<p>My S2 is a rising HS junior and is just beginning his college search. He will be a voice performance major. We are a family of very modest means and we're wondering how we are going to be able to afford auditions/sample lessons, etc. especially for East Coast and Midwest schools. Does anyone have any ideas? S's voice teacher has said that he can probably submit DVDs for auditions, but we're wondering if anyone has experience with that. </p>
<p>Once S2 can drive (he's only 15) we're hoping he'll get a part-time job, but probably not during the school year due to a busy schedule. I'm not sure he's going to be able to afford to fly all over the country on a part-time burger flipper job. </p>
<p>Right now, he is including Texas schools on his list but only one (SMU) is really a good fit for him. I'd like him to look at Rice, but he's intimidated by the academics.</p>
<p>Voice teacher has offered to take S2 to NYC with him the next time he goes to have a couple sample lessons. (Don't worry, our D1 who lives in DC has offered to drive up to chaperone. Although I'm more concerned about D1 and very cute male voice teacher than any impropriety with S2!)</p>
<p>So, what universities/conservatories accept DVD auditions and is it a good idea? Do any schools have regional auditions in TX (preferably Dallas, but we could drive to Houston). Any other ideas for families who have no extra cash to spare?</p>
<p>D did a California regional audition , a few years back, for UNT with great success. But frequently it can cut your student out of the running for scholarship money. Check with each school. Just curious, but are UNT, Moores (Houston) and UT (Austin) on your list? We know of several good singers who have come out of these programs. Lots of cheap and fantastic instate programs in Texas!!</p>
<p>UT-Austin and UNT are on S’s list - but he is hesitant about being on such large campuses. He’d prefer a smaller school, but he’ll probably audition at one or both of them since he has an auto-admit academically and they are affordable. He has several friends at UT who enjoy it. UNT is less desirable due to its location.</p>
<p>Those auditions certainly add significant cost to the application process. If finances are a concern, I would also recommend identifying a couple of excellent “safety” (insert traditional warning that no audition programs are ever true safeties here) where your child might well be awarded significant merit scholarship money. With the possibility of getting thousands of dollars over the course of an undergraduate education, those auditions might well be worth the travel expense in the long run.</p>
<p>It may be different for guitarists, but my son did exactly zero sample lessons. There just wasn’t time to fly all over the place, he knew where he was going to apply, and we combined auditions with visits/tours. He was accepted nearly everywhere that mattered (in fact it was a couple “safeties” who declined him, so maybe his lack of interest showed.) At the time, several people here PM’d me and told me that although it was against conventional wisdom, they did not do sample lessons either. </p>
<p>Again, these may be more important for voice or other other instruments. I simply don’t know.</p>
<p>As for merit money, his top choices are known for giving only a little, and he got… only a little. I’m quite sure sample lessons wouldn’t have changed that, but it may indeed for other schools.</p>
<p>No sample lessons here either. And no college visits, although my son had already spent time on campus at a couple of the colleges he applied at. Just a lot of research on the web. </p>
<p>I guess we are really plain people, not nearly as “high faluten” as most of you guys. Never considered that sample lessons were all that important, although ultimately he did meet the studio professors at most of the colleges, and it did factor into his decision.</p>
<p>As far as scholarships, his largest offer was at his first choice school (that we still couldn’t afford even after $30k in scholarship/financial aid money), his second largest scholarship offer was at his last choice school (which he decided not to attend due to being accepted at “better” colleges - despite that he could have gone to that school basically for free). We (his parents) will be paying $2500/semester (after all financial aid), including room and board, for the college that he enrolled in and I think that’s pretty reasonable.</p>
<p>DD had a classmate who only auditioned via DVD because she was from Canada. She was accepted into Rice with merit money but I don’t know how much. So it is not out of the question, but you probably have to be really top notch. </p>
<p>DD did her sample lessons after she was accepted and when she was deciding on final choice, when $$ had already been factored in to it. that way she only made 3 trips for sample lessons. She did travel for in person auditions. She received several good merit awards. Some scheduled lessons during auditions to save travel. </p>
