Oh yes, @SpartanDrew , there will be gear!!! <3 (And happy tears!) And then emails from primary teacher possibilities! Really, it’s such an exciting time!
Hopeful for the happy tears. That’s my biggest source of anxiety at the moment…
It is a great feeling to be done! Congrats everybody! Our anxiety here has reduced considerably. After her auditions, D made a rank of colleges and UC Irvine was her top choice. We were all surprised but she had several reasons she liked it and we support her choice. Fortunately, Irvine releases admissions early for Regents and Honors College. Her admission decision came out at the same day as the honors/regents admits even though she didn’t qualify for either. I guess there are some advantages for musicians in the overall application process after all! Regular admission decisions haven’t been released yet!
She also received a call from the teacher she will likely work with who mentioned she would receive a packet soon with departmental and scholarship information. Fingers crossed on the scholarship part.
Of course this is all pre-financials. However, as an in-state option it is going to be difficult to beat. Her top four programs are all in state universities. So it is not clear what would need to be offered to move her away from UC Irvine. But we are encouraging her to wait and let the process play out. So much easier for a 17 year old when she already knows she has been admitted to her top choice. And easier for her parents too!
I hope March works out well for all of our kids!
So they’re Hoarding all those Frost shirts! That explains why we’ve been twice and the bookstore is out both times.
I’m guessing we’ll see notifications on 3/16. Good Luck to all!
Ha! You’re more optimistic than me @JerseyParents. I’ll be stunned if notifications go out that early. I know they said they “shoot” for 3/15 but last year was the earliest I’ve seen notifications go out and that was on 3/21
@SpartanDrew I seem to remember Frost sends you a car decal but don’t remember gear! Maybe they’ve upped the game!!!
We were wondering about those elusive Frost shirts as well. We did not see anything in the bookstore. So DD seems to think that only admitted students are privy to Frost gear.
Gear? All we got were bumper stickers…and a pencil, I think.
So happy to hear all the good news in this thread!!! Keep it coming.
Well D is about to head home after a very productive and exhausting weekend in the studio with her Grammy camp band. What an awesome reunion they had. I was dumbfounded at the amazing music they put out in a short time. I think they recorded 3 new originals over the weekend. The collaboration was amazing. It reaffirms everything that D wants to do in her musical career. They even had a visit from the President of the local chapter of the Grammy Foundation! Pretty cool. D is going to have a hard time focusing on finishing high school with decent grades after all of her audition travel and now this great weekend. I think the weekend gave her a sneak peek on what kinds of great collaboration she can expect in college. At least that’s her goal anyway.
There is one thing that D and I talked about recently with regard to high school that I wish we had known in advance. I would say it wouldn’t be ideal for the majority of kids out there that love high school but this idea would have been great for D. She actually could have graduated a semester early had we thought about it in advance. All she needed was a math and English credit which she could have done at the local community college and been done. It would have alleviated so much stress with the current 2 C’s and a failing grade in French that she is currently sitting on from all of the missed school from audition travel. Those grades are temporary because they mark missed homework, quizzes and exams as zeros. But they are stressful to see nonetheless and she has a TON of work to make up. And missing class time for French and World Religion will be very difficult for her to do well on exams. Just some food for thought for parents of kids like mine who’s kid really isn’t enjoying their HS experience and would benefit from finishing early. D said she wished she had known about it and had done the requirements to finish early so she could just focus on her auditions and not worry about all of the missed school and make up work. And I echo everyone’s comments about not loading up on AP credit during senior year. D is taking an AP English class which she is doing well in but opted out of taking the AP exam because she knows she will not do well on it. I wish she hadn’t taken French 4 either. Oh well.
So here we are in the first full week of March madness. I don’t know why I said a week ago that I didn’t think the March wait would be too bad. I’m not sure who I was kidding… LOL I hope there are lots of posts this week of great news on college admission!!
