Spot on @BearHouse.
My D attended NYU as a VP major (classical or MT) and had full-time faculty give voice lessons. She had a great experience and still takes lessons with her voice teacher 5 years post graduation.
But all other music majors at NYU get adjuncts and mostly grad students in VP for voice lessons. So if you are a music ed major with voice as your instrument, or a pianist who requests voice lessons, you are not learning from the full-time VP voice faculty and probably have a grad student. Chances are you will not have the same instructor all 4 years since the grad students will move on (unless they are hired as adjuncts.)
If you are not a music major at all and take individual voice, you definitely will be taking lessons from a grad student in VP.
Last year, mine only applied to a handful of programs, and they all announced admissions and scholarships at the bitter end of March. I think itās so much more than āsenioritisā or post-audition crash or schoolwork overwhelm for these musicians. Thereās the fact that, through the last couple of years of intense program research/planning/competitions/summer programs/prescreens/audition circuit/what-have-you, theyāve gotten a taste of what kind of talent is actually out there and how much fun it is to collaborate with other high-level, like-minded musicians; regular olā high school music (let alone the rest of high school academics) can be a real let-down and feel so unimportant and uninspiring after that. Thereās the fact that the bulk of their friends have heard from schools, and most are totally relaxed now after committing and putting down housing deposits and looking at potential roommates and flashing school sweatshirts and car decals and giddy Instagram posts and snapchats. There are peers and teachers and parents and counselors asking incredulously, āyou still havenāt heard?!ā And when the busy-ness and rigor of auditions are finally over, thereās the donning reality that maybe they wonāt get into these ridiculously competitive programs (and everyone will still be demanding to know!)ā¦or, maybe even worse, they will get in, but the program wonāt be affordable and theyāll be crushed. Itās got to be excruciating to put oneās artāoneās very soulāout there to be deemed worthy or not by various powers-that-be. I suspect rejections cut deeper in the arts than in more traditional academics, too, because the arts are so subjective and feel so much more personal. The intensity of all this has to be incredibly overwhelming and distracting.
As far as being clueless about where they even want to go at this point, I think itās a defense mechanism (however subconscious)āit probably feels pretty scary to verbalize their dream (perhaps even to admit it to themselves) when they know full well how slim the odds of acceptance to many of these programs. Trust that clarity will indeed come, but not likely until after all the knowns are in.
Just another few comments on grad students as primary teachers, and regarding teacher selection in general:
- Of course the reputation of the college itself is important, not just the particular teacher. And teachers do leave, and for lots of reasons (retirement, illness, better job, etc.), however this happens much less often in certain programsā¦check on that. Also, often the fit with a primary teacher isnāt as expected, so itās always best if you are at a program where there is another excellent choice of teacher.
- An assigned grad student (primary teacher) MIGHT be amazingā¦ and might not! Also, how long will said grad student be pursuing his/her degree? Will they be teaching all 4 undergraduate years for your child? Can a trial lesson happen with this individual?
Again, when it gets down to commitment time, I strenuously recommend that no offer is accepted without written assurance of Studio placement (even if just to sayā¦āfrom a pool of faculty teachersā-or some such), and that all these factors have been investigated.
@YertleTurtle I donāt know how itās possible that you so beautifully articulated almost every single thing so perfectly that I think my D, and we as a family, are all feeling. It is just about the most accurate post right now on everything we are all feeling. From the high school musicians and HS in general to being around like minded musicians in some of these top programs. I actually have told friends that I would rather D get rejected from some of these top tier schools versus accepted with a paltry merit amount that would make it impossible for her to attend.
We just had a āfamily meetingā with hubby coming home from work so we could talk to D calmly. (hence hubby coming home from work to temper the mother/daughter angst). Thanks to advice from many of you, some privately, we told her our concerns, listened to hers (as she held her head with another migraine coming onā¦ugh) and came up with a plan of action. She has some action items she needs to do starting with emailing her AP English teacher to set a time to talk to him about the assignment load. Hoping he will waive some, knowing he likely wonāt but also hoping he will compromise and assign her something else, like an essay, that can encompass the current 6 missing assignments which are all detailed notes on every single chapter of Hamlet. I think Iād be stressed and overwhelmed too if that was on my back. I am emailing the French teacher to set up times that she can complete the speaking assignments and hopefully she should be back on track. It takes a village.
Thanks all for all of your amazing words of wisdom. @rockinmomab I read your comments to hubby and D word for word about stresses, college classes and assignments she wonāt want to do, time management, all of it. We all have stuff in our life we donāt want to do but have to do. She should know that because she is hating high school at the moment, having to do things you donāt want to do will still continue in her life. I wish I could do the I Dream Of Genie eye blink and have HS end for her right now. But I canāt so we have to muddle through.
