I teach 14 year olds and I’m not quite sure that’s what I’d encourage them to be doing, but you know your son. I just caution you because I attend an Ivy right now where frankly we have had a tragic amount of suicides over the past two years from students who were pushed and felt like failures and never felt like they were good enough. I am not comparing that to your situation, please understand, but it is a mentality that can get very unhealthy very quickly.
Well…there are no recruited athletes at Juilliard 
Your son has some terrific strengths. And it also sounds like he enjoys many of his activities. He should have some excellent choices come college admissions time.
The caveat for a performer of any type…the audition. If he is a Tanglewood BUTI alum, and plans to pursue music, I would say his private instruction, and prep for his audition are very important. It sounds like that is covered.
At some point, you may be able to tease out a preference for urban vs. suburban vs. rural school. That might narrow down the field.
The list of schools above is quite well balanced for a student with the potential achievements you have listed.
If he can keep up the nationally ranked sports and ECs along with top end academics, he will likely be a very competitive applicant at super selective schools.
But he, like all students, needs a safety. And you as the parent need to have the financial plan in place.
To hold the opinion that “unless someone turns pro, sports is really a waste of time”, that person must be rather blindered and displays a surprising lack of understanding of the world for someone who (along with their spouse) attended an Ivy, I must say.
@ucbalumnus, The sports will drop to state ranked. There really is no time to go around the country once every month to play in tournaments to maintain the rank. It is very disruptive to other ECs. So DH and I made the executive decision to cut down the number of tournaments played to only instate, which means the rank will suffer. Money is already saved for UG and PG. I am not sure about the safety though. I would rather have him take a gap year.
@thumper1, Thank you, and I agree that the audition is all important. But he will not get into Juilliard. He is not that good. He may get into NEC (and I dream of the joint Harvard program) or Peabody or Oberlin. But not Juilliard.
@PurpleTitan, Let’s agree to disagree.
@JustOneMom, there is nothing you can do to guarantee admission into HYPS. Nothing. There are too many strong candidates for the few slots they have and all give huge boosts to legacies. A Stanford study estimated legacy status added 30% to an applicant’s chances. At Stanford that’s a boost from 1 in 20 to 1 in 3. The admissions Director at Brown told us that they had 35,000 applicants last year, 29,000 of which were fully qualified. I know a Yale student who also got into Harvard, but was rejected by Stanford, his top choice only to see a classmate with an SAT 500 points lower and a GPA 0.4 lower get accepted. At the end of the day there are LOTS of great schools. Don’t fall into the trap of falling in love with just one. The road is paved with the hearts of NMF, 2400, 4.0 students rejected.
@eyemgh, I said in the first post on this thread that I understand that there are no sufficient credentials to ensure admission to selective colleges. I am not sure why you are repeating that back to me.
I am interested in knowing the necessay credentials. Surely you understand the difference between necessary and sufficient?
With that in mind, would you care to alter your response?
Isn’t there also a joint program between NEC and Tufts? When my kid applied to NEC, there was. There was also a program between Peabody and JHU.
@thumper1, Yes, there is a dual degree between NEC and Tufts, but if he listens to me then he will not be applying to Tufts. There is indeed a dual degree between Peabody and JHU which is attractive. However my guidance to him would be to prioritize academics over performing arts (though the final decision would be his). I do not believe that he is good enough to be successful in performing arts, and certainly he has not put in the 10,000 hours that is needed to be successful. There is no point bringing a knife to a gunfight when all the kids will be far better than him in a top conservatory.
I had to read this twice to make sure I didn’t miss something.
This is in the top 10 of horrendously wrong things that I’ve read on CC.
Having coached kids for years, none of whom even go on to play at the college level, there are huge benefits to kids from playing sports.
