<p>So, we're on our way and my singing D is committed to pursuing either a commercial music or MT degree. The schools she is looking at include the following: Belmont, USC Thornton, Colordo/Denver, Berklee, UArts in Philly, Miami Frost, and Steinhardt/Tisch for commercial voice, ELon, CCM, U of Mich, and CMU for MT. </p>
<p>Assuming a successful audition and excellent grades, etc., which schools are best at coming up with scholarship money for students? Conversely, which school are notoriously bad at giving money?</p>
<p>D’s experience (a few years back) was with U of Mich and CCM. Classical VP for both and the least amount of money offered, but then again, they seemed to have a super abundance of Mezzo-sopranos the year she auditioned. USC was very generous.**** She heard similar stats from other classical VP students.
****YMMV, especially for commercial music and MT. There are a lot of variables at play here, so you can take my info with a grain of salt.</p>
<p>Assuming excellent grades and similar test scores, both UMich and USC have quite good academic scholarships in the $20k range. Top scores and top grades may even get you a full tuition scholarship at USC. Doubt you will do as well at CU/Denver. Most of the rest will depend on how much they want your daughter.</p>
<p>This does not answer your questions, but a student cannot apply to BOTH NYU Steinhardt and Tisch. (S)he must pick one program to which she will apply at NYU, unless something has recentlychanged.</p>
<p>All of the programs you mention are “top” or close to the “top” programs. Does she have schools on her list that are less competitive as well as at least one or two non-auditioned/ academic/ financial safeties on her list that she would be happy to attend? All students need schools on their list that are academic/ artistic/ financial safeties,admitted to their top choices. Of course, the hope is to be admitted to top programs that are affordable, but unless they are prepared to take a gap year to reapply if this is not the case, a lot of energy should go into the “safety” schools as well as the match/ reach. </p>
<p>The fact that she currently sounds a little split in terms of what kind of undergraduate program of study she is looking to attend could work against her in the interview process for some talent based scholarships. She may want to craft her answers in a way that does not indicate to the schools that she is looking to pursue different types of degree paths, particularly because most of her MT programs are programs that accept only a very small percentage of applicants - 2% - 15%. And scholarship consideration will be stif. I do not know as much about the Music programs.</p>
<p>You may want to post questions about the MT schools on the Musical Theatre Major Forum. Music program and MT Program admissions (even at the same school) can be very different.</p>
<p>The list of schools also seems very different in terms of program experience… for example that MT program at CMU is VERY acting heavy… a Commercial Music degree will not include very much acting at all. NYU Stenihardt MT is a more music based MT program, but NYU Tisch is to the Drama program with a possible studio placement in a top notch MT Studio. </p>
<p>It sounds as if your D is at this point equally passionate about MT and Commercial music? Unless she is ready to give up one for the other she may want to look at schools that might give her the possibility to transfer from one area to another, or at the very least offer opportunities for cross training.</p>
<p>Please take this with a grain of salt because results vary and it’s “hearsay” but it was our direct experience that nyu/tisvh was abominable in terms of fin aid (eg packaging plus loans as aid, etc) so although I’ve heard tell of 20k merit awards here and there, it’s the exception rather than the rule.</p>
<p>In our case umich was exceedingly generous but we’re (fortunately) in-state and had a child in the 99th percentile who was the product of a gifted/talented program. Most OOS parents at umich complain about a general lack of aid, but others have achieved near full funding between academic and talent. It is certainly not as generous as privates can be overall, and mt is uber competitive, with a program of 20 admits (generally gender split, so 10 - 12 females, 8 - 10 men) out of an average of 600-700 applicants. oTOH, umich is slightly less expensive overall compared with most private by about 10k OOS ( and generally more expensive OOS than most publics.)</p>
<p>So it’s something of a crap shoot. Do you have a solid, in-state financial safety lined up? If not, please do. It’s heartbreaking to see kids drop from a program when family circumstances change and a school becomes non-affordable. I watched that happen to a highly talented pal of my son’s. Make sure her ultimate options are ones that can be lived with for four years ;)</p>
<p>Ps - in an acceptance thread from last year the is a post with a link to a spreadsheet where the beads faithfully recorded scholarships received as reported by music students. I think the average net in merit was about 15k overall, if I recall. You may wish to dig that up by reading through that thread and following the link!</p>
