I am applying to major in Classical Voice. I am a female and a senior in high school.
I currently attend an all-girls private high school in Los Angeles, California. The classes I am currently taking at school are as follows:
AP Psychology
AP English Literature and Composition
Spanish 4
AP U.S. Government and Politics
Statistics
Religion (Catholic school)
My music experience: I have an extraordinary amount of choral experience. I have sung with the Los Angeles Children’s Chorus for 10 years. With them, I performed multiple times a semester at Walt Disney Concert Hall and the Hollywood Bowl, and frequently perform professionally with the Los Angeles Opera and Los Angeles Philharmonic.
I studied classical piano privately and advanced music theory at the Colburn School (a renowned school in downtown Los Angeles) for six years.
I am very knowledgeable in music theory (the class I took used a college textbook, Tonal Harmony, since I was in eighth grade), I have a very good ear and sense of tuning, and my vocal range goes from a B2 to a C7.
I am applying to the Juilliard School, USC Thornton School of Music (my top choice), Yale School of Music, Eastman School of Music, San Francisco Conservatory of Music (my second choice), Skidmore College for their Filene Music Scholarship, and New York University’s music program.
In the future, if I decide to pursue career choices other than classical voice, they would be musical theatre or choral conducting.
What are my chances of getting into these schools?
Have you run the NPC on each of these schools or can you afford to be full pay without taking on any debt at all?
There are a lot of schools that have very good music / voice programs, and they vary widely in terms of affordability. I once chatted with someone who used to be a singer on Broadway (a good friend and former student of a music professor who I know very well). You do not want any debt if this is your career path.
Your experience with voice is very good. However, we don’t know your grades, and more importantly we can’t hear you and don’t know how well you are likely to do in your audition. Your experience does suggest that your chances are probably good.
You probably know this, but the Yale School of Music is a graduate level only program. Yale College has a BA music major, and there is one voice teacher from the School of Music who teaches a few undergrads ( by audition).
A lot depends on the number of openings and who else is applying. Noone can really tell you your chances. It is of course perfectly appropriate for you to apply to these schools and you have good chances- depending!
Finances are a good thing to think about and it seems you have. Are there any in-state publics that you would consider?
Have you taken sample lessons with any of the voice instructors at these schools? That is a good way to see what it would be like to work with a specific teacher and also for them to see you before auditions. USC has a close relationship with Colburn, is your current voice teacher at Colburn? For USC Thornton, Eastman, and Julliard the biggest component for getting accepted is the audition – are you working with your current teacher to prepare audition pieces?
