I know some of you have already made visits. Do you have any tips about where to stay, what transportation is like (is it doable without a car), and any tips about reducing cost, as well as fun things we should do while we’re there?
We’re potentially visiting the following schools: USC, UNT, Loyola (New Orleans), Columbia Chicago, CU Denver, The New School, Berklee, and UArts (Philadelphia). The one that is the most mysterious to me is UNT. I’m accustomed to city travel, but I don’t know how we can get around in Denton without a car. (I can’t drive.)
We’ll definitely be choosing among these schools. Visiting them all would probably cost as much as we have saved for the whole first year of college. The most probable visits are UNT, USC and Denver.
We recently visited Miami, and I can offer a couple things, though I don’t know much and was only there for 3 days. The Metrorail is easy, cheap and goes right to the university. Uber to the airport was easy. We visited the Viscaya Museum & Gardens. The whole place was gorgeous, and I recommend it. Bonus: There was a cool walkway from the metrorail to the museum grounds.
My kid auditioned at 6 schools several years ago on what might be considered the super low budget tour. The only overlap of schools on your list is USC, but he did travel to Boston, NYC and Philadelphia.
Not for everyone, but mine opted to travel without a parent. Partly to reduce cost but mostly because he is an independent and responsible kid and it made him feel more confident to go alone.
Some ideas for cost savings:
Consider using an airline affiliated credit card. I dislike credit cards, but we were able to get the last few flights on points.
USC, as well as schools you have in Boston, NYC and Philly are all easy to access by Uber from the airport. All but USC are easy to sight see on foot or with public transportation. USC is a lovely campus, but other areas of LA (beaches, Hollywood) are not adjacent. The area has less than stellar public transportation.
Philadelphia to NYC is very close by train. Mine was able to audition in Philly, grab dinner to go and audition in NYC the next morning.
In terms of lodging, mine either stayed with a friend in the dorm/city or I was able to book through Airbnb.
I can’t tell you much in about things to do as my kid generally was not in any city for more than a full day. He did treat himself to a nice meal and I think a museum or two when he had time.
Hope this helps.
@thumper1 We’re in the NW. It would be possible to go to Denver by car. Because of gas prices, though, I think it’s cheaper to fly. All the others are far from us. Miami was about as far as you can get and still be in the US.
@anotheroboemom thank you for your ideas! My kid assumed he was going alone to save on cost, and I think he would be fine to go by himself for a few of these in the future, but I told him I was coming along to Miami. I wanted to get a feel for the school, too, in case we can’t visit again when he’s making his decisions. The flights there are almost double the cost of the other cities.
My idea kind of flopped. I learned we should visit on a weekday in addition to audition day. It was hard to get a feel for what it’s like to go to school there, and the audition-day-tour was crowded and quick.
I’ve thought about a credit card, and you’ve inspired me to look into it again today. I talked with two different companies about their hidden fees and timelines, etc, and I think if we start spending money immediately (no problem!), we could save on at least one trip.
You will likely find this to be the case at most schools. The focus of audition day is of course all about selecting the best candidates on the part of the school and performing at your best on the part of the students. There may be a tour or an opportunity to see a recital, but I wouldn’t count on it.
I will say my son seemed to have a really good feel for each program after only a few hours there. And luckily his personal preference matched the financially feasible option. Because the cost becomes a huge consideration after the acceptances roll in.
Right now, his top choice is an expensive school. I hope that on a few trips he’ll find that there are programs and vibes* that he likes just as much at a variety of schools. There are such fun programs in great cities with industry connections.
Will you qualify for need-based financial aid at any/all of these schools? Every school has a Net Price Calculator which you can use to get a good idea of what financial aid they will offer. However, if parents are divorced or own a small business, then the calculators may not be as accurate.
Also, will you have any other kids in college for any of the years that will overlap with your music major?
Another thing to check…at some colleges, music performance majors can get music performance merit awards but not also need based aid (except entitlements like the Pell Grant).
This student is auditioning…and the Net Price Calculators have exactly zero way to predict the strength of this student’s audition relative to others doing auditions on the same instrument.
We qualify for aid at some of the schools, though “aid” includes a suggestion to take a loan. (Thanks for the idea, right? ) We should be able to bring prices down to reality for several of them with a combination of actual aid and some known scholarships they give based on GPA. For example, Loyola will give 25K for anyone with his GPA.