<p>I agree with all of the above in terms of 1) top grades will help with scholarship likelihood at most schools (some conservatories may not care as much about top grades) 2) talking to a school about more than one path weakens her case for talent, so make sure she knows what she would do (MT or contemporary voice) at each school when she interviews. I’d also like to add that scholarships are not extremely common, even though it can appear so on this particular forum. Some students at my daughter’s school (Berklee) that don’t have a scholarship are amazingly talented; the students that do are also amazingly talented. Keep her mind open and don’t zoom in on one school too quickly in her search. I wish her (and you) the best during interviews and auditions.</p>
<p>The OP poses a difficult question to answer due to the variables. In the simplest sense, many of the schools listed will, if they want the student badly enough, pay large sums to attract that student. The difficulty lies in trying to predict a given school’s interest, because it will be predicated upon at least three variables, only one of which you have any control over. The first and most obvious is talent and the display of that talent in the audition. Congratulations if you cross that hurdle, but don’t pat yourself on the back to quickly, because you’re only part way down the road to the land of milk and honey. You then bump into a variable over which you have no control: the talent pool which the school can select from in a given year. This varies instrument to instrument from year to year. Whether or not you are the greatest trumpet player auditioning that year will depend in part upon who else is auditioning. How one predicts the depth of a talent pool is beyond me. The final variable is the need of the institution for the given instrument. If the saxophone studios are filled, Coltrane doesn’t get in. (Well…maybe they’d find room for him). The point is, however, it’s dangerous to assume that certain schools will throw around money and others won’t unless you are privy to all the information which will determine a school’s interest. </p>
<p>My S’s experience illustrates the point. He was offered 100% and a 50% package from two schools which, according to the scuttlebut “never do that.” Apparently they wanted him. At another school of comparable quality, he wasn’t offered anything, wasn’t offered admission and wasn’t even given an audition. Same kid, same prescreen cd. We learned a year later that no one on his instrument was admitted that year. (Although they were more than happy to retain the application fee). I suspect he fell victim at that school to variable number three above. I think the important point is that there are no scholarship rules of thumb that can be relied upon from year year. You will be either a victim or beneficiary of things beyond your control. Enjoy the roller coaster ride.</p>
<p>My D learned last year from a studio professor at a well known music school that the teachers also base their offers of $$$ on the likelyhood that you will accept their offer. D’s studio teacher in her prep program told her, “If I give you this money and you don’t come here, my studio will lose the money for the year. It will go ito the general pot” So the teacher really tries to only offer money to those she feels are serious about attending her school.</p>
<p>D’s friend, a talented bassist, sent in his application & fee to a big name conservatory and was then told that they weren’t accepting any bassists that year. The app fee was not refunded.</p>
<p>My older D applied to some of the OP’s schools for musical theatre. Scholarship offers were all based on academic merit - no talent merit, even though she was accepted academically and artistically at several schools. I agree with previous posts - make sure your D has at least one non-audition, financial safety (there are some out there if you look hard enough) and then just roll the dice! Good luck!</p>
<p>D is a junior with an unweighted GPA of 3.875 taking AP and honors classes. Grades won’t be a problem. Her voice instructor is very confident in her ability and said she could probably get into most programs right now, without any additional training. She’s also confident that with another year under her belt, she will be good to go for virtually all the schools I listed. </p>
<p>We live in Ohio, so CCM is actually a FINANCIAL safety for us (pending acceptance, of course). Right now she is a big fan of Belmont for Commercial Voice and Elon for MT. I get the impression USC Thornton is her dream school. </p>
<p>I say “I guess it’s good news” because I worried that these schools are so tough to get into, they might see being invited as the reward rather than scholarship money. It’s good to know she may have some chance to receive money form the good schools. We’re in that precarious spot where we make too much to receive financial aid but not enough that we an foot the bill for college 100%. As much as I believe in her and want her to pursue her dreams, I hate to think of a music/MT grad leaving school with a 6-figure debt.</p>
<p>That being said, the idea of a “non-audition, financial safety” worries me. If she were to prove not good enough to get into one of the top schools, does that not point to “maybe you should try something else”?</p>
