<p>Both time and money wise.</p>
<p>I'm a junior and I desperately want to major in music education, but I don't think I will be able to travel and audition for many of the schools I want to attend. And even though I play piano, saxophone and percussion, I am mediocre on all of them and I don't think I'll be ready to audition in the fall. My main "instrument" is voice, but I've only had musical theatre vocal training, not classical.</p>
<p>Can you wait a year before going into the music program if you get accepted at a school or do you have to go in right away?</p>
<p>I suppose you still have time to prepare, given you spend your summer practicing. You should determine which instrument you want to audition with (or voice) and focus on it. With a few hours of thorough practice each day until next February, you certainly could audition somewhere in my opinion. Most schools audition from mid-January to early March so you have like more than six months. I didn’t start practicing my audition pieces before mid-October or so if I remember well. Most music schools want you to start right away I think. If you want to take a gap year before going into a music program you most likely would have to reapply. Maybe that would be a good idea to try applying your senior year while making plans for a gap year in case you don’t get in. That’s what I would do. About paying for auditions, you can do recorded or regional auditions (though you need to consider camera, DVD and shipping costs).</p>
<p>The answer may be different at different schools, so you have to do your research. Some schools flat out require a live audition, no exceptions. Some are happy to accept either a live or a recorded audition from anyone. Some accept only a live audition if you live within a certain distance of the school, but will accept recorded auditions from those who are farther away. Some have regional auditions and require that you attend one of those if you live within a certain distance of where they are held.</p>
<p>Normally, some of the most cost effective places to study music ed are the public schools in the state where you live (or in the state where you know you want to teach if that is a different place). Depending on your individual situation, that may make travel a bit easier. Do not totally eliminate private schools either - they have higher tuition but they often also offer more financial aid.</p>
<p>A few schools will defer acceptance for a year, but most music schools would make you audition all over again. Again, you need to find out the policy for each school individually. Depending on your situation, it may or may not make sense to plan a gap year in which you work on your audition and get a job to help pay for music lessons, audition trips and college expenses. An interview is normally an important part of a music ed application. If you do take a gap year it will be important to explain during that interview how you used that year in pursuit of your goals.</p>
<p>Having some prior experience on a variety of instruments can actually be a plus for music ed, since if you follow the instrumental track you will have to learn to play a lot of different instruments at an elementary level. Even intermediate experience across winds, percussion and keyboard is a good start along those lines. Normally, you will have to pick one to specialize in. Some schools do not judge their music ed auditions quite as strictly as their performance major auditions, others use the same standards. As bassplayer08 says, you have a fair amount of time before your first audition if you start working now.</p>
<p>I understood the OP’s question to be, can you audition to enter a music education program as a sophomore, at a school you already attend? </p>
<p>Here is one school that does it that way – The College of Wooster: “To gain admission to the degree program Bachelor of Music Education in Public School Teaching, a student must pass an entrance audition before a faculty jury of three, to be appointed by the chairperson. The audition will occur near the end of the second semester of college. . .” You get a second crack at if necessary, at the beginning of your third semester.</p>
<p>You would thus have another year to get ready to audition. Of course, you risk having to find some other major at a school you chose for music education if you don’t pass.</p>