S had a slight feeling like that with DePaul in Chicago. It’s nearby, great city, great school, but it was kind of like [1] getting experience from a different part of the jazz gene pool perhaps and [2] not getting afraid to travel out from the home base - so start off by traveling out.
I think the bigger picture here for us is to find a school where she can pursue both vocal jazz as well as commercial music which seems to really narrow the list quite a bit. Jacobs has jazz but I didn’t see anything on commercial music. IU is a fantastic school and Jacobs SOM also fantastic right along with it but I don’t think it’s the right fit for her.
Sorry I haven’t been able to get back here sooner. Looks like I’m a little rusty at posting here and my last post had several interpretations. Maybe my comments need a little back up.
Let me start by saying that SUNY Purchase is a wonderful school and has some amazing programs. There are many employed artisits who have gone here. My child applied and auditioned here because they have an amazing program with a great reputation. The fact that this school is very affordable makes it even more competitive to get into than we realized at the time. My child has friends there who love it and are doing well. This is why we were so confused by our personal experience during our visit. These things could have happened/be relavant at any school. This school dropped lower on my DD list as she began to realize that she truly prefered a school within a city.
Sometimes it is events like this that push one along the path to find the best environment for each student. No matter how much my D may have liked the program, this was not the right place for her. This is all part of the journey.
diglass, I think this is a class act response to a cautionary post that maybe I should not have written,but there are genuinely times when I think we need to be fair to schools and you have done exactly that 
Quite awhile ago I got a wake up call when I noticed how many people read threads on CC and can only imagine how many search for comments on particular schools. It is so easy to feel we are all having a nice chat!
Hope all is forgiven and I think it is so nice of you to make things right.
I agree that it is important to bring up the positives and the negatives, but there also is a line there, too, where it should move from the public to the private. For example, I would recommend not talking about negatives with specific teachers, especially where kids are either studying with them or have studied with them, music is a small world and things like that should be shared in private. Broad based positives and negatives are fine, though, with programs. For example, with NYU school of music (talking classical here, not contemporary or recording or whatnot) I would put as a positive where the school is, its access to culture in NYC, but I also would say in my opinion it is extremely expensive, they don’t give much aid, and given the level of the program to me it isn’t worth paying that kind of money (and for the record, I paid that kind of money for my S to go to conservatory, so not saying it is only about the money)…but I would not talk about individual teachers in public. All schools have positives and negatives, and keep in mind that what is a positive for some would drive someone else nuts, some people would love to be on the campus of let’s say Michigan or Indiana (big, midwestern schools) others would hate it …
One thing is you always have to read what people are saying and ask why they are saying what they do, and if someone writes something publicly it may be wise to ask questions of why they feel like they do. There have been tons of discussions on here about Julliard, for example, and being the name it is there have been to say rather ‘empassioned’ discussions about it, all kinds of stories and negative stuff, ranging from those who think the sun never sets on the Juilliard Empire while others who think it is the Evil empire smile. One thing I would encourage is when being negative, talk about why you are saying that, saying “the admissions department sucks” doesn’t tell anyone anything, saying “from what my son and friends of his went through, they are very bureaucratic and unhelpful”. Saying “The music program sucks” doesn’t help, but saying “they have lost a lot of the faculty that gave them their reputation have left, the facilities have been left to fall apart, the kids they are getting seemed to my S/D not to really care about ensemble playing”, those give something for others to think about…also, someone else seeing the negative comment might shed light on 'yeah, I agree with that" or might say “That was true X years ago, but they have hired new faculty, they have stiffended their admissions requirements, etc”.
@musicprnt excellent excellent commentary and I agree wholeheartedly. I also agree that one should never call out a specific teacher in a negative way on this board. Everyone learns differently from different profs. Plus, and I’m not sure this is a thing in the music world or not, but in my son’s case as an engineering student at a large university, there is a specific forum for students to go on and rate their profs with very specific detailed info on them.
Anyway, again appreciate your thoughts as to being specific on comments both positive and negative. I don’t think this forum is here for everyone to sugar coat and only put a positive spin on everything. But I also agree that with negative comments should come specifics as to why they experienced what they did. It helps put everything into perspective. And you are right as well with different strokes for different folks. My D has zero interest in IU or Michigan not because they’re not great schools with top notch music programs but because she wants to get outta the midwest.
Just remember it’s the Internet and go private when it seems better. That’s really it.
I think factual negatives are fine but subjective ones should be clarified or qualified as such- or go on PM.