Is there a way we can nominate @YertleTurtle post to have it pinned to the top of the music major main thread? It says everything!
I second that @Melodyminor!!!
The best advice Iāve ever read on CC comes from Bass Dad in his āSo You Want To Be a Music Majorā thread. I highly recommend it to anyone who hasnāt yet read it. http://talk.qa.collegeconfidential.com/music-major/258796-so-you-want-to-be-music-major-one-familys-experience.html
SpartanDrew, my sympathies on helping your D navigate the end of this process and her school year. Mine experienced the re-development of a chronic illness (that had been abated for 6 years) during her audition season and spring musical. It then lasted almost a year. Head down, one step at a time, I told her.
Wow @samz95 , what an excellent thread!!! Why do any of the rest of us need to say anything at all?!? Such a great read! Thank you!
So we just spent the last two hours with S in lockdown on campus at NU. It was a swatting hoax, but we were tolda gunman on campus and everyone to stay put. S was in the gym and they locked them in there for about 2 hours. Very scary.
Parenting is not for wimps.
@NYCMusicDad excellent reply. @SpartanDrew it is true, most HS teachers want their students to do well and will offer extra credit to help bolster a less than optimal grade. This is the last lap so I would definitely circumvent my child and speak with each teacher to come up with a plan. And I also agree that once she has a college decision made, she will feel better, and that it is a great learning moment that we all have to do things we hate as well as the things we love! Itās called adulting!!! When my clan shirk responsibilities I remind them they want me to treat them like an adult not a kid, and that requires they act like an adult in the tough parts to reap the benefits!
@BassTheatreMom that is terrifying!!! I canāt even imagine. I wonder if it was during the walkouts? What is a swatting hoax?
@samz95 WOW. I had honestly never read that. I guess we could have saved around half of the posts on this thread reading that! @Melodyminor pointed out to me we are all currently sitting at INstallment #9 from that post:
"Installment #9, Endgame
After auditions are over, the month of March stretches on forever. You will swear that entire years have passed in less time than March of senior year. Instead of a weekly trip to a dynamic, new city where your son or daughter meets fascinating people exactly their age who share their most deeply-held interests, they are now stuck at home with the same boring crew in a place they canāt wait to leave with too much missed schoolwork to make up. With the initial excitement of auditions long past and all of the pressure suddenly off, the high point of the day is now the arrival of the mail. The low point occurs 15 seconds later when they realize that another day has passed without the arrival of THE LETTER. Slowly, one by one, the rejections, waitlistings and prized acceptances finally start to dribble in. Inevitably, the most important one shows up last."
This 100% encompasses EXACTLY how we are all feeling at the moment. Every single one of us.
Hang in there @SpartanDrew . Itās not easy and please keep the communication going between your D, teachers and advisors. I am sure in the end it will all work out and become a character builder for all parties. @samz95 , thank you for reviving that excellent thread. It is a must read for all of those families going through the process. Again, good luck to all during this final stretch. It is imminent that during these days where the most competitive music schools will be delivering their decisions, there is a high probability of rejections and deferrals. Remember, in many cases, talent is subjective on the eyes of the evaluators and you simply do not know what they are looking for. Ana Maria Martinez (soprano) said it very eloquently on her Living Smart interview on dealing with rejections, āThink yourself as a color, you are a green, a wonderful and beautiful green, but they might be looking for a red.ā
@SpartanDrew Itās a hoax designed to get the SWAT team out somewhere. Often someone will call in a crime at an address wehere nothing is going on just to freak out the people that live there. Today someone called the police and said that he had shot his girlfriend in the graduate dorm. SWAT came. Campus locked down for two hours while they made certain there wasnāt a nut with a gun walking around campus. Iām glad it was a hoax and no one was really shot, but still this guy is pure evil. I really hope that catch him.
@BassTheatreMom My D was also locked down in the gym. Wonder if your S and my D were commiserating. Pretty horrible.
@SpartanDrew Installment #9 I hate you.
@momzhood It was horrible. I was sitting at my desk texting with him and refreshing several different windows trying ot understand what was happening. Scary afternoon. So glad they are okay.
Arizona State University is a yes! Talent scholarship of 8K and merit of 4k. Brings total tuition down approximately to an in-state level. Again, may not move the needle off of UC Irvine but at least she will have options to consider!
Installment #9 is worse than all of the negatives associated with 1-8 put together. The thought of airport layovers, prescreen video mishaps, essays and flu dodging sound like a romantic fantasy.