The net price calculators have been a great tool in getting me that far. However, as I look at each calculator, I can’t help but feel like for a music major scholarships are a great unknown that a calculator made for a general audience can’t estimate. Do you think that’s true or not? I see parents throughout this forum giving examples of talent scholarships that are much larger than the calculator suggests, and that would definitely make a school doable for us. That’s why we’ve kept some expensive ones on our list.
I realize that some schools promise to “meet need” and others don’t make any such promises. Miami and USC are particularly squishy ones for me to understand. Miami says they’ll meet 100% of need, but they recalculate need using the CSS, which is not in our favor. It’s not a need-blind school, which makes me of course wonder how that plays into acceptances. The USC calculator turns up $0 aid (leaving us with a bill of almost 3x our EFC).
Thank you, I am learning about how scholarships get stacked or divided up. Loyola is very clear about that in their materials, for example, and it’s nice to know up front that there will be one total offer. We might have a couple outside scholarships, too, and it’s disheartening to know that those will probably reduce our aid instead of helping us more, after putting in the effort to get them. Hopefully, the schools will let them replace loans.
Yes, that’s what I was thinking. Nor the way that the student might meet the school’s need, for example to fill in ensembles. Or perhaps a professor makes a connection and really wants to teach a particular kid. These feel like complete unknowns. I guess the answer is to wait, which I’m not good at.
Uber and Lyft are readily available, both to and from either DFW or DAL and around Denton.
Public transportation:
There’s rail/bus connections around Denton and to/fromDallas county and the airport. This is not fastest but is most affordable. It might not work for all flight times so you’d need to check the schedules.
There are also bus routes around town and around campus and to nearby apartment areas. There’s an app for the bus routes but I don’t have specific information about it.
Hotel option:
The Hampton Inn on Centre Place Drive is right on the UNT bus route to campus and is nice. I stayed there several times when my son lived at an apartment complex next door. There are not restaurants nearby but there are some near campus.
Other choices would be the Best Western or Fairfield Inn on University. Those are near more food options but less close to a bus route.
You may also be able to find an Airbnb walking distance to campus, but I haven’t tried that. They’ll all be busy on audition weekends so book soon.
When my son auditioned we flew in a day early and he sat in on classes the day before audition day. He really enjoyed that and it was very helpful. UNT provided a list of available classes and he let them know which ones he wanted to visit as I recall. He had a shorter list of schools (applied and auditioned at only four) so the extra day in Denton was manageable for him. Barely.
Financial aid at UNT: any scholarship of $1000 or more will get you an out of state tuition waiver. My son got a $1000 music scholarship and a larger academic scholarship. Our total cost after scholarships (no other aid) was about 2.5k for tuition and 10k for room and board for freshman year. It’s probably a bit more now.
Columbia college Chicago —
Chicago is easy to get around without a car.
My D went to college in Chicago (Illinois Tech). She loved being in the city and is still in the area.
I enjoyed staying at the Palmer House Hilton. It’s pretty affordable in winter and very centrally located. Couldn’t afford it in summer. There’s lots of other choices though.
USC also uses the CSS Profile, although they no longer use home equity in their financial aid calculations.
As I recall, their NPC may still ask about home equity. If it does, try running it without a home equity component and see if that helps. And if it does, call their financial aid office to confirm that they don’t use home equity. They made that announcement a couple of years ago, but it is good to confirm.
Also, though, if you take out home equity per my previous post and USC is still too high, definitely call the music department and ask if they give merit scholarships for your son’s area of music because not all Thornton disciplines are eligible for music merit scholarships. And also ask about the range of what they offer, because if tops out at a low amount (which I think some of the disciplines do) it may not be worth the effort to audition.
Unless his academics put him in the running for one of USC’s generous academic scholarships?
Thank you for this important information. He did apply on time for scholarship consideration, and his grades are excellent, but not perfect, which I’m guessing you need to be. I’ll find out more about the music scholarships for jazz studies. I appreciate it.
) We should be able to bring prices down to reality for several of them with a combination of actual aid and some known scholarships they give based on GPA. For example, Loyola will give 25K for anyone with his GPA.