gazillion GPA, have found a cure for cancer, etc, you are not getting in if you are from out of state (this year they received close to 22,000 applications for those 750 seats). The faculty there are great people, but the facilities are sorely lacking.
The next trip was to AZ for auditions at AZ State and the University of AZ. This was a no-brainer because ASU paid $300 for her airline ticket as part of the recruitment for their honors college. But a few days before we left, she caught a bad bronchial infection and was unable to sing. This was lesson three of the process: If you cannot sing because of your health, tell them up front that you will be unable to sing and bring your audition videos with you. The professors are music professionals and they know the dangers of harming your voice. If they are worth anything, they will come up with an alternative. If the “demand” you sing anyway, that should be a red flag that you should steer far away from that school. Both of these schools worked with her on alternatives and used to audition time to get to know her and have her do her monologues and dance audition portion.
The following weekend was Webster University at a stand alone MT regional audition in a hotel. It was very well organized, and it is funny when your child sees other potential students she met at some other program or conference along the way, or knew by reputation.
The next weekend was UGA. This was probably the best organized of all the auditions. And believe you me, you will not find finer facilities at ANY school. I remember when it first opened and the Atlanta Symphony was to play the opening concert. A fried of mine was installing.audio for the recordings and he said the acoustics were so unbelievable that the drop mike could pick up the turning of the pages on the conductor’s stand.
The final audition was to be at the University of Kentucky, but then they got 18 inches of snow plus ice that hit them and many people, including us, could not get there safely. But they worked with people who could not get there (it was the last audition weekend) on audition workarounds, To me, this says a lot about the people who run a program.
So now we wait. She has been accepted for the schools and programs at SMU, FSU, UGA, and Arizona State. She has been accepted to the music school at CMU, but is waiting a decision on university audition. She has been accepted to the University of Kentucky, but is awaiting a decision from the music school. We have heard nothing from NYU yet. And then there are the 24 golden tickets…
What a terrific and helpful post @CollegeDadofTwo. I really liked your lessons learned commentary.
Thanks @momsings . I did forget to include a lesson, a very important lesson that ties into the networking: when auditioning, you are not auditioning for the music school or program, you are auditioning for a specific slot in a studio. That is what makes conservatory programs like CCM and Oberlin so difficult to get into compared to larger universities. One year they may need 3 Sopranos and 7 altos. The next year that might be switched. You just do not know. So get to know professors at the schools you might be interested in. As one of the faculty at UNC Chapel Hill told us in an information session: If you don’t do this you hurt your chances and they do not think you are serious about the school.
I agree with what is said above. It is ideal. I only want to add that students can be accepted without getting to know a teacher prior to an audition. If you do not have the funds to travel to all schools you can still be accepted IF you are doing a lot of high quality work at home. This happened in undergrad and grad for my daughter. She had to call one school and explain that she couldn’t audition due to costs. After pre-screenings she had a travel budget to spread out as best she could. The school offered her to do a recorded audition and said they would still consider her. She never was able to visit the school or connect with a teacher. Still she was accepted. I say this for people concerned about the cost of this process. It is expensive. But where there’s a will there’s a way. There’s always calling and emailing your sincere interest. Plus your music resume will also show it. A lot can be done at home to prepare. It’s not ideal to not visit the school and teacher…but even with limited funds and a good attitude you can make it work.
I agree about getting to know teachers. The teachers he met at camps from last summsr are excited since my son improved so much since summer. But tbh some teachers were excited because they connected with only the sample lesson. And my son got admitted to Indiana with just 1 very short sample lesson and he played less than 1 page of his concerto. Lol. Who knows how to predict these things.
Hi OperaAdri, Congratulations on your acceptances. I just wanted to let you know that my S did get accepted and committed to Shepherd even though he “played the worst eight bars of my life” on the jazz piano question. We laughed about it right after and said the same thing you did. Be careful how you answer questions, 'cause you never know what might happen. . .