<p>How are his academics? That can really help with the merit money if also good academically. Now is the time to step it up if he can. When looking for funds every avenue should be left open. </p>
<p>Re Rice academics, if his stat profile is at least the 25 percentile of last year’s numbers he would be fine with the classes. He won’t be taking the really heavy hitting classes and they don’t expect the music students to have the same numbers. The audition will be the most important.</p>
<p>'When looking for funds every avenue should be left open."</p>
<p>Too true. Even if you THINK that his academics are not up to par, you should still apply for academic merit aid. As an undergrad, D’s toughest admit (in academics) matched her music merit aid with the top amount for academic merit aid. She had a “less than glorious” 3.5 average with “less than stellar” SAT’s. If a music school wants to make the offer more attractive, they will sometimes contact the administration for academic scholarships and come up with funds. The offer really took us by surprise.</p>
<p>OP here: Since he’s just entering junior year - he doesn’t have any test scores yet. He’s near the top of his class - but that’s at an urban fine arts magnet which isn’t known for its academics. He should get accepted at any state school academically as he will be in top 8% of class. He also has a guaranteed half-tuition scholarship at several United Methodist schools including Oklahoma City U, Baldwin-Wallace, Otterbein, and Boston U. Other Methodist schools will give him some guaranteed $ since he has a parent who is clergy. So…if he could find a Methodist school that he likes and can get in…he’s set. His voice teacher would like him to try for conservatories, but I just don’t see the financials falling into place - he’d have to get almost full tuition. </p>
<p>Several kids from his high school are current VP majors (UT, Rice, Baylor, OCU, Otterbein), although most are MT, and I don’t think any of them did sample lessons. Maybe I’ve just been reading CC too much! I was thinking that EVERYONE did it.</p>
<p>Sample lessons aren’t required, people generally recommend them as a means of seeing which teachers a student would want to work with and potentially also “'get them in their eye” so to speak, which helps with admissions only in that at most schools, a teacher has to agree to teach a student (the schools generally don’t ‘assign’ teachers to students), so if they have seen the teacher before it might make the teacher more inclined to take them on (I am saying might, because it could also be the teacher doesn’t remember the kids they did sample lessons with…). In any event, it isn’t required.</p>
<p>Conventional wisdom has it that it is better to audition in person, that it beats DVD and regional auditions,but a lot of students probably can’t do that (especially with all the international students, from China and Korea and eastern Europe, I can’t see how every one of them flies to schools in the US to audition) so it isn’t like it isn’t done. It also doesn’t hurt to talk to the admissions office about financially not being able to audition in person and asking what they recommend, I have found the admissions people I have talked to are generally more then willing to help, and they might have suggestions on what to do to make it work out given your particulars.</p>
He may want to keep a few of these that interest him the most in the mix, but make sure he really understands the $$ before you start the process. </p>
<p>We told ours what we would contribute and what scholarship $$ would have to be to close the gap. We would not allow loans for VP major. She had to turn down a couple of her top choices because money did not work out, but some we did not think would come through did. By having a good distribution of auditions it sorted itself out and she had several good choices in the end. . </p>
<p>Her final decision was she did not want a separate conservatory. She wanted the university experience. But she also changed her mind on the top candidate all the way to final decisions time. If a conservatory lines up to be good for her for grad school, that will be a different story. Voice takes a while to develop, they have time to enjoy a more diverse education.</p>
<p>OP, we only did the equivalent of sample lessons (advance/casual portfolio review/meeting dept. staff) with four out of 8 schools, and some of them we did on a shoe string so that son could afford his share (which was our deal – 50/50, so that he had some skin in the game and chose his visits carefully – it was a good budgeting lesson for him). (We did visit two additional schools, but for different disciplines.) I encouraged my S. to save ahead to pay for his share, and to take a train or bus in cases where I either couldn’t go or the flights seemed excessive. Eg. in Chicago, he stayed at the youth hostel for $35 a night and got there by train. Etc.</p>