In my experience, much of the real life of the music forum goes on via PM.
@SpartanDrew, I see that Frost is high in your D’s list as it should. I was very impressed with the school at our visit this year during my D’s audition. A piece of advice though, don’t trust too much their piano accompanists and have your D ready to keep singing during the audition if the accompanist messes up. Good thing we were ready for this during my D’s audition since we were able to schedule a rehearsal with the accompanist the previous day and foresaw the problem. Good luck with the process and please have fun during this rollercoaster ride!
Maybe too small of a topic for its own thread - “Things that may trip you up at an audition”, so I’ll just reply here about the accompanist note from @coloraturadad - it seems a “thing” that a bassist audition will have a drummer to drift above and/or below tempo to see if the bassist tries to draw them back on track or is drawn into the changed tempo. When S did his vocal jazz audition at Frost, he reported that something unexpected happened (I can’t remember exactly), like the piano just kept on playing past the expected endpoint or some such - so he just kept singing along or whatever he felt the smoothest choice would be to address the unexpected. Maybe this is not the same type of observation made above, but it reminded me of that.
Recently my D was on stage and someone twisted their ankle. Everyone had to improvise and keep the show going. Thankfully it was not serious.
As parents, we invest a lot of time, money and emotions into this process. It’s very frustrating to have “given it your all” (meaning you and your student) to have an accompanist be sub par or something weird happen. Your kid gets 5 minutes after weeks, months and even years of prep…and the accompanist is banging everything out at the wrong tempo (even after you discussed tempo)! How UNFAIR. You want (expect) a certain amount of professionalism from the almighty (expensive) college for your precious child. That’s completely understandable.
Still, an audition is a “live performance”. Every teacher in the room has been on stage when something went wrong. You are auditioning to “perform”. So…when things do go wrong in front of your “audience”, what do you do? You don’t stop. You don’t ask for a do-over. You don’t make faces or excuses. You “perform”! And you trust the teachers get it. They know when something is going wrong, and at that point, it’s best to handle the situation with poise and grace.
And as said above, some of it may be intentional…some of it could just be bad luck.
@coloraturadad thank you so much for that great heads up! I hadn’t even thought about scheduling a rehearsal with the accompanist so will do that for sure for every live audition wherever possible. Really interesting comments on that.
D has experienced this exact thing live on a few occasions. One in particular, and it’s a long over the top story but suffice it to say she was accompanied by her own jazz pianist for a jazz night at school versus the “chosen” pianist from the school which ruffled some feathers (particularly said “chosen” pianist). Her pianist (a local pro that backs her on all of her audition videos and live performances) elected to use the “chosen” pianist’s keys versus bringing his own and D was the last one up to sing. She and her accompanist hadn’t rehearsed on these keys since they’d rehearsed a thousand times before. She started her ballad and I saw her discreetly take a step back and whisper to her pianist but didn’t catch his attention so she refocused and continued the song like a champ. I knew something was up but had no idea what since she finished the performance and it sounded great. Turns out, the “chosen” pianist had reset the keyboard to a different key and hadn’t informed her pianist of this or changed it back so when he started to play and she started the song she realized it was in a much lower key than she sang it in. Yikes! Oddly enough, she sang it in the new lower key and found some warm tones and range that she hadn’t in the other key. Happy accident and ultimately a great lesson in pushing on through regardless of what seemingly isn’t quite right on stage. No one was the wiser except for perhaps her and 2 piano players. So @bridgenail I could totally appreciate your final comment!! 
I have never heard of at an audition an accompanyist deliberately ‘testing’ a kid auditioning (caveat, obviously, can’t claim this covers much more than classical music, and the kids/schools I have heard of directly or indirectly). From what I know of the classical world that wouldn’t make much sense to do, while obviously classical musicians face things like that, a conductor who screws up, or recovering when they enter early, etc, it just doesn’t seem to be something they look for on an audition IMO (on the other hand, if a slip up happens, how a student recovers is probably noted I would guess).
Bad things do happen in auditions as in real life, accompanyists can screw up, a student can have a bow slip out of their hands, strings break, all kinds of things, and it is part of the process for good or bad, and to be honest you can’t dwell on that, because IMO it becomes a self fulfilling prophesy (and yeah, I have had long talks with my S about this, who can fret about things). As i think I mentioned, he faced it with his audition at NEC where a parent somehow decided to go into the audition room and scream at the panel when he was getting ready to play, it happens.