A classmate of my son’s at Berklee received a sweatshirt along with his acceptance at Thornton.
As long as those bumper stickers some in an envelope with about $30,000 I’ll be happy! Hahahaha! Yeah right…
@bridgenail …yes a bumper sticker and a pencil. I forgot about the pencil!!
@bridgenail and @NYsaxmom , a bumper sticker and a pencil?!? So “last year”! Lol! D got some awesome shirts last year, and I’ve been advised by her that it’s called “swag” (not gear).
@SpartanDrew , my D finished her last year of High School in a Community College program for these very reasons ^. She did her first 3 years of HS at a small, heavily academic, private Catholic school where she had to intern 40 hours (a full week) per month to offset tuition. In addition to this, there were basically zero arts programs, so every bit of music and theater she did was outside of school. She was tired. We (parents) were exhausted. So D finished all but one high school credit during Fall Term, and did the last one in the Spring (after auditions). She just carried 6 credit hours of theory sequence through the tough part of audition season, and amazingly, the classes were all Tuesday/Thursday, which meant she missed fewer for audition travel. It’s not right for everyone, but it worked so well for her. I’m glad you mentioned this sort of arrangement as an alternative.
I don’t recall getting a bumper sticker or a pencil with the Frost admission. We got robbed! 
@dramasopranomom I really wish we had known about this and had looked into it. D would be so much happier and less stressed right now, as would we. She is in the same boat. Every bit of her vocal jazz study has been outside of school 100% on her own. She hasn’t even had any music theory in school, we paid someone privately for some music theory instruction but even at that, she is well behind. It’s made the music theory tests at auditions almost laughable. Her Berklee 5 week experience was good for her for theory instruction I will add. At Frost, she was able to complete the first page of the theory exam and turned it over and knew nothing. So she doodled a jazz cat! :-))
@coloraturadad hahaha! Call Frost immediately and demand some swag (lol, your D did JUST FINE even sans Frost pencil). And @SpartanDrew ugh, the theory. D’s first experience was the CC class, and Aural Skills has been a little rough for her this year (so many of the instrumentalists are way ahead in theory)… and I’m guessing the bar for jazz kids is even higher! But that’s what College is for; learning (obviously) and bringing your less strong areas up to the level of your strengths. (I heart the Jazz Cat drawing!)
I loved that drawing too! I wish she had submitted the drawing with the theory test dangit! Someone would have gotten a kick out of it for sure…
I have to agree that taking a lighter course load or graduating early can help ease the stress during auditions. My older DD chose to graduate early taking dual credit courses instead of AP’s. We were able to schedule most of her auditions second semester. This worked beautifully for her and she could focus on training hard leading up to auditions. DD currently going through auditions chose to take a slightly lighter load but graduate in May. She may be regretting taking an online math class, which I did not want her to take. Due to auditions and two overnight chorus trips/performances she is really behind in that class now. Each child has to decide what works for them. If your child plans to apply EA for any schools I would not recommend graduating early. Your fall semester will be crazy busy.
Honestly I think it is said a lot: lighten the load senior year, particularly second semester. But there is so much “noise” about what to do and not to do…and then just following the herd (meaning what the general high school population is doing) is so easy to do. It’s harder to graduate early then just sign up for classes. It’s also hard to lighten the load when friends are making challenging schedules. So, for those reading this with future music students, be aware. It may take some planning NOT to follow the herd and end up overwhelmed.
And @dramasopranomom - the struggle with music theory and aural skills for vocalists is REAL particularly freshman year…by sophomore year it was much better (meaning they get those kids on par by sophomore year). But as always in music, it is replaced by another set of challenges (some class with a research paper sucking all your practice time away…oh well…welcome to college). Still undergrad was a bit more ACADEMIC than I ever expected. So … something else to hear over the noise … music degrees can be academically challenging. Be prepared Freshman year particularly if your kid has not done a lot of music theory.