@JustOneMom" He is not bothered that I am thinking about his college, he is relieved that he doesn’t have to do any research." That is not the recipe for a student who is happy with his college experience. Your son needs to really like all the schools that he is applying to if he wants to create the best essays (Not just the most programmed, but the most sincere and wonderful), and loving the college he goes to is much more conducive to success in college than having his mother pick out his school. If you let your son pursue what he really wants to pursue, he will do great, and then it is likely that he will be able to go to almost any college he applies to.
@JustOneMom, nope, no need to add anything. You have it pretty well figured out, make an automaton that will get into a school that you can brag about. Make sure you don’t clip him with your tail rotor or none of this will matter.
So here are examples where fit may come into play. If your son is very competitive and fairly “tightly wound” (that is what I take from your postings), I am not sure he would be a happy student at Brown with it’s open curriculum and laid back atmosphere. If he isn’t interested in a more remote Ivy with a fairly heavy drinking/frat culture, then Dartmouth might not be a fit for him. Most of the Ivies don’t have music performance majors – if you really have that dream as a dual major for him, then they may not belong on your list. For example, Yale has a School of Music, but it is not open to undergraduate majors.
Fit isn’t just some squishy “I feel good when I am on campus” thing (although that can affect a kid’s perspective, and I probably wouldn’t ignore my kids’ instincts if they felt uncomfortable on campus). It is about whether the majors offered are strong in the areas your student is interested in, and whether the culture of other students and faculty mesh pretty well with your kid’s personality. And the colleges know this… they are not looking for some automatic list of huge accomplishments. They are also looking for some sign that this particular school meets your kids’ needs in the way that other schools don’t. It isn’t all about what your student brings to the table, but also about how that meshes with what the school offers.
@jmnva06, Let’s agree to disagree.
@Cosmological, I agree. He is only 14, and at this point college is not in his mind. When the time comes I believe that he will get engaged, just as he was very engaged in choosing his private school. My response was to someone who felt that me thinking about college right now would stress him out, and I merely explained that at this stage he simply doesn’t care about college so there is no chance for him to be stressed out.
@eyemgh, Thank you for your off-topic personal attacks.
I keep asking myself if this thread is real.
Presumably this kid has some sort of advisor? Someone besides a parent?
He is 14. He may have more investment in this college search when it is actually a little closer to reality.
It seems like Yale would be a great choice for him. There are many, many performing ensembles…all mediums…for non-performing arts majors on the undergrad level (both music performance and Yale Drama are grad school programs). And Yale encourages kids to form groups if there is not one that is just right, and there is sufficient interest.
Yale is not a slam dunk in terms of admissions…but might be a good match if he gets accepted.
CMU and Oberlin, while very different schools, also have the same thing…lots of performing opportunities for non- majors.
Is this what you are looking for?
@lookingforward, That is a great question. Right now we have not engaged any private college counselor. As I asked in my first post on this thread, do you think that is needed? If yes, can you please recommend any good counselors that you have experience with?
The facts presented in this thread by me are very real.
@thumper1, Yale will be wonderful. But honestly, it is very hard to get into Yale. I will of course encourage him to apply. It has a fine music school as well. But from an odds perspective, Harvard (NEC) and Yale are really small odds. Columbia is better, but Juilliard is super difficult. It is not easy, which is why I want to make sure that he has all the right credentials up front and we are not scrambling in 11th grade.
Oberlin is not something I would encourage him to look at, just as Tufts. But I put CMU in the list precisely for the reason you mention.
@intparent, I agree with you that Brown will be a complete disaster with it’s BYOB approach to education. I also agree that Dartmouth culture will likely clash with my son’s personality. However, I also strongly believe in adaptability. Both Brown and Dartmouth are fine schools, and if those are the only two places my son gets admitted to then he will have to adapt. Happiness depends far more on the attitude of the individual than the surroundings IMO.
@JustOneMom, I simply responded inkind. Welcome to CC.
@eyemgh, Clearly we will make a great team. Let’s keep working together. Thanks much for the warm welcome.
@justonemom-- disagree with me if you want, but you are also disagreeing with a pretty sizable body of research.