<p>NYC was the most expensive trip (even though Nashville was further away) but he was also able to take trains to additional schools on the east coast very cost effectively and there is an International Youth Hostel on the upper west side that is not toooo terrible (compared to an unfortunate choice in Greenwich near NYU ;)</p>
<p>So I guess if he feels he would benefit from the lesson/meeting, it IS possible to manage the process over two years and on a student budget, but certainly not necessary to hone in on more than a few key programs that are pre-researched. Eg. listening to the music of the studio leaders; talking via the web to other students in the programs; closely reviewing both the school material AND the actual course offerings, etc.</p>
<p>In our case, the in-person time was especially fruitful, as we were able to identify a nuance to one program in person that we could not tell remotely and that rendered it a poor fit for my son’s interest. And I don’t know if there is a connection, but he had made two department visits to his first choice AND sat in on classes AND received the most merit money from that school (which was where he chose to go.)</p>
<p>Otterbein is generous with aid. Unless it has changed, you can see from the website what he will get depending on academics. On top of that, they give a merit award for talent. There was also another smaller award based on an essay. The VP major is a small one and it will help that he is a boy - more money likely. My D and I both really liked it there - small, beautiful campus, nice area and some of the nicest people we met. It would be great if he could visit. My D did a sample lesson while she was there for the audition. </p>
<p>UNT is a great choice. I think he may find that being a music major is different from being in the general population. It is like being in a smaller school within a school so don’t let size cause him to miss out on a good program.</p>
<p>Also, Baldwin Wallace was very generous with aid this past season. Besides academic and talent money they also included grant money so it brought the overall cost down below our cost for NYS instate tuition, room and board (our home state). BW is a very warm, nurturing, small campus with great access to Cleveland. They even run a free shuttle for the music students to Cleveland Orchestra concerts and get $10 tickets to the concerts. I would have been very happy to have son go there but he decided he would rather stay in NY.</p>
<p>OP, one big problem with taking sample lessons at this point in time is that he is very young and there is simply no way that he is competitive vocally with 17-19 year olds with age and more training under their belts. Therefor, I would not recommend your son being heard at any of the big east coast schools for 12-18 months. Additionally, those schools are not known to be generous with financial aid.
Your son can work while in college, plenty of kids do it, including mine, and that will help out. Obviously you are quite worried about finances (aren’t we all?!), so although your son may not be crazy about the location or size of UT(Austin) or UNT, the schools have good reputations and the cost is reasonable; he may well have to compromise on some of his requirements. I know a couple of young people who eliminated those schools for the same reason- too large- but they were able to audition, get accepted and manage tuition at major conservatories; that’s not the case for everyone. In addition, they were very strong academically and could maintain high GPAs while taking 21+ credits, which is required at several of the top conservatories (such as Rice and CIM) which have their VP majors taking full academic loads in addition to their music classes.
Do look at UNT, UT(Austin) and for out of state, the suggestion of Baldwin-Wallace is a good one. It’s a small school, with gorgeous, brand-new conservatory facilities opening this fall.</p>
<p>Consider Columbus State University in Columbus, GA. My D will start her fourth year, double majoring in voice and theatre education. I have been extremely pleased with the facilities, teachers and cost. The main campus is in a different part of the city, but the fine arts schools are downtown, very modern and beautiful. The music facilities, school and venues, are possibly the nicest I have seen anywhere. Her voice training has been very good. </p>
<p>CSU is working towards being the best music program in GA, I think they are there. I know several students from out of state that were granted in state tuition, and there are many available scholarships on top of that.</p>
<p>I don’t know if they will accept auditions other than live, but if your S could fly to Atlanta, there is a cheap shuttle from Atl airport to Columbus and back, and I bet the school could work out for him to spend the night on campus.</p>
<p>If he chose CSU, it would be an extremely reasonable 4 year education. My daughter considered many other schools, all outside of GA. Some were the schools you have mentioned. CSU was the last school she visited and her 1st choice by a wide margin.</p>