<p>To answer previous repliers, she does love both MT and commercial performance. Right now, I would guess she is leaning more towards commercial music. But after her Elon visit, she is open to both. She is surprising us with her smarts as far as looking at schools that seem to have tight ties with industry (B-way and Music world, respectively).</p>
<p>She is not looking at any school for both programs. So wherever she interviews/auditions, it will be for one program only, either commercial voice or MT.</p>
<p>“That being said, the idea of a “non-audition, financial safety” worries me. If she were to prove not good enough to get into one of the top schools, does that not point to “maybe you should try something else”?”</p>
<p>If you have this sort of safety —she has someplace to go for the “something else” Even very talented kids need a safety. Things can and do go wrong at auditions, sometimes the openings are just not there and sometimes the expected funds do not come through.</p>
<p>Unless that voice instructor has gotten other students into those college programs recently and/or teaches at one or more of the colleges of interest, you have to take those kind of prognostications with lots and lots of salt. The overall level of applicants to top programs is quite high, often higher than teachers realize, and all the more so if we are talking about a soprano.</p>
<p>I do not mean to take anything away from your daughter, in fact I have never heard her perform. It is just that I have heard many stories of voice teachers assuring their students that they will be accepted and it turns out that they weren’t even close.</p>
<p>Has your daughter been involved in competitions against other likely applicants, or gone to summer programs with them? That is probably a better indication of where she stands.</p>
<p>Fortunately, her teacher has a great history teaching at Universities and has sent a number of students to schools like CCM, Carnegie Mellon, Oberlin, Indiana, among other places. What I basically was trying to say is “I feel good about her being able to do her part (talent and grades), now I hope we can do our part (pay for it).”</p>
<p>So do most kids pick their safeties for majors other than music? Or do they simply go for what are considered “lesser” music schools? When trying to gauge how serious she is about music, she replied that hr #1 goal is to be a performer. If unable to do that, she says her #2 goal is to work in the music industry. </p>
<p>I do hope she chooses a good university rather than a conservatory so that, should she decide (or have decided for her) that music is not the way to go, she can stay at that school and choose a different path without transferring. I always worry about the way I write posts because I don’t want to sound either presumptuous or unrealistic.</p>
<p>A voice teacher at a very good school we visited last weekend told her “If you go into this thinking about a plan B, plan A is not going to work.” I could see his point, but it also freaked out my wife to no end. (Of course, in this economy, is there ANY sort of surefire Major?!)</p>
We are firm believers in this. We thought she needed to give it all she had and if she had divided loyalties then that pointed to the “if there is anything else you can see yourself doing - do it.” When people asked about her Plan B, she said be really good at Plan A. Her teacher took her through a pretty rough soul search as a Junior, but she made it through stronger in commitment and better at her craft.</p>
<p>Different approaches work for different people. Some prefer to apply only to top programs reasoning that they will either take a gap year and reapply, or else re-evaluate whether they have what it takes to earn a living as a performer. Others do indeed apply to the less-well-known schools, which can also work out quite well if the teacher there is good.</p>
<p>I would amend what that voice teacher said. If you allow plan B to become a distraction, then plan A will not work. Having a plan B is not necessarily a bad thing in and of itself unless you feel you only do your best work in crisis situations.</p>
<p>Life is sometimes strange. I started out with a degree in electrical engineering, which was about as sure as any at the time to keep me employed. My wife has a music ed degree. She now has a technical job that pays far better than the part-time musical performance work that I have been getting of late while job hunting for full-time technical work. No degree is ever surefire. Life is what you make of it.</p>
<p>I just fail to see how adding a relative admissions or financial safety to the mix affects plan A. Does a safety really compromise someones ability to work hard? Besides,life is what happens while you are busy making plans.
(this is coming from someone whose D has been supporting herself through music alone for the last three years. )</p>
<p>K8, no matter what, she has to “live inside her mind” for the rest of her life – which is a great reason to do what one loves and trust one’s resourcefulness to make it economically viable. I think the connection between degrees and careers these days is frankly way weaker than paying parents and optimistic undergrads might like to believe. A resourceful person can parlay any training into an asset, so while it’s scary, tell your wife to take a deep breath. I kind of look at it as if the child is busy writing their life right now, and should not be distracted from capturing the essence of it Best wishes!</p>
Best wishes!</p>