The thing to remember is unless the panel is full of genuine idiots, all of them have been through this and understand, they know and understand how nerves and other factors play in. All I can tell you is my S has had some auditions with schools and high level music festivals where he thought he had thrown it away, and he got in, others where he thought it went brilliantly, didn’t do so well, and I would emphasize that to the kids, that audition panels do understand and in the end what they think is fatal may not be (a kid who has a memory slip in a concerto may be okay, a kid who plays with consistently bad intonation won’t be, one is a slip, the other is bad playing).
So true.
So I’d love some input from those who suggested putting together a college audition season spreadsheet. We are doing exactly that. D is at Berklee right now doing the 5 week program. So far, only a couple days in but I can say I’m not too impressed with the organization (or lack thereof) especially when it comes to basic things like not having the cafeteria open during any of the free times that D can actually eat a meal. As much as we are paying for this program I’m not thrilled that she’s eating goldfish for breakfast and running to class… Grrr. Her last class ends at 5:50 this evening and she has to sprint to get to one of 2 evening auditions that start at 6pm then another at 8pm. Looks like she will miss dinner as well. That being said, it certainly leaves a negative overall impression going into audition season.
Here is what I have so far to put into the spreadsheet. I’m going to have DH makes something up. I hate spreadsheets TBO and would like something that’s in an easily readable format with large text boxes to read comments at a glance like what is required for pre-screen videos etc. Please comment on any additions, subtractions or anything else you think we need to add of importance!
Prescreen video requirements (need decent size box for text)
Live audition date/time
Common App Yes/No
Ranking based on top choices
Merit aid $$
Tuition
Total cost
THANK YOU!
Like I said in an earlier post. Do not judge school based on Summer Program!!! Completely different worlds!
OK but I will say I’ve heard it’s tough to get meals during the cafeteria’s open times. But thanks for that. A bit frustrating…
Two comments:
On the spreadsheet, “mine” was pretty simple (as I did this not my D). Name of school, pre-screen required, dates due, what music needed, possible audition dates, plus general application dates for the school (with an eye on scholarship deadlines). I also checked essays needed at some point in the fall as those seemed to eat up a lot of time…even the short ones. It was just a page or two…and very date and materials-required driven. I work full time so I would look at “everything” over a weekend and then a week later I couldn’t remember anything! So it helped to have it all in one place for a quick glance so I could assure myself that the basics were getting done. As we got into audition season it did grow into audition dates, hotels, flights, school info etc and finally tuition (although all had been checked prior for “affordability”). I did not do pros/cons or rankings…leaving that more to my D.
As for frustration with the summer program, you may (or may not) find that it is a good growth opportunity for your D. I’m not trying to excuse the program or your frustration…but believe it or not…feeding oneself properly in college can be a real challenge for kids as no one is thinking about it while doing schedules (but you!)…so she may be learning some lessons early that will pay dividends later.
Great point @bridgenail! It’s truly a learning experience in and of itself.
Thanks @bridgenail for all of the above comments. Yes I agree on the learning part of it but speaking for the summer program as a stand alone, when we are paying over $1000 per week for room and board and her classes are such that she can’t get to the caf to get a meal before or after due to them being closed or not having food out when they say they will that’s just not cool. She’s off paying for another meal out of her pocket…AGAIN. That’s unacceptable to me. She is a vegetarian and prone to migraine headaches when she doesn’t get regular protein/meals. Today, she has classes/auditions that made all 3 meals impossible for her to eat in the caf. :-L
It’s also a good point for the college search. There are definitely schools that do NOT hand hold at all. Your meals are not their business; and they make no apologies for a crazy schedule. My D went to IU for undergrad where hand holding or concern for schedules were at a zero by the administration (but teachers did advocate for students who ended up with crazy rehearsal schedules particularly if it will impact the voice - my D being one of them - so I’m not trying to say IU didn’t care - but explain the environment in general). It is important to understand that there are many students who are just fine with these schedules. They may even thrive on it.
You should watch to see how your D handles this. This is not a good/bad thing. It’s just figuring out the best environment in which your D can thrive. My D tends to be more rigid with schedules and expectations so…it was one of her biggest challenges in UG. In the performance world, schedules are often “off”. So she has had to learn how to fuel herself and work odd hours. It’s not second nature for her (but it is for others). So maybe that is why your comment resonates with me. She is young so how your D deals with the situation could definitely inform your college selection process to be sure she is in an UG program where she can learn those skills at her own pace as opposed to be thrown into the deep end of the pool (as